Scientists exploring the abyss off of Australia just discovered a sprawling whale necropolis. This cetacean cemetery was deposited over 5 million years and is crawling with undescribed species! Had a blast covering this and working with @wwrfd.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

Add fire salamanders to the growing list of biofluorescent critters! Under UV light, these salamanders display a constellation of lights and secrete glowing goo! Was great working with @mtrgovich.bsky.social on this for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

A new fossil site for #FossilFriday! Paleontologists just described a new Ediacaran site in Northwest Canada that preserves the earliest evidence of complex critters like Dickinsonia that crawled along the ancient seafloor. Latest for @sciam.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/thes...

Opabinia in color! 🐡🎨 I did these in 2014 and didn't want to make a lot of changes in cleaning up the basic design, but I kind of want to do one with updated order.

New Ancient Centipede Ancestor for #FossilFriday! The latest creature from the Waukesha Biota, Wisconsin's cradle of Silurian critters, is Waukartus muscularis, a marine myriapod whose legs were primed to crawl onto land. Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/s...

Move over unfrozen caveman lawyer, Neanderthal dentist has arrived! A 59,000-year-old tooth from a Siberian cave preserves evidence that Neanderthals used stone drills to treat dental pain! Latest for National Geographic was a ton of fun to write-up: www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

During the Cretaceous, marine reptiles had to be wary of another monster in the deep: a giant octopus larger than a bus with a bone-breaking bite! Scientists have released the 'Cretaceous Krakens'! Latest for National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

Bruce is the Boss. This creative kea is the alpha male at a wildlife reserve in New Zealand despite missing his upper beak. That's because Bruce has mastered a new jousting-like attack that knocks his rivals on their heels! Latest for National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

A newly described fossil from Utah reveals a pincer-wielding sea creature from the Cambrian. It may be one of the oldest relatives of spiders, scorpions and horseshoe crabs (Not an April Fool's joke, I swear!) 🕷️ 🦂 Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/s...

To put its foot down, T. rex used its tippy toes! New research on the dinosaur's biomechanics found that the tyrannosaur hit the ground toe first and utilized short strides to accelerate, much like how modern birds run.🦖 Really fun story for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/s...

T. rex might have looked something like an eight-ton chicken clucking about in the barnyard. Or put more soberly: T. rex may have walked in a kinda bird-like way. My thoughts on an intriguing new study for @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social article in @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/s...

Thanks to @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social for this beautiful coverage of our new paper in @nationalgeographic.bsky.social

Can apes imagine? A tea party-like experiment with a bonobo revealed that the ape could track pretend juice and grapes. The fascinating research features Kanzi, the late, great primate prodigy! New story for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

We’ve been lucky to work with many famous scientists across history, and we look after many of their specimens today. Some of the most important are Charles Darwin's, which have been part of new research to understand more about them. Find out what's been revealed 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Who are you calling a featherweight?!? Meet Xenovenator, a new species of troodontid from Mexico that sported a bony knob that may have been used to head-butt rival raptors. Latest for @nytimes.com featuring some awesome art from @dragonsofwales.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/s...

🪰 The frog book New York ;Doubleday, Page, 1907. [Source]

For #FossilFriday a small #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur tibia in the collections @nhm-london.bsk.social. What makes it special is that it is from the Gideon Mantell collection. The fossil takes me back 125 million years but its history casts me back to the 1820s.

14,400 years ago, a wolf puppy scarfed down woolly rhino scraps. Researchers recovered genetic material from the wolf's final meal and used it to recreate the genome of one of the last woolly rhinos! 🐺 🦏 Latest for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

ACTUAL GOOD NEWS EVERYONE: The Paleontological Research Institution and the Museum of the Earth have made it through the crisis! Thanks to everyone who shared or donated-every donation mattered! Please share the good news just as widely!⚒️🧪🦑 Together we did #savePRI www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...

Meet Manipulonyx ('Manipulating claw') a bizarre new #dinosaur from Mongolia whose hands featured a giant claw, two side digits and a set of spikes that were ideal for clutching eggs! Latest for @nytimes.com featuring paleoart from @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/s...

You don't need a brain to appreciate a good night of sleep! New research revealed that jellyfish and sea anemones sleep for around 8 hours a day—the same amount as humans—and even get groggy! 🪼 Latest for @science.org with a great edit from @david-grimm.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

In 2012, Patrick Keating and his dog, Kitty, teamed up to make an incredible fossil discovery on a Nova Scotia beach on the Northumberland Strait. What they found in rocks along the shore was the rib cage, backbone and partial sail of a sail-back amphibian – the first ever discovered here.

Celebrating the first #FossilFriday of 2026 by revisiting an old Smithsonian display focusing on a diverse array of rudists, bizarre bivalve mollusks that bit the big one at the end of the Cretaceous. Well, probably. Ammonites might've lingered around for the after-party, so who knows? ⚒️🧪🦪

Starting the new year by looking back at the top ten discoveries of 2025 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History featuring new pterosaurs, manta rays, dog domestication and much more! www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/nation...

A festive #FossilFriday from the Cincinnati airport, one of the few (only?) places where you can eat Skyline chili amongst ice age megafauna!

Thousands of years ago, giant owls chowed down (and threw up) in a Caribbean cave. The bones they left behind were a boon to bees. Scientists recently discovered that one species made nests in the empty tooth sockets of rodent skulls. 🦉🦴🐝 Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/s...

I love hearing about fossils that hold more than meets the eye, especially when they hint at how different species interacted millions of years ago! In this article by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social, scientists found fossil evidence that ancient bees nested in tooth cavities of dead rodents' skulls 🧪🐝💀

A Distinguished Dome: Yesterday the Smithsonian announced the acquisition of one of the most complete Pachycephalosaurus skull ever discovered! Read more about what museum scientists have in store for this spectacular specimen at the link below! #FossilFriday www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/nation...

Say hello to Salwasiren qatarensis, a diminutive dugong relative discovered in Qatar's remarkable Al Maszhabiya that dates back to the Early Miocene! The site's fossils show that sea cows have been doing their thing in the Arabian Gulf for more than 20 million years! www.si.edu/newsdesk/rel...

This past summer, I was lucky enough to see (and hold!) parts of Zuul’s skull in the collection of the @romtoronto.bsky.social One of the most remarkable fossils I’ve ever seen!! Can’t wait to see Zuul in its new digs in the museum’s new dinosaur hall, opening today! #FossilFriday

Few critters would dare eat a northern giant hornet, whose mammoth stinger and potent venom earn the insect the "murder hornet" moniker. But to a Japanese pond frog, these deadly insects are tasty treats! 🐸vs🐝 [videos in link below!] Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/s...

Before we all gather around the turkey tomorrow, another showy landfowl deserves some attention: the golden pheasant. New research reveals that the flashy feathers of these avian showmen come at a cost: they can hardly see! 🦃 👀 Latest for the @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...

Watch superstretchy bloodworms turn themselves inside out - @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

A mammoth-sized discovery for #FossilFriday! 🦣 Researchers extracted the world's oldest RNA from Yuka, a 39,000-year-old juvenile mammoth mummy from Siberia! Very excited to write this up for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago. Learn more in this week's issue of Science: https://scim.ag/48bLsGI

110 million years ago, a spinosaur's dinner got the best of it. Turns out the dino's fossilized vomit contained a new species of filter-feeding pterosaur! I came across this paper a few days ago on social media and had a blast covering it for @science.org: www.science.org/content/arti...

Part of the reason why it was so cool to cover the news yesterday (beyond the #Nanotyrannus of it all) was that I saw the Dueling Dinosaurs @ncmns.bsky.social last summer! What a remarkable specimen and I can’t wait to hear about the discoveries to come! #FossilFriday

Dino Debate Solved? A new paper presents compelling evidence of the existence of Nanotyrannus! An analysis of the "Dueling Dinosaurs" fossil reveals that the tyrannosaur skeleton entombed alongside a Triceratops was a full grown predator! My latest for @science.org: www.science.org/content/arti...

Ceratogaulus (or Epigaulus) hatcheri, on display at the Smithsonian sometime after 1910. This is the holotype, collected by JB Hatcher in 1885. While this little dude is sadly no longer on display, it does feature in one of the Julius Csotonyi's murals that are now in the same hall.

Wyoming's famed dinosaur "mummy zone" has yielded two more remarkable Edmontosaurus mummies! In a new paper, scientists describe the microbe-led process that delicately preserved these dinosaurs' scaly hides and hooves in clay. Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/s...

The Chicago Rat Hole, aka "Splatatouille," sparked a social media sensation in 2024. But new research reveals another rodent left the infamous indent! 🐀 🕳 🐿 As a native of the Chicagoland area, my latest @nytimes.com story is very near and dear to my heart! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/s...

The Peale mastodon at the National Portrait Gallery in 2021. It’s the 1st mounted fossil skeleton displayed in the US (1805), and 2nd worldwide. Its original viewers didn’t know about evolution. Even extinction was a new concept. More fossils interpreted as history and art, please! #FossilFriday

New research reveals that the West Coast is likely susceptible to an Earthquake Double Whammy. Had a blast learning about how the Cascadia and San Andreas fault systems are syncing up. Thanks to @andreatweather.bsky.social for sending this one my way!

Snarge is the gift that keeps on giving!

🚨Research alert! A recent study, led by Museum Macaulay Curator Roger Benson, details a new species of Jurassic reptile that has links to the origins of lizards and snakes: amnh.link/46MCY71

437 million years ago in what is now Wisconsin, the earliest known leeches were terrorizing trilobites. Instead of sucking blood, these critters were likely engulfing invertebrates whole or vacuuming out their insides! Latest for @nytimes.com on a fantastic #fossil: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/s...

TIL that Sicily had not one but TWO dwarf elephants during the Pleistocene! Cool new #paleo paper fresh off the presses: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

How did the ostrich cross the ocean? This fossil holds clues! This is the holotype of Lithornis promiscuus at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. This heron-sized bird lived in a swampy floodplain in Paleocene Wyoming. #FossilFriday thread (1/4)