Last day in the office before Xmas ended on a high note when I was given a quick tour of the mammal collections and I got to see the type specimen of the platypus!

This year, @nhm-london.bsky.social scientists have described 262 new species. Josh talks us though these discoveries, including one by @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social and I.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfTx...

Nice summary of our team's recent paper on the osteohistology of the tiny ankylosaur Liaoningosaurus, with words by @emmacaton.bsky.social www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

With an equal mix of trepidation and gratitude, I’m delighted to announce that I’m now the President-Elect of @thepalass.bsky.social and am looking forward to doing my part in helping the Association grow and prosper

Headed home from a busy and breathless @thepalass.bsky.social meeting, slickly organised by the Portsmouth palaeo team

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE STAGOSAURUS! Here's my Sophie artwork, commissioned by @nhm-london.bsky.social & @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social back in 2014. #SciArt #SciComm #Stegosaurus #Dinosaurs #PaleoArt #PalaeoArt #JurassicWorld

I’m a week late but it would be remiss of me not to mark the @nhm-london.bsky.social birthday of Sophie the Stegosaurus #FossilFriday 🎂🎂🎂

Heading to Portsmouth and the @thepalass.bsky.social meeting - first one I’ve been able to get to in a couple of years, and I’m looking forward to catching up with people and talking about our work on Zimbabwean dinosaurs

Need a Xmas present idea? How about this delightful book, One Cosmic Rock, by @karenkrossing.com charmingly illustrated by @dreamist.bsky.social about the end of the dinos (I was lucky enough to be the consultant)

Please @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social is there a chance you could schedule the annual business meeting when people outside the Americas could attend at a reasonable time? Scheduling at 1 pm ET would allow west coasters to attend in business hours & allow more easterly & westerly members to attend

Was there a Business Meeting at #SVP2025?

In a somewhat jarring transition from the foothills of the Himalaya, currently gazing over the wilderness that’s the concourse at Euston Station waiting for a train to whisk me to Birmingham New Street and thence to SVP

Made the mistake of watching Jurassic Park: Rebirth on the plane. Good grief 🤦‍♂️ The apple has rolled an extraordinarily long way from the tree

This is excellent advice for all first time presenters … also, the quality of your talk will not impact your future career - that comes down to your CV & skills overall, not your ability to perform on the platform. So, if you slip up a bit don’t sweat it - most of the audience won’t realise anyway 🤷🏻‍♂️

A bit misty, and from a distance, but a nice clear view of an Indian rhino, the other main wildlife target of the trip

My students have set up a petition to persuade the University of Nottingham not to close our Plant Biology BSc course c.org/VPhzVVrHPS Please consider signing

Our wonderful travel advisory service has just sent me a ‘moderate’ risk reminder for my travel to Birmingham, UK for SVP … other than having family there who I might bump into I’m not sure what these risks really are …

Major goal of this holiday was to see a gharial in the wild - was pleasantly surprised to see several while here, in the rivers bordering Chitwan

I had a very brief interaction with James Watson in June 1993 - he literally pushed me out of his way on the stairs outside a lecture theatre in @camzoology.bsky.social when I was an undergrad. No apology, just a shove. He was there to unveil a plaque on the side of the Old Cavendish Lab. Rude twat

Sunrise on the Annapurna range

For this #FossilFriday a Stegodon tooth from the Siwaliks of Nepal on display at the International Mountain Museum, Pokhara

I’m sure we could find a good home for these dinos and put them to good use for science and education in the public trust …

These cats have seen things that would haunt your worst nightmares … some of the most terrifying taxidermy I’ve seen in a while …

Another failure for nature at the hands of @teamlabouruk.bsky.social who promised so much to protect our natural environment and are breaking promise after promise. Just the latest disappointment.

I had no idea it was going to be so easy to spot the elusive yeti, but here’s one in plain sight lurking among the displays at the International Mountain Museum, Pokhara

Kathmandu and Patan atmospheric despite the rain

Also interesting to read recent comments on dino extinction. Despite a handful of detractors, most of us have agreed for some time that dinos were likely diverse until the very end. Recent work on this issue has been confirmatory in terms of the macro picture rather than startling 🤷🏻‍♂️

Enjoying watching that section of dino science that obsesses about tyrannosaurs go insane with the latest genus level taxonomic revision … those of us with the good sense to work on other parts of the tree deal with these relatively minor taxonomic rearrangements rather more phlegmatically … 🦕🦕🦕

In honour of #2025SVP #SVP2025 in the UK, @journalsystpal.bsky.social has a special collection of landmark papers in vertebrate palaeontology. These papers have revolutionised our understanding of the systematics of major vertebrare groups, and are open access for Nov: share.google/1DIgZYMyjXUH...

New paper just out on the histology of Liaoningosaurus where we demonstrate that these tiny animals are all one year old or less www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It’s very dispiriting to see some bad actors in our field receiving plaudits through the praise of other colleagues who should know better … ethics should trump a desire to be in the news

Found this while browsing in a Honiton bookshop: a nice 1863 (6th Ed.) Natural History of Selborne with sons nice woodcut illustrations

Back after a whirlwind trip to the Nopcsa meeting - lots of interesting talks on his life and legacy and some good chances to hatch new research projects, as well as a couple of hours to run around Budapest

In a sunny autumnal Budapest (my first time in Hungary) for the Nopcsa memorial meeting. Nice to see Attila Ösi, Eric Buffetaut and others in attendance

Sad news, the passing of a giant of the conservation world www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Embarking on my first ever RyanAir flight from Stansted. Please send hopes and prayers …

Kudos to the guy relaxing in the park who just yelled at a dog owner who was allowing their off-the-lead mutt to chase squirrels, pointing out it was their responsibility to keep their dog under control

In the wise words of Thumper’s father, if you can’t say nothin’ nice don’t say nothin’ at all …

Always nice to see the Cuvier memorial on the Rue Linné in Paris. My fave restaurant here is not far away, on the Rue de Blainville - hard to image such homage to natural historians in the UK

New paper led by @es-ucl.bsky.social PhD student Samantha Beeston (with @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social + others) on the evolution of postcranial pneumaticity in early sauropodomorph dinosaurs + its likely independent acquisition from that of theropods & pterosauromorphs: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

Two weeks working at the ESI in Joburg, one paper on another new Zimbabwean dino about to be submitted, another on a potentially new South African dino well on the way, two new grant ideas to work on, prelim work done on other projects. Amazing how much you can get done without meetings ...

Some great jobs in evolutionary morphology / palaeo now available @sunyofficial.bsky.social: apply.interfolio.com/172502 and apply.interfolio.com/172517

I am opposed to AI products and services because of the extra power they require... IN A CLIMATE CRISIS. I am opposed to AI results - texts and illustrations - because they've been created unethically, via theft and non-consensual use of the work of others. Share if you agree.

Off to Joburg for two weeks of looking at fossils and hopefully avoiding meetings for a while

From the vault: my Nature cover art from 2017, featuring #Kulindadromeus, regarding the paper "A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinosaur evolution," from Matthew Baron, David Norman, & @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social. #SciArt #PaleoArt #Dinosaurs #Paleontology #JurassicWorld

I’d missed this sad news, noting the passing of Michael Waldman (obit by @elsa-panciroli.bsky.social here: www.theguardian.com/science/2025...). He discovered the Middle Jurassic sites on Skye that various teams have worked since & we named the Skye turtle Eileanchelys waldmani in his honour in 2009

This is how much Spicomellus changed in the last four years: 2021 reconstruction by Joschua Knüppe on left based on single rib known then; 2025 reconstruction by Matt Dempsey based on new material on right. My guess: when we get articulated material it's going to prove to be even weirder.

Sad to hear of the death of Mongolian dinosaur expert Rinchen Barsbold - a real pioneer in opening Mongolian science to the world and a leading theropod expert. I never met him sadly but his influence on the field has been immense

Have you ever heard of #Spicomellus? It’s one of the world’s strangest dinosaurs. Its rib bone has spikes fused to it - something unheard of in any other animal! But now, more of the skeleton has been uncovered - and it's even stranger than anyone imagined... (1/4) 🧵

When @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social came up with the name 'Spicomellus', meaning 'spikey collar' back in 2021 based on a single partial rib, we never could have guessed how accurate he was!