Annual bird phylogeny update. www.deviantart.com/albertonykus... 🪶🧪🐡

Hey everyone! I’m excited to share that one of my thesis projects was just published in @currentbiology.bsky.social and featured on phys.org! In this paper, we use an old statistical approach developed by the US Navy in WW2 to predict the aquatic habits of various dinosaurs and marine reptiles 🦖🐊

Like some kind of grim Omen of things to come, #Hawaii ’s #Kilauea volcano just unleashed a MASSIVE WING SHAPED eruption with lava fountains soaring 1,500+ feet high

If you're a #teacher interested in a great #openaccess write up on reading #phylogenetic trees, check out www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/system... created by @jonhendricks.bsky.social and Elizabeth Hermsen.

Coming to the end of another University of Birmingham Palaeontology undergraduate fieldtrip to Utah & Colorado. Thanks to the incredible @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social & @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social team - we had an amazing time digging dinosaurs in the Cedar Mountain Formation.

MORE CRETACEOUS FIELDWORK! I'm back out in the Cedar Mountain Formation with @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social, digging up dozens of ankylosaurs and streaming each day at 1pm Pacific Tune in @ twitch.tv/paleontologizing to see what we're finding and ask some questions!

We lost Mark Norell today. Dinosaur hunter extraordinaire. The coolest dude alive. My PhD supervisor. Wherever you are, raise a glass of your favorite lager or single malt, as it is what Mark would want.

Anderson BM, Allmon WD. Punctuated equilibria remains the dominant pattern of morphospecies origin in the fossil record: an analysis using the “persistence of ancestor” criterion. Paleobiology. doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Keep sciencing. We are living through a time when looking at a rock and wondering how old it is qualifies as an act of resistance.

The reproductive system of birds is an evolutionary marvel. Their only functioning oviduct is a fantastic conveyor belt of weirdness, of which parts are still mysterious. An illustration made for a pet bird magazine. You can read more on my Cara page: cara.app/post/e9f92d4...

ICYMI, the Great Salt Lake has dropped to a low that triggers forced conservation measures under a new Utah law: www.fox13now.com/news/great-s... #utpol #Utah

The first planned migration of an entire country due to climate change is happening! Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is at risk of being submerged under rising sea level, so it has signed an agreement with Australia to allow 280 Tuvaluans to settle in Australia as permanent residents each year.

Spent yesterday checking on access to various sites in the Cretaceous-Paleocene North Horn Formation, including a new site with adult and juvenile ceratopsian material we’ll be opening next month. Paleo can be challenging at 8000-10,000’! And of course there are turtles. 🐢🥰 #FossilFriday

I’m just a #Cretaceous guy with a cool #mammoth in collections… #FossilFriday #coldplay

NEW: After spending millions on a legal and PR campaign, the state of Utah might ultimately drop its lawsuit laying claims to millions of acres of public lands: www.fox13now.com/news/politic... #utpol #Utah

New paper today about the evolution of the wrist along the dinosaur to bird transition: a bird-like configuration appeared in predatory dinosaurs first, as suggested by new exceptionally preserved hands of oviraptors and troodontids www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New #RSOS paper: The earliest #fossil cetacean with Osedax borings: narrowing the spatiotemporal gap between Cretaceous marine reptiles and late Cenozoic #whales. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #palaeontology @plesiosarahs.bsky.social @pdmannion.bsky.social‬

@prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social staff and volunteers put a TON of effort into this dig, from permitting to the actual excavation. No mention of the museum in the book, so our gift shop won’t be carrying it!

For #FossilFriday, trace fossils (nest & coprolites) & body fossil (petrified wood) of the oldest termite nest in Australia (Early Cretaceous, ~127 million years old), from the Wonthaggi Formation of Victoria. For more info & images, here's a 🧵. 1/n

European mammal turnover driven by a global rapid warming event preceding the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Have you seen the Band of Brothers episode of Walking With Dinosaurs yet? Last year it was an absolute pleasure to dig at the site with our University of Birmingham undergraduates - thanks so much to @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social & @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social for an amazing experience!

Honestly one of the most challenging sites I’ve ever worked. We can’t even jacket most individual bones (or groups of bones) because they are so dense. Thankfully, all those smaller osteoderms are robust and pop out in one piece! #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025

If you missed us on @pbs.org, you can stream the Band of Brothers episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs online! #WWD2025 #FossilFriday www.pbs.org/video/band-o...

Tonight is the night! Tune in to watch our crew excavate the world’s largest concentration of armored dinosaurs and see both Gastonia and Utahraptor come to life on @pbs.org #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025

We’re less than 24 hours away from the premiere of our episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs! Our excavations of Gastonia and Utahraptor will air Tuesday night at 7 pm on PBS Utah. Check your local listings for show times on your PBS station. #WWD25

Speaking of, pretty bummed to see ZERO mention of the museum excavating and taking care of these fossils in the new #WalkingWithDinosaurs book. Plenty about @paleojim.bsky.social’s “megablock” though. #WWD2025

“Since when has it been a conservative, Utah value that government has the power to tell individuals or private corporations what they may or may not say on social media?” writes The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board.

Born This Day: Clair Cameron Patterson (June 2, 1922-Dec 5, 1995). In 1956 made the first precise measurement of the Earth's age - 4.55 billion years. He established the patterns of isotopic evolution of lead thus creating a powerful tool for identifying lead contamination in the environment

Because this track was made in the boundary between the Yellow Cat & Poison Strip members of the Cedar Mountain Formation, likely candidates include “iguanadontians” like Iguanacolossus, Hippodraco, and Planicoxa. You can watch us collect this track and more fossils on @pbs.org in two weeks! 2/2

For International #DinosaurDay, here is a large ornithopod track we collected during filming of Walking With Dinosaurs! Though we can’t tell the species of dinosaur that made a given footprint, we know it was an ornithopod because of its three rounded toes. #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025 1/2

Worth a repost for #DinosaurDay!

Our #dinosaurs and our #paleontologists from the Prehistoric Museum at USU Eastern will take center stage for episode 3 of Walking With Dinosaurs, premiering on PBS June 16-18. Check us out on the international stage and see the real thing in Price, #Utah!

Now that #WalkingWithDinosaurs is out in the UK, let’s not forget about the real stars of the show: the actual FOSSILS in MUSEUMS! While critics wax poetic about the CGI and us “talking heads,” the real Gastonia & Utahraptor need your support more now than ever before. #FossilFriday #WWD2025

We followed up that trip with an expedition to the Cretaceous Neslen Formation in the Book Cliffs outside of Green River. The main focus was geology, giving a number of our @ustatescience.bsky.social #geology students the opportunity to practice the skill of measuring geologic section. 3/4

Here’s a late #FossilFriday thread of our paleo fieldwork over the last month! In April we prospected the Cretaceous Kaiparowits & Wahweap formations of Grand Staircase Escalante Natl Mon. We found fossils big and small, including #dinosaurs, crocs, turtles, and even a couple of bird bones! 1/4

Gastonia. Utahraptor. Prehistoric Museum and UGS paleontologists. What more could you ask for in a first look? We lead off the trailer and will be featured in one of the six episodes of the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs this summer! youtu.be/VAVp_1-Aqc8?...

Go check out the trailer on Facebook and Instagram! Our crew leads it off 👀

First dinosaur tooth of the day here on #FossilFriday !!! Live on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/prehistoricm...

After a day of rain we are back at it at the St George Dinosaur Discovery Site excavation! Follow along live on Twitch today.

This week we are helping our friends at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site excavate a bonebed of fish and dinosaurs in the middle of St. George! Follow along weather and battery permitting at our Twitch channel: m.twitch.tv/prehistoricm...

More on Utah’s most famous mammoth, housed right here in Price, UT

Utah Mammoth! We met with FOX 13 News to talk about why our giant from the Ice Age should represent our state on the ice with Utah Hockey Club: youtu.be/t6el7aPlCh8?...

February 12, 1809, birthday of Charles #Darwin 🎂 From an early age, he collected minerals even if, as he himself laments,I continued collecting minerals with much zeal, but quite unscientifically--all that I cared about was a new-named mineral...

My predecessor as State Paleontologist, Dave Gillette passed away on Feb. 10th. He will be missed. He oversaw the excavation of the Huntington Mammoth. @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social

Mosasaurs diversified… FLAGGED

Here’s a thread of words that result in the National Science Foundation rejecting grants under the Trump administration’s bigoted and anti-intellectual executive order. Among other things, about every shark paper I’ve ever written has included the word “female” referring to *FEMALE SHARKS*

The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site is looking for help with funding and crews to excavate an ~1/2 acre of bone beds in the Early #Jurassic (~200 million). We need big excavation equipment. Check out fossils and how you can help in the images attached.

Utah Mammoth is still in the running for the new team name for the Utah Hockey Club! If you’re at the Delta Center for the next few games, you know who to vote for! #FossilFriday @utahhockeyclub.bsky.social 🏒 🥅 🦣 👀

If you need a summary of recent advances in the field of bird paleontology, my labmates at @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social have a new paper out reviewing the origins of the avian brain, palate, wing skeleton, and air-filled bones! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🪶🧪 (📷Field et al.)

Thinking about ankylosaur cervical spines (neck armor) today in the @denvermuseumns.bsky.social collections. How many morphs are there? What bones are homologous? Can I just have ONE articulated animal?!?