Our big squamate origins and early evolution review is now fully published as open access! with @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social and F. Burbrink www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Flashback #FluorescenceFriday to some of the first light-sheet imaging we were doing. Video shows the collecting duct system of the developing kidney labeled with a pan-cytokeratin antibody. Courtesy of former talented technician Deanna Hardesty.

Had a wonderful visit from collaborator Tatsuya Hirasawa from the U of Tokyo! We’ve been awarded a joint Princeton-Tokyo grant to exchange exciting new techniques in vertebrate evo-devo. Our visit to Japan will happen in March!

Opening a field jacket in the new prep lab! Preparator Jack Wilson will work his way through the matrix to the croc skull hiding inside

‼️‼️Triassic Life just opened @smnstuttgart.bsky.social‼️‼️ For all #Triassic fans, lovers of strange reptiles and the Dawn of the Modern World, this is an absolute MUST! It also couldn't be more timely with our recent publication @nature.com of the wonder reptile #Mirasaura, which is now on display!

Issue 19 is complete! On the cover: Mouse E10.5 embryo stained for Sox9 (cyan), alpha-tubulin (yellow), and endomucin (magenta). Acquired by Nicole Roos & Anthony Wokasch and chosen by popular vote from the Node’s 2025 MBL Embryology course image competition. thenode.biologists.com/results-from...

Interested in fossils? Brains? Reptiles? Want to study how reptile (particularly squamate) brains and senses changed over time? Want to be part of an international team studying the evolution of cognition? Then apply for our Univ of Edinburgh PhD project! e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk/project?item...

Hechenleitner, E.M., Martinelli, A.G., Rocher, S. et al. A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

"...regional extinction rate of between 75 and 84% for squamates in the Western Interior of North America and suggests this group was more severely impacted across the K/Pg boundary than other small-bodied vertebrates." royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology

Proud to share a new piece in Scientific American co-authored with the brilliant @lnwilson.bsky.social , edited by @katewong.bsky.social, and featuring this spectacular depiction of the endless daylight of the Cretaceous summer in Alaska by Chase Stone! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

🚨 ‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Honored to be among the long author list of this new paper out now in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social that looks to bridge the ecosystem engineering and paleontological literature.

Had a great visit at Oklahoma State, thanks @fmachado.bsky.social for the invite and for all your hospitality!

Happy to share the advance version of our big AREES review on squamate origin and early evolution: From Fossils to Genomes with my two amazing colleagues, Frank Burbrink and @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

If you’re interested in exploring function in vertebrates, there will be no better place than Armita’s group!

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Geosciences – Princeton University, USA Harry Hess Fellows Program 2026–27 Eligibility: PhD Deadline: 1 October 2025 Details: higherjobz.com/princeton-po... #Postdoc #AcademicJobs #USAJobs #ScienceCareer #PostdoctoralFellowship #EarthSciences @princetonupress.bsky.social

Important work on pelvis evolution and development here!

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

A rare job opportunity for Invertebrate Zoology: fieldmuseum.hrmdirect.com/employment/j...

(1/10) I am excited to finally share our work on avian left/right symmetry breaking with you. We reveal a tissue-scale active torque dipole generated at the Hensen’s node, thanks to crazy experiments by Julia @juliapfanzelter.bsky.social and some analysis by me. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

New paper out today with @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social @gondwannabe.bsky.social Kimi Chapelle and Paul Upchurch. In it we describe the partial femur of a large silesaur from Zambia 🧪🦕 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Back in Montana working in the Fort Union Formation for the next couple weeks! It’s my first time leading my own fieldwork and we’re already off to a great start! #FossilFriday

The final paper of my UoS postdoc is out now in PNAS! How to detect developmental plasticity in the fossil record: Featuring @tomezard.bsky.social @jamesmulqueeney.bsky.social @katsamenis.bsky.social @clivetrue.bsky.social @thefosterlab.bsky.social among others www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Are you looking for a PhD project starting this year? I have a funded (UK rates) project on mammal skull diversity and function, looking at skull allometry and how mammal heads adapt to trade-offs in tissue demands during growth 🦌🦘🐘🦥 Please share and apply: www.liverpool.ac.uk/courses/buil...

Our paper describing the Range Extender element which is required and sufficient for long-range enhancer activation at the Shh locus is now available at @nature.com. Congrats to @gracebower.bsky.social who led the study. Below is a brief summary of the main findings www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

So disappointing. Biodiversity Heritage Library has been a CRUCIAL resource for my work and countless others.

✨Some news✨: after finishing my postdoc, I’ll be starting my lab as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech. Join us in Atlanta to study how joints work and where they come from!

Delighted to share our paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social iology.bsky.social‬ with a palaeo-evo-devo perspective on the evolution of symmetry in echinoderms. Led by Steffi Woodgate with Frankie Dunn, @echinerd.bsky.social, @laurentformery.bsky.social & Sam Zamora www.cell.com/current-biol...-5

The 12th Avian Model Systems Meeting is happening this fall!! tinyurl.com/2s3mynw6 We hope you can join us at the Stowers Institute @stowersinstitute.bsky.social, Kansas City to talk all things birds, biology and breakthroughs!! 🐣🐔🪶

Excited to share a new #OA paper in @journalofanatomy.bsky.social detailing evolution and development of hemibacula: bizarre mineralized elements in hemipenes of croaking geckos. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #GeckoEvoDevo #Aristelliger

An American alligator embryo roughly 13 days after the egg was laid

‪[1/n] New paper co-lead by @emmadnn.bsky.social‬ @macroecoevoale.bsky.social‬ and I: we combined fossil occurrences, biogeography and climate modelling to investigate the origins and early evolution of pterosaurs 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hugely successful alligator egg run down to Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana—we’ll incubate these 250 eggs back in the lab to answer questions about archosaurian development and evolution

Mesquite 4.beta2 released! Much faster reading of files with thousands of matrices. New features since 4.beta include Trace All Changes (known from MacClade) and Import GenBank Numbers. www.mesquiteproject.org & discuss at groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p... ‪@bembidion.bsky.social ‬🧪 #evolbio

I peer-reviewed this for Science. It got the cover. It was written by a Masters student, Lauren Wilson, and her colleagues (including old pal @ksepkalab.bsky.social). Publishing your Masters work, on the cover of @science.org , just amazing! Congrats to the team.

Great work from PhD student Lauren Wilson, published today in @science.org!

What can we learn about dinosaur physiology? 200 years after the 1st dino was named, new technologies yield amazing data from fossils. Physiology is vast, we hit on a few topics & gave ideas for improving hypotheses regarding how dino bodies may have worked. 🌡❤️🫁🦕🦖🧪⚒️🪶 doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

🚨New preprint Glad to share my postdoc work on the role of the hypoblast in primitive streak induction! Discover how live imaging observations led us to revisit the molecular mechanisms governing embryonic axis induction Thanks to @jeromegros.bsky.social and all co-authors! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

New paper from the lab: Our teeth arose as sensory organs on the outside of the body of ancient jawless fish.!! Congrats to Yara Haridy and the team! Background and video: phys.org/news/2025-05... Open Access Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... News and Views: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Great presentations today at the Princeton Catalysis Initiative symposium—this initiative funds many cross-disciplinary projects across Princeton, including our lab’s work

Now that it’s nice out, we can spend some time poking around local outcrop

It's out! We describe probable reptile tracks from the earliest Carboniferous of Australia. This pushes the amniote record back by some 35-40 million years and implies that the tetrapod crown group originated deep in the Late Devonian. The paper is Open Access. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excellent work on avian wing development/evolution

The new labs in the new building are almost finished! We should move into the new space in a little over a month.

When you get a dud ostrich egg, it should at least be used for something—like lab breakfast-for-dinner!

Coelacanths illuminate deep-time evolution of cranial musculature in jawed vertebrates. By Aléssio Datovo & G. David Johnson Sci. Adv. 2025 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

During undergrad, I couldn't afford to volunteer in a research lab. An NSF funded summer undergraduate research fellowship (SURF) enabled me to start in an independent research lab by providing a stipend for the summer. I would not be a scientist #WithoutNSF

An NSF REU introduced me to science, grad students, postdocs and a pipette and an NSF Grad fellowship got me a PhD!

@lnwilson.bsky.social opened her first (of many) ostrich eggs today

Thanks to @paleofox.bsky.social for the visit and seminar, blowing our minds with the weird and wonderful world of bird lungs

Paper alert 🚨 Our 1rst paper with @vivienl.bsky.social and colleagues is out in Functional Ecology! In this paper, we investigated how complete metamorphosis promotes morphological and functional diversity in Caudata.Want to know more? Read this👇 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....