A few new papers out recently that I'm excited to share with you! First: How well could stem reptiles hear? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Another cool paper, glad to see it finally out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Figuring out the range of error that exists, & factors influencing offsets, between growth marks and ontogenetic age remains a challenge for estimating growth curves from bone histo data. More work like this is needed.

The Vertebrate Paleontology students did a great job 3D printing and painting skulls—look at that homology!

The discovery that Nanotyrannus is a distinct species from the T-rex indicates complex food web and interspecies interactions in the Dinosaur world. This research was funded by NSF post-doc grants, which were just archived, i.e., they're no longer available. news.yale.edu/2025/12/04/t...

Congratulations to UMMP Associate Research Scientist Miriam Zelditch on the release of the third edition of the indispensable "Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists" (a.k.a. the green book)! #FossilFriday

#FossilFriday The awesome new article in Science by @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social et al. adds more evidence for the validity of Nanotyrannus by showing that the hyoid bone in the holotype has adult bone histology. Here are some more images showing the ceratobranchial bone in place in the skull. 🦖

Development of the zebrafish retina captured on a light sheet microscope. Credit to @ichajaroslav.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Very excited to share that our latest paper is out in Science! We show that the type specimen of Nanotyrannus—an isolated skull—is fully grown, showing that it is not a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex but a distinct species (1/12) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

'Tis the season for graduate school applications, so here's a reminder that I'm recruiting! My lab uses a combination of fossils, statistical phylogenetics, fieldwork, & computational methods to study macroevolutionary dynamics in the marine biosphere. Check the link below & feel free to reach out

Happy to be a part of this big project led by Mario Bronzati & Matteo Fabbri—out today #OA in @currentbiology.bsky.social bit.ly/3M5weun —on the brain endocast of a close pterosaur cousin & what it means for pterosaur brain evolution...maybe different from bird brain evolution. 1/2

The Nishikawa lab at Northern Arizona University and the NSF-funded Integrative Movement Sciences Institute are hiring a postdoc to help develop multiscale muscle models - please apply and share widely! careers.nau.edu/cw/en-us/job...

Innovative and interesting work here by @caleb-m-gordon.bsky.social, so happy to be part of it!

New IJDB issue! Our cover image features an immunostaining of neural crest cells and their derivatives in an Mllt1 E10.5 murine embryo from the paper by Zinck et al doi.org/10.1387/ijdb... Congratulations to the team of @aineurolab.bsky.social for their outstanding contribution!

Join us in Sheffield! We are keen to support early career researchers in applying for independent research fellowships (IRFs) to join our friendly and collaborative environment, in areas related to developmental biology, stem cells and regenerative biology, and neuroscience.

Princeton has a great showing at #SVP2025! See our work on such diverse topics as baby stem-crocodylians, mammal tooth isotopes, dinosaurian energy/fitness models, and ostrich development. #2025SVP

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!