A reminder about the #SVP2025 workshop "Palaeoart Past and Present: the view from the UK" for those last-minute early-bird [=cheap] conference registrants! It's shaping up to be a great one-day pre-conference event: please come along if you're a #paleoart fan attending SVP!

Check out the provisional programme for #SVP2025 #2025SVP - the Triassic symposium was so popular they are running it for the entire day! vertpaleo.org/wp-content/u...

This is one of those fossil specimens that when I saw it for the first time at SVP it literally made me gasp. A beautiful and very important specimen.

Early registration (and the best possible rates) still open for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting 2025 in Birmingham, but it closes on Thursday. Register now if you haven't already! #SVP2025 #2025SVP vertpaleo.org/2025-registr...

The death of dinosaurs dramatically re-engineered Earth's landscapes www.newscientist.com/article/2496...

Please share widely! The Natural History Museum Denmark @nhmdk.bsky.social is offering a PhD fellowship in collection-based Natural History Research, focused on dark taxa & unknown species, pref. including representatives of Danish flora, fauna or geology. candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

If your work involves Big Palaeo Data, you should be *begging* people to publish little local studies of new observational data, jfc. Without that you have absolutely bupkiss. I say this as someone with a foot in both camps:

Reminder to everyone attending the upcoming annual meeting that the posters are *vertical* this year. Please see the link below for dimensions and design recommendations. vertpaleo.org/poster-prese....

Hey you. Wanna apply for a fellowship on collections? the AHRC Early career fellowships in cultural & heritage institutions are open! The Natural History Museum priorities are below. If you wanna talk birds, hit me up. Collectors, colonialism, Canada, Australia & more www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

Such a pleasure meeting the community of Elgol last night. I was invited to talk about the palaeontology fieldwork taking place here, and the story of the Elgol Dinosaur. People brought beach finds to share and identify, and we discussed ways to put local discoveries on display.

Devon knows how they made it so teeny: the fossil of a very small rhynchocephalian from the Triassic of Devon, UK, is the oldest known lepidosaur and sheds light on the early history of this important and species-rich tetrapod group. @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In case you didn't know, there's a #palaeoart / #paleoart - themed workshop at SVP 2025 ('Palaeoart Past and Present: the view from the UK', organised by @markwitton.bsky.social) ... spaces are limited so book now if you plan to attend vertpaleo.org/2025-worksho...

Feeling the incalculable loss of Mark Norell (1957-2025): wonderful scientist and cherished friend. His influence will continue through his many mentees and the science he did and inspired.

Well Fossil Files fans, this week you have a special bonus episode our new dinosaur #Spicomellus the spikey ankylosaur. In this episode, I tell Rob all about the back story: how we found it, excavated it and studied it. And I throw some shade on fossil smugglers. fossils.libsyn.com/the-spicomel...

If you're coming to SVP in Birmingham in November, kick off the meeting in style! Join us on the opening Tuesday evening to learn all about the new Walking With Dinosaurs, how it was made, the science behind the stories. Registration slots limited, so sign up now!

Attendees of #SVP2025 #2025SVP: registration now open for two special events: Tuesday night icebreaker panel discussion with the Walking With Dinosaurs production team, @stevebrusatte.bsky.social & @tweetisaurus.bsky.social Spaces limited - check your email for how to register! (1/2)

We’re so excited to be presenting our workshop at #SVP2025: Designing For All: Creating Accessible Graphics For Science! @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social Come and learn our top tips and simple effective techniques for enhancing your figures to make them clearer, more accessible, and more impactful!

Greetings, pop pickers: so many West-Midlands based Dinosaurs of Rock to choose for my #SVP2025 playlist. Not just Sabbath but Judas Priest, ELO and the mighty Slade (one of the very best bands I've seen live) and not forgetting Black Country communion... The clue is in the name. Not 'arf!

The four UK higher education funding bodies confirm the pause in the criteria setting and publication of final guidance for REF 2029 for a short period, as announced by the UK Science Minister Lord Vallance today at the Universities UK conference. 2029.ref.ac.uk/news/pause-t...

What's up? I'll tell you What's Up, Bluesky! A NEW EPISODE OF THE FOSSIL FILES, THAT'S WHAT! And it's on nothing less than the Triassic punk, Mirasaura. Listen here and on all your favourite podcast platforms: fossils.libsyn.com/mirasaura-tr...

Question: What the hell is this? (thread)

Heads up for #SVP2025 attendees: I'm running a day-long workshop about UK #paleoart on Nov 11th (the day before the meeting). Essentially a mini-conference, it's a day of talks on UK palaeoart history, conservation and current projects, as well as... 1/3

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.

Weekend reflection on Spicomellus & difficulty funding fieldwork. We were lucky to get some funds from NHM & UoB but major funders turned us down. Only generous support from BILNAS made this project possible. Funding fieldwork is often considered ‘risky’ yet our results were published in Nature.

It's a journey that wouldn't have been possible without help of many people in Morocco, not least Professor Driss Ouarhache. His knowledge of the region's geology helped to track down the bones to the mudstone slopes of the Middle Atlas, revealing a dinosaur hotspot in the process. (2/4)

Want to find out how everyone's new favourite dinosaur #Spicomellus went from fossil to famous? My new article focuses on how @tweetisaurus.bsky.social tracked its bones down from a fossil dealer in Cambridge to Morocco's Middle Atlas mountains... 🧵(1/4)

More on Spicomellus, the weird wacky spiky punk-rock porcupine of a dinosaur, from the mad minds of @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @richardjbutler.bsky.social Crazier than any of those hybrids we had in Jurassic World: Rebirth? My thoughts for @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Just got word that the dean of Mongolian vertebrate paleontology, Rinchen Barsbold, passed away at age 90. A pivotal figure in the history of paleontology in his nation, and of the study of theropods.

For #FossilFriday some more images from the discovery & study of the new Spicomellus skeleton. An amazingly fun project with great people.

A journalist asked me yesterday how we worked out where all the Spicomellus armour went & truth is it was a challenge & what we present is a hypothesis. We had fun laying out all the armour & trying to figure out what the hell was going on! Fortunately @tweetisaurus.bsky.social is a talented artist.

It's already blowing up on the paleo sphere, but let's welcome another #Spicomellus post! (reconstruction by the insanely talented @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meet Spiny Norman, the earliest known and definitely the most outrageously spiky ankylosaur ever discovered, as presented by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @richardjbutler.bsky.social in @nature.com. Q: how did it mate? A: carefully. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It's finally here! Meet Spicomellus - one of the world's strangest dinosaurs! After being named in 2021, many questions remained about what this ankylosaur looked like. So, in 2023, I was part of an NHM content contingent who followed @tweetisaurus.bsky.social up into the Atlas Mountains...

If you don't have access to Nature, but would like to read our paper on the new specimen of #Spicomellus, you can read it online at this link with no subscription: rdcu.be/eCJK3

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) 🧵

If you like the new specimen of #Spicomellus, check out this film of us excavating the specimen, by Ben Webber at the @nhm-london.bsky.social youtu.be/TEeCFl0MJ0A?...

Out today in Nature is the most exciting dinosaur paper I've ever been involved in - led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social we describe a partial skeleton of the UTTERLY BIZARRE Spicomellus from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco, the oldest known ankylosaur. (1/x) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

Welcome to a new member of the Isle of Wight iggy family! Congratulations @valdosaurus.bsky.social!

Terrible photo, but this is a late nineteenth-century educational model of Pareiasaurus, on display in the '125 years of research and education at the Lapworth Museum of Geology' exhibition at the @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social. Don't see many of those around.

Spent the last couple of weeks in a camper van in British Columbia & the Rockies, hiking, canoeing, horse riding & relaxing in hot springs. It’s pretty epic here.

For #FossilFriday a new iguanodontian Istiorachis macarthurae from the #IsleofWight published in Papers in Palaeontology today. Many thanks to coauthors @tweetisaurus.bsky.social and Dave Martill. The final paper from my PhD!

A new sail-back ornithischian dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wealden Group of the Isle of Wight & the origins of neural spine elongation in iguanodontians onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #FossilFriday #PapersinPalaeontology

Notifications for #SVP2025 #2025SVP abstracts are going out! Check your emails and get pumped for Birmingham! 😀 We've been working hard on the Program Committee. 🦴⛏️ This is one of the largest Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meetings of all time. @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social 🤩

Or formatted a paper for JVP

I was interviewed for this article. It's pleasing that a Moroccan fossil dealer confirms what I said the law was and clarifies that it isn't 'a grey area'. It's got nothing to do with UNESCO, btw John. www.cnn.com/2025/08/15/s...

On the road for a bit.