New #fossilsandfiction episode featuring the extremely talented Mark Witton! Mark had some fantastic insights into the ways paleo and pop culture intersect, especially for the very famous #TRex in his new book ‘King Tyrant’! 🦖 tinyurl.com/34aerxt4

"AI images don’t succinctly or accurately communicate scientific concepts & could undermine public trust in science... inaccuracies wouldn’t fly if they were created by a person, “but for some reason, having this sheen of fake polish that comes with AI kind of erases all of those standards” 🧪#sciart

Per my last post, the art from Jack Fletcher from my Pint of Science bug recipe rant- and also, this tremendous longth animal pairing from my Fringe Fest yap about breeding increasingly long Cambrian animals- always makes me smile. #AusPaleo #fanart #fossils #scicomm

Excellent showcase! I think it can be intimidating for new artists to show their pieces to researchers. Accuracy and anatomy are important elements of paleo art. But we’re people, too! Most people appreciate it when you engage with their work. I personally adore any art of my buggy bois.

Had a great time presenting at #pintofscience2025 with @slyssabits.bsky.social and @sharkslikejazz.bsky.social. Thanks to all the organisers for giving me the chance to talk about seals 🦭

Had so much fun presenting at #PintofScience2025 last night with @palaeo-jrule.bsky.social and @sharkslikejazz.bsky.social ! Thank you both for so many awesome secret sea-crit facts, and thanks to the organizers at Pint of Science Australia!

This was such a fun chat, and lots of great info for up and coming artists in our space! Have a listen :)

Hey folks! Another awesome Karim event is coming up soon. If you weren’t at the first virtual extinct fine art gallery for paleo artists this year, you missed a real treat. But don’t worry- Karim is bringing this and more art events to our community in the coming months!

Total treat meeting James and chatting about all things paleo creativity! James outs so much thought into all his work. Cannot wait to share all you had to say with listeners (including some of my students ☺️!). Thanks for joining us!

Awesome short explainer on the whole dire wolf situation. Even if you’re fine with “modified grey wolves”, should a company that misleads the public and investors keep getting access to resources, materials and funding to make them? esp when it’s a method that won’t/can’t produce real dire wolves?

LOL. Savage (but accurate I guess) Also, another well written 'Big Story' from @wired.com 👏

THE BUG IS LOOSE 🦐! 2020-2021, a team of Cambrian workers completed a massive transect (the BUG) through the Flinders Ranges looking at a highly complete series of early Cambrian stratigraphic units. Today, the story of BUG begins, with Steph Richter-Stretton’s new paper: tinyurl.com/33b6a8ke

Thinking about the amazing women in my field on #internationalwomensday. Anne Holmes, Amy Brock-Hon and Bret Buskirk were some of the first to help me fall in love with fossils, while folks like these have nurtured the field here in Aus! So lucky to know so many kickass ladies 💚!

This was such a fun interview! Thank you again to Dr. Phoebe McInerney for schooling me on Genyornis, the swamp-dwelling giant, flightless bird from Australia’s not-so-distant past!

Unite! 💪 "Conflicts btw faculty & administrators ... should be set aside to focus attention on this ruthless takedown of academia. All disciplines will be affected by these cuts, not just science. This is a moment to unite." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... by @holdenthorp.bsky.social

They’ve only waited 120Ma. A new glimpse into theropod diversity from Early Cretaceous Australia: megaraptorids, an unenlagiine, and for the first time, carcharodontosaurians. Read it here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Artwork by Jonathan Metzger. 1/10

What a blast, being on the inaugural Women in Palaeontology panel in Inverloch this past week! Thank you again to Sally Hurst for leading the panel. And thank you to co-panelists Adele Pentland, Pat Vickers-Rich, and Doris Seegets-Villiers for being kickass #womeninSTEM 🌟 📸: R. Duncan, A. Pentland

Happy Valentine’s Day- Show your friends that your feelings will NEVER go extinct with some cambrian critters.

Episode 40: Feasts and Beasts

Happy #internationaldayofwomenandgirlsinSTEM (what a mouthful)! Greetings from beautiful Inverloch VIC, where the Cretaceous bone animal hunt continues. Love Dino Dreaming!

Thanks Karim! This was my first ever panel and I feel very honored!

Listen and chat - more about the online event! I had to repost this as I have an amazing announcement: @extinctmonsters.bsky.social, exhibition developer at the Chicago Field Museum, will give a presentation! After short welcome you are invited to chat and network. You can still join! more below

We'll be having the online launch for Palaeontology in Public on Tue 18 Feb 18:00-19:30 UK-time It will feature comments from Mike Benton, Riley Black, Natalia Jagielska and Alison Laurence, & discussion with some of the chapter authors More info & signup link here: forms.office.com/e/gpWburvZPk

Some amazingly talented folks have helped put together this Virtual Art Gallery! I am also here 🙃. This my first time ever participating in a gallery or any kind of art show (outside grade school), and my one contribution is pretty amateur. But it’s nice trying to get out there more to improve!

Seeking scientist volunteers for this spring! Want to practice science communication and help author a ✨comic✨ about your research? Learn more & sign up here by 1/30: bit.ly/comicscollabspring2025

Hey! Fossil nerds in Victoria- the annual #DinosaurDreaming Dig in Inverloch is next month. Lots of great events- learn what we do, come out to site, see how you can help! I want to highlight the Women in Palaeo panel on Feb 11- panelists incl. Pat Vickers-Rich, Adele Pentland (and me 😨)!

This is officially my horizontally longest image to date, depicting some of the earliest complex animals on the planet from 565 to 505 million years ago and how they changed over time. Thank you to @egmitchell.bsky.social and Steve Pates for trusting me with this gargantuan task! #Art #SciArt

I’ve been a fan of @foldablehuman.bsky.social documentaries for many years now. His latest work, ‘Mantracks’, delves into the history of a fossil track site in Texas, anti-science rhetoric, and the way communities connect to their natural heritage. Let’s talk about it! Vid: tinyurl.com/ybjw7mxz

I'm proposing a #SciArt Challenge for 2025! Every month, make art of one of the animals that lives in your area. Post your work with the hashtag #NearbyNature2025 along with something you find interesting about them. Bonus points for organisms that most of your neighbors won't know live close by!

Merry Christmas from the Evans Evomorphology lab! 🎄 🦀🦖🐍🐋🦭🦷🦍 🎅 Featuring an absolutely INSANE poster of our lab made entirely in powerpoint, by the super talented Astrid O’Connor! She’s not on this platform, but highly recommend giving her a follow on Insta (@palaeoastrid). #auspalaeo #evomorph

Quick crab drawing guides that @jopabinia.bsky.social and I made a few years back to get you all started for this month's #InsertAnInvert2024 theme: Carcinization. Fun fact, this was the beginning of the whole "Insert An Invert" series

Just to highlight the fabulous new palaeoart logo produced for us by Zev Landes and ask: will you help us name these cuties?

Check it out- my first ever podcast episode! Well, the first one I’ve ever hosted 🥳! This interview with Steph was so much fun to record that I totally lost track of time while recording. I hope you all like it, too!

I have other plushes that collectively take the entire couch haha. But none of the big ones are fossil. Need lifesize Aegirocassis immediately

So, a year and a half ago, I was gifted a 5 ft long eurypterid body pillow. We call him… Clarence. Clarence has been such a part of my PhD journey. Come, see his shenanigans around Melbourne, whilst also learning fun facts about the ‘sea scorpions’ of the distant past (1/?)

ScienceWrite, a UK scheme for aspiring STEM writers from minoritised backgrounds, is open for 2025 applications! The 3rd year @romatheengineer.bsky.social & I are running this, with support from @royalsociety.bsky.social & I am SO EXCITED Deadline 3rd Jan #SciComm 🧪 www.sciencewrite.co.uk

🚨 If you haven’t seen it yet… 📢 The NIH BioArt Source provides a library of FREE professionally designed illustrations and icons, available for anyone to use. They can be Downloaded in High Definition. Check it out at bioart.niaid.nih.gov

Show me your pet and what they were named after

Balcoracania dailyi, exploring the intertidal reaches of a shallow inland sea during the middle Cambrian. As an adult, this trilobite could have over 100 thoracic segments, more than any other known trilobite.

Imagine travelling back 470 million years to dive alongside the marine polar animals of that era. Reconstruction by @prehistorica.bsky.social. Work published earlier this year in collaboration with @lukaslaibl.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤿 🦐

Paleoctober Day 17: Hadranax #Paleoart #SciArt

Had a lovely time at this year's Monash #3MT Finale! We talked all things bugs and segments. Looking forward to a few more #scicomm opportunities coming in October. Thank you to all who made this presentation great! #palaeontology #geologyrocks #womeninstem #fossils

Had a wonderful time talking all things trilobite with Adele on her podcast, Pals in Palaeo! Have a listen if you'd like to here us chat about the miscellanea of fossil bugs: linktr.ee/palsinpalaeo #paleontology #palsinpalaeo #fossils #podcast #trilobites #arthropods #cambrian

Not sure why no one's made this into a meme template yet, but I did. #paleontology #trilobites #weirdbugs #invertgang

Greetings, chordate comrades. #InverteFest is upon us. It's a periodic event where we invite you to celebrate the overlooked invertebrate fauna around you for an entire week. It's happening on whichever platform you're on, so feel free to reupload this image to spread the word!

That's a wrap on palaeo presentations! At GEMMZ and CAVEPS I met some truly incredible researchers with fascinating projects. Thank you to the conference organizers and the folks who listened to me prattle about my trilobite research for a little while. I hope you liked my bugs!

The texture and proportions on this look so good!!

Really proud to see my name in the credits of a major documentary. #LifeOnOurPlanet is out now on Netflix and full of lovely fossily critters - and not just the usual dinosaurs! Episode two is where it is at, with some awesome cephalopods in it. 🦑🐙 Would recommend!

It took a while to make it to the ceremony, but I finally walked for my Masters of Research in palaeobiology! Thanks to everyone who supported me through this endeavor <3

Invertober made me so excited to be making little designs for people to take,but so far it is making me loose followers on Instagram..:’) oh well…