I’ll start to regularly post photos of Lebanese fossils alongside links to charities supporting the thousands displaced in this war. Even the smallest donations can save lives
Fossils on display at Memory of Time, Jbeil, and you can donate here: gofund.me/24a3cee49
New Research Article published in OPal 🔬
Tip dating supports a Middle Ordovician origin for total-group chondrichthyans and a rapid radiation of acanthodian-grade taxa
By Lorenzo Emanuele Morra
www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...
Awesome. Would love to see if trends in Nature have changed through time. I'm sure they have for some palaeo specific journals e.g. Palaeontology.
The Palaeontological Association has written to the President of the University of Leicester, requesting that the concerns of the PhD community over the planned redundancy of their supervisors are addressed.
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PC1 is >90% but I guess we can just ignore it because it puts spinosaurs somewhere boring. Plus I've already written the press release calling them 'hell herons'
for reference, here is PC1 and PC2 (buried in the sup).
Not fussed about Spinosaurs, but I do like PCAs. I do not like this PCA
New Research Article published in OPal 🔬
Respiratory structures in cornute stylophorans (Echinodermata)
By Christophe Dupichaud, Bertrand Lefebvre, Ninon Allaire, Enzo Birolini, Malo Meyruey, and Martina Nohejlová
www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...
Respiratory structures in cornute stylophorans (Echinodermata)
doi.org/10.26034/la....
As always, published free (no page fees or OA costs) and free to read courtesy of @openpalaeo.bsky.social
#DiamondOA
JOB KLAXON! Come work with us @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Come and join us in the world class Life Sciences Building at the University of Bristol! Closing date: Sunday 8 March
JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Interested in our research areas? Click the link in our bio to discover more! Closing date: Sunday 8 March
JOB ALERT!
We are excited to announce that we are recruiting three new academics at lecturer level!
Click the link below for more info on how to apply, and don’t forget to explore our research themes too!
We look forward to receiving your applications!
www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...
Did you know sponges are among the oldest animals on Earth? They're over half a billion years old!
New research has helped to narrow down when they first evolved - and it could reveal more about the first ever animals!
Find out more about these marine marvels 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
👀
Homology?
Sponges are notoriously difficult to understand in evolutionary biology terms. I think this paper is a big step forward : www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Whoops, couldnt find your handle earlier. Go follow @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social
Early sponges lacked [mineralised] skeletons.
New paper led by M. Eleonora Rossi. Great to have contributed alongside colleagues from @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social , @nhm-london.bsky.social and @mncn-csic.bsky.social.
Read it here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Earliest Cenozoic ammonoids:
Machalski, M., Olszewska-Nejbert, D., Landman, N.H. et al. Ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary confirmed by new data from Denmark. Sci Rep 15, 45802 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Errrr...
A bizzare christmas display of some total-group birds.
Worth checking out some of the comments here as well... Especially greggs_official.
www.instagram.com/p/DSDGF6Vk6z...
Finally, check out Anees Kathrada’s poster from his MSc with Jakob Vinther, Erik Tihelka and me: “The birds and the beetles? Beetle iridescence evolved as a defence against visual predators.” Be sure to stop by!
My summer undergraduate student Johnny Clavo Yamahuchi is up at 11:45 in Session 2B: “Can we reconcile molecular and morphological clock disparities in a group with a rich fossil record?”
Funded by a @thepalass.bsky.social Undergraduate Research Bursary, with colleagues @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social
Don’t miss Emily Driscoll’s talk, based on her MSc work with David Button and me. Session 2A, 11:15 — “Investigating the functional morphology of iguanodontian thumb spikes.”
Excited to be at the @thepalass.bsky.social Annual Meeting in Portsmouth! I’m speaking tomorrow in Session 1 (10:15) on “Big Birds, Big Data: Palaeognath Phylogeny Tested Using Morphology, DNA & Ancient Collagen.” Coauthored with Ed Moody, Andrew Kitchener & Mike Buckley.
OPal is recruiting! We are looking for a Managing Editor and 2* Steering Committee members. Apply if you want to shape the future of open-access palaeo. Please share widely!
