#FossilFriday. Here's a great example of a Paleocene nautiloid, with the phragmocone and part of the body chamber preserved. Who can guess where it is from, what species it is, and during which part of the Paleocene it lived?

This is a deep-sea isopod. Dr. Johanna Weston, a deep-ocean biologist and guest investigator at @whoi.edu, is confident this is Bathyopsurus nybelini, one of her favorite animals. Learn why via the YouTube caption: youtube.com/shorts/DenUj...

Netted Dogwhelks (Tritia reticulata) moving in on some food. These little scavengers behave like an intertidal cleanup crew and once they pick up a scent they move faster than your average snail. 🐌⚡️ County Clare, Ireland. Cormacscoast.com walking tours

How many #sharks should there be on a coral #reef? Our new publication in Science tackles this question using thousands of fossil shark dermal denticles—tiny, tooth-like scales that are shed and preserve in sediments—from Panama's two oceans. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

I feel like xkcd has been getting more into geoscience the last couple of years, and I absolutely love it. Bonus text reads "the administration thinks it's weird, but the geologists say it looks normal." xkcd.com/3284/

Some nice Purbeck Marble in the new cafe at the National Gallery. In stone-speak the word marble can be applied to any soft stone that takes a polish rather than just a metacarbonate in the geological sense #urbangeology #purbeckmarble

4 big concepts, 24 brand new cases, 7 years of work...

#Yourpalaeolife The ECR survey is published @ecol-evol.bsky.social! Early career palaeontologists from all over the world have talked about their experience with fieldwork - how could you change your working practices to get more early career researchers into the field? doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

#Yourpalaeolife: Interrogating the Status of Fieldwork Among Early Career Palaeontology Researchers

This global survey of early career palaeontologists provides the first quantitative data regarding the prevalence of field skills training and field work among junior researchers of the discipline. T....

doi.org

#MolluscMonday: Plagiostoma gigantea, Lower Jurassic, Blue Lias Formation, Lyme Regis. Described by Sowerby in 1814, this large bivalve was known to Mary Anning who recognised what she called 'the Plagiostoma Bed', one of a series of beds she named for their abundant fossils of a particular type.

Fossil collection, found and prepared by collector Chris Moore, who has appeared in TV programmes, has gone to a museum in the UAE after there were no funds for UK-based museums to purchase them. www.theguardian.com/science/ng-i...

One of UK’s best fossil collections sold overseas in ‘loss to the nation’

Exclusive: Lack of funds left British museums unable pay eight-figure sum for collection, which went to Abu Dhabi institution

theguardian.com

Lithographic printing stone for Australian Fossils, Plate 4, from vol. 10 of the "United States Exploring Expedition, During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842", prepared by Sarony & Major from illustrations by J. D. Dana. (Smithsonian; ID: 1999.0145.458; n2t.net/ark:/65665/n...). #FossilFriday

Some large productid brachiopods for #FossilFriday ⚒️🧪 While most brachiopods tend towards the small side for benthic invertebrates, often just a few mm to cm, late Paleozoic productids could get relatively large. There's a good case for the bizarre reef-forming taxa being photosymbiotic.

Something boring for #MolluskMonday ... the predatory gastropod Cyclonema and some of its victims, the brachiopod Rafinesquina. 🧪⚒️🐌

A fundamental study on the compositional resolution of the marine fossil record. What range of time scales are represented in typical fossil samples? "TA [Time Averaging]... scaled proportionally with ...an inverse of sediment accumulation rate" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

Welcome to the CAMBRIAN FECAL REVOLUTION. We didn't name it the Cambrian fecal explosion for obvious reasons. I'm happy to share this paper on fecal matter and its role in Cambrian ecosystems. So if you want to read a really shitty paper (50 days free access): authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYg8cZ3X7...

Glad to share our new study at @natcomms.nature.com which resulted from several workshops on the early warning signs of mass extinctions and coordination of macroevolutionary vulnerability and the states of carbon cycle and temperatures. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

I had no idea mammals had teeth like this - seen similar in lots of algae feeding fishes

Claudia Astorino@claudistics.bsky.social · 2w ago

it’s #ToothyTuesday! some of my fav teeth are colugo lower incisors. these teeth are pectinate or “fan-like,” exhibiting many long, thin projections used for grooming! while colugos are sometimes called flying lemurs, they’re not actual lemurs: lemurs = primates, and colugos = dermopterans!

Syrinx aruanus, the Australian trumpet, is the largest snail alive, a shell up to about 75 cm and 18 kg. Why so big? It hunts giant polychaete worms over a meter long, reaching into their tubes with a proboscis up to 25 cm. Big prey, big predator. 🦑 🧪 #MolluscMonday #HowToBuildAGiant #marinelife

#MolluscMonday Specimen of the Late Triassic bivalve Rhaetavicula contorta mounted on the tablet used when this Triassic bivalve was displayed in the old British Museum (Natural History) invertebrate fossil gallery.

When you grow a foot and can’t wait to use it… A baby bivalve in timelapse. #marineplankton 🦑

The biggest clam I ever saw. Around -or even more- than 1 metre wide. This 85-million-year-old giant clam from Kansas was so massive that small fish used it as shelter—and some were even fossilized inside. #Fossils #Paleontology #Kansas #Cretaceous

Spiny turbots are a small family of flatfishes whose eyes don’t completely migrate to the other side of their heads. At the right angle they look like cyclopses

NEW PAINTING TIME! Here is "Consuming the Fallen," commissioned by The Etches Collection. It features over 50 different species of marine vertebrates and invertebrates. #SciArt #PaleoArt #MarineReptiles #SeaRex #Pliosaurus #Ichthyosaurs #Jurassic #JurassicWorld #Thalassodraco #Sharks

Sediment accumulation rate (how quickly the sea bottom is covered by new sediment) is the main predictor of the temporal resolution of (sub)fossil assemblages, a key property to address both paleontological and ecological questions. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Sediment accumulation rate predicts the temporal resolution of marine fossil assemblages | PNAS

Time averaging (TA), the mixing of noncontemporaneous organisms in fossil assemblages, governs the resolution of paleontological data and determine...

pnas.org

Apparently, there is a new early #Cambrian #cephalopod. I am still sceptical, because this has been claimed many times before and always turned out to be something else ... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10868-y #Palaeontology #science #Nature

Earliest siphuncle-bearing cephalopod from the early Cambrian - Nature

Early Cambrian Eoceras shaanxiense gen. et sp. nov. preserves septa and a segmented tube resembling a primordial siphuncle, extending cephalopod origins and revealing early assembly of chambered shells used for buoyancy regulation.

nature.com

Maria Gordon (1864–1939) Scottish palaeontologist, and politician, specialising in Triassic fossils in the Dolomites. Champion of education for girls. Vice President of the International Council of Women, involved in the post-WW1 League of Nations negotiations.

DeepBio@Leeds' @barankarapunar.bsky.social publishes cool science on new marine vertebrate fossils from the Dolomites indicate that apex predators reappeared rapidly after the P–Tr mass extinction, earlier than previously thought. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @palaeoleeds.bsky.social

New insights into the extinction and recovery of marine vertebrates across the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event in the Dolomites, Southern Alps, Italy

The impact of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction on marine vertebrates is incompletely understood due to their scarce fossil record. To better understand marine vertebrate extinction and recovery...

tandfonline.com

Phylogeny, classification, and evolutionary history of Neogastropoda: doi.org/10.1093/zool... #evolution #phylogenetics #systematics #mollusca

Applications for the @sfiscience.bsky.social Santa Fe Institute's amazing Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships, including the Omidyar Fellowships, are now open. The deadline for applications is September 30th.

🦈 New #Open-access paper 🥳 on the impact of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction 🌋 on marine vertebrates 🐠, from the Dolomites (Italy) together with @aswolniewicz.bsky.social, Carlo Romano & others. We report the first Early Triassic marine reptile from the Dolomites 😎 #FossilFriday

New insights into the extinction and recovery of marine vertebrates across the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event in the Dolomites, Southern Alps, Italy

The impact of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction on marine vertebrates is incompletely understood due to their scarce fossil record. To better understand marine vertebrate extinction and recovery...

tandfonline.com