Introducing Herugavialis cairensis. A new genus of fossil gavialoid crocodylian from the Middle Eocene of Egypt. Recovered from the Mokattam Formation, Herugavialis was found from the same rocks used to build the Great Sphinx and pyramids of Egypt. Read here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Introducing Herugavialis cairensis, a newly recognised Eocene gavialoid crocodylian from Egypt from the same geological formation as the rocks used to build the Sphinx, led by @palaeoburke.bsky.social (with @stephanspiekman.bsky.social + @hesham-sallam.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

1/4 🐢 What should fossil turtle systematics look like ten years from now? Walter Joyce & I offer our personal answer in a new review paper: "Transforming Turtle Systematics: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Path Ahead" Out now in @journalsystpal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Here is a link to a wonderful thread by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social about this amazing paper! Thank you so much for entrusting me with reconstructing this amazing animal bsky.app/profile/step...

Stephan Spiekman@stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Excited to share our new paper in Science Advances! Led by Dr Wei Wang at #IVPP in Beijing, it presents a complete skeleton of #Austronaga, the most marine of all archosauromorphs. To boot, this fossil preserves the oldest complete digestive tract of any reptile! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Spectacular discovery: Researchers, including Dr. @stephanspiekman.bsky.social (Natural History Museum Stuttgart & @unihohenheim.bsky.social) have, for the first time, identified parts of the digestive system in a 245-million-year-old marine reptile from China. Press release: https://t1p.de/7e2wr

Excited to share our new paper in Science Advances! Led by Dr Wei Wang at #IVPP in Beijing, it presents a complete skeleton of #Austronaga, the most marine of all archosauromorphs. To boot, this fossil preserves the oldest complete digestive tract of any reptile! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Today is my first day in office as the new curator of vertebrate paleontology at @nhmdk.bsky.social & @ucph.bsky.social! 🇩🇰 🏛️ 🦴 🦕 😁 Starting off right with some proper Paleozoic Greenlandic friends (🐟/🐸, 🦈) and an extremely Danish office surprise! 🧱

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - Nature

A well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.

nature.com

Just in time for the weekend: this new skull fills a big gap in the formation of the bulldog-like🐶 rhynchosaur skull, which we also use as an excuse to review all of rhynchosaur skull evolution! Another Triassic weirdo off my bucket list✅ @smnstuttgart.bsky.social @unihohenheim.bsky.social @dfg.de

The Palaeontological Association@thepalass.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Cranial anatomy of the early rhynchosaur Howesia browni: implications for rhynchosaur skull evolution onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @stephanspiekman.bsky.social @morphobank.bsky.social #PapersinPalaeontology

Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...

Delighted to see this published Stephan! The second in our series of short reviews on the systematics of major groups. (Short by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social standards, you understand). Take a look at this Bluesky... you'll want to cite it!

Stephan Spiekman@stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This review was inspired by my recently started Turtle Origins Research Group @smnstuttgart.bsky.social and @unihohenheim.bsky.social funded by a @dfg.de Emmy Noether Grant, which will deal more with this subject. So much more to come! For now, please enjoy: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New review paper with Martín Ezcurra just published in @journalsystpal.bsky.social as part of a special issue! Modern reptiles comprise archosaurs 🐊🦉, lepidosaurs🦎🐍, and turtles🐢, but their origins is murky. Where do turtles fit in, really? And most marine reptiles? Choristoderes? Drepanosaurs? ->

We @journalsystpal.bsky.social commissioned a series of short review articles on the systematics of major fossil groups from leading experts, and asked them to speculate on where their field is going. The first, by Otega-Hernandez, is out now: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....

A decade after Deuteropoda – insights into the systematics, evolution and dynamics of Cambrian euarthropods

The systematics and evolution of Cambrian euarthropods have undergone a major transformation in recent years owing to the continued discovery of new species from sites with exceptional preservation...

tandfonline.com

I'm really thrilled to see the "Cromhall Croc" finally getting the attention it deserves! Please welcome Galahadosuchus jonesi, named after Ewan's school science teacher, who inspired his love of the natural world ♥️ anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Meet Galahadosuchus jonesi, a new crocodylomorph from the Late Triassic of the UK, described by @es-ucl.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social PhD student Ewan Bodenham (with @stephanspiekman.bsky.social, @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & Paul Upchurch): anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Here's Galahadosuchus, a new saltoposuchid from Gloucestershire that I was brought on to illustrate. Congrats to Ewan Bodenham, Stephan Spiekman (@stephanspiekman.bsky.social), Susie Maidment (@tweetisaurus.bsky.social), Paul Upchurch, and Phil Mannion (@pdmannion.bsky.social) on the publication!

Yesterday, @tweetisaurus.bsky.social visited us @smnstuttgart.bsky.social to talk about her amazing work on Spicomellus, which had everything that makes palaeo great: unexpected discoveries, fieldwork, prep work, bizarre anatomy, CT scanning, you name it

Hello from Stuttgart! Never been to the SMNS before but it's a lovely museum with amazing collections. Right now they have a temporary exhibit on Triassic life, featuring Mirasaura. @stephanspiekman.bsky.social showed me round.. Amazing fossils!

Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...

Meet our brilliant team of Associate Editors! 𝐃𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐤𝐦𝐚𝐧 (Museum of Natural History Stuttgart) is a specialist in Triassic reptile evolution, using comparative anatomy, functional morphology, histology and phylogeny. Read more: buff.ly/UYmwXjr @stephanspiekman.bsky.social #Paleosky

Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A hidden diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous Europe - Nature

New results indicate that rhabdodontids and the previously described Ajkaceratops are actually distinctive European ceratopsians, a group better known from Asia and North America.

nature.com

New paper! Buffa 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭. (2025) redescribe the anatomy of the enigmatic stem-reptile 𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙮𝙧𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨 from the Permian of South Africa and the origin of Neodiapsida 🦎 Phylogenetic analysis of the relationships of Permian reptiles. Read the study here: buff.ly/62lJG0W #FossilFriday #PaleoSky

On the off-chance that you are one of the three people left in the world who hasn't heard me talking about stegosaurs, you can catch me here, on The Ancients podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=I9Vk...

Inside The Bizarre Biology Of The Stegosaurs

YouTube video by The Ancients

youtube.com

🐸 NEW PAPER OUT! This time it’s all about FROGS and their melanosomes! Falk et al., 2025, iScience: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.114220 #palaeontology #frogs #deeptime

You wait ages for a paper, and two come along (almost) at once! This is the first publication from the project we're currently working on, where we're investigating the relationship between different regions of the avian head. 1/n royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Avian cranial evolution is influenced by shape interactions between hard and soft tissue traits

Abstract. Changes in the structure and relative size of the brain are thought to be key transformations in the evolution of birds, reflecting innovations a

royalsocietypublishing.org

Just a quick heads up for those who intended to use the free scale bars handed out at this year's SVP by #PaleoTools: don't...

What cynic would ever say such a thing? 👀

Prof Susie Maidment@tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Review of the Fossil Files podcast @thefossilfiles.bsky.social just in from a palaeo podcast skeptic: "I really thought palaeo podcasts weren't for me, but I guess I was listening to the wrong ones". Listen on libsyn or wherever you get your podcasts: fossils.libsyn.com

Buffa et al.’s paper on the enigmatic Permian reptile 🦎 Galesphyrus and the origin of Neodiapsida is out in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology! Read the thread 👇 for some important takeaways from our study @valentinbuffa.bsky.social #Paleontology #Reptile #Permian doi.org/10.1080/1477...

🦎✨ New research delivers the 1st full 3D anatomical atlases of the veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus)! Open-access atlases + lesson plans offer powerful new tools for studying reptile evolution and teaching comparative anatomy. Leavey et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure Please show your support by signing the below! c.org/KtYyZB8dHk

Save Geology at the University of Leicester

Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?

c.org