Where are all the field studies? This ⬇️ important but rather depressing paper describes how conducting, & crucially initiating, field studies is becoming harder & rarer. A short 🧵 (and a call for more fieldwork) www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Extinction of experience among ecologists

Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this ongoing loss of direct field experience within the ecology community, as it could have widespread consequences for science and education, ultimately hindering efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.

cell.com

Tahlia Pollock @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social has an amazing new study integrating 3D shape, biomechanics, and optimality modelling, helps explain why so many mammals evolve sabre teeth: functional optimality was a key driver behind the repeated evolution of extreme sabre-tooth morphologies.

Fascinating…

Animalcules@bacteriophile.bsky.social · 2y ago

link.springer.com/article/10.1... Membrane protein expression… #MicroSky

Looking for reviewers before Christmas

Eugenia, P.M., Bona, P., Siroski, P. and Chinsamy, A. (2025), Analyzing the Life History of Caimans: The Growth Dynamics of Caiman latirostris From an Osteohistological Approach. Journal of Morphology, 286: e70010. doi.org/10.1002/jmor...

Analyzing the Life History of Caimans: The Growth Dynamics of Caiman latirostris From an Osteohistological Approach

This research offers insights into the life history and growth dynamics of Caiman latirostris, highlighting their growth patterns, aging, and attainment of sexual maturity, and how environmental cond...

doi.org

Spent the afternoon helping my students prepare for a big day tomorrow. The first day of sampling for our AHA-funded project starts at 7:30am tomorrow!!!

#artadventcalendar x #fossilfriday Valenictus sheperdi, an extinct tusked (but otherwise toothless) walrus from the Pliocene Purisima Formation of northern California - here shown cruising along an early rocky shore habitat. We named this earlier this year. 🐡🐬🦑🦖

apnews.com/article/mast...

Giant sloths and mastodons coexisted with humans for millennia in Americas, new discoveries suggest

New discoveries from several archaeological sites in North and South America suggest that ancient people first arrived in the New World much earlier than scientists once thought.

apnews.com

10 anuran species x 4 muscles (3D diceCT scan data) x 40 to 168 fibres/muscle = a monumental study of form and function in frog legs by Leavey et al. WOW!! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#artadventcalendar day 18: Life restoration of the 17-18 myo fossil walrus Pelagiarctos from southern California, with a photograph of the mandible overlain - walruses were still quite sea lion like at the time. Graphite and digital, 8x10", 2012. #sciart #paleoart #paleontology 🐡🐋🦖

Amy M. Balanoff (2024) Dinosaur palaeoneurology: an evolving science Biology Letters 20(12): 20240472 doi: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Dinosaur palaeoneurology: an evolving science | Biology Letters

Our fascination with dinosaur brains and their capabilities essentially began with the first dinosaur discovery. The history of this study is a useful reflection of palaeoneurology as a whole and its ...

doi.org

Natalia Jagielska Thomas G Kaye Michael B Habib Tatsuya Hirasawa Michael Pittman (2024) New soft tissue data of pterosaur tail vane reveals sophisticated, dynamic tensioning usage and expands its evolutionary origins eLife 13:RP100673. doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

New soft tissue data of pterosaur tail vane reveals sophisticated, dynamic tensioning usage and expands its evolutionary origins

Laser-stimulated fluorescence (LSF) imaging of early pterosaurs uncovers new soft tissue data of tail vane that reveals sophisticated, dynamic tensioning usage and expands its evolutionary origins.

doi.org

Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History. 🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience

Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource

nature.com

🚨 New Paper Alert 🚨 We put decades of effort in collecting this massive dataset on movement and diving behaviour of northern elephant seals and now we make it available! 🦭🦑🌎 Check it out here 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two decades of three-dimensional movement data from adult female northern elephant seals - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - Two decades of three-dimensional movement data from adult female northern elephant seals

nature.com

🚨New postdoc positions available: we are looking for 2 postdoctoral researchers to join a large, collaborative effort to document, describe, and investigate the biodiversity of tiny, cryptobenthic fishes in the Indo-Pacific 🤏🐠🧪. More details: fishandfunctions.com/join%F0%9F%9... Please repost 🦑🧪

Do you need a salamander phylogeny? You're in luck! We put together the largest salamander phylogeny to date based on molecular markers and used more fossil calibrations than any other currently available trees. 765 salamander species! Check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A time-calibrated salamander phylogeny including 765 species and 503 genes

Recent time-calibrated amphibian phylogenies agree on the family-level relationships among extant salamanders but had disparate sampling regimes and i…

sciencedirect.com

Realizing that I’ve basically become by dad… same beard, same sorts of glasses, same corny jokes… miss you dad (can you tell which ones are me?)

Quick sketch I did as a request from patron Flouder who suggested I sketched the Late Jurassic mammaliform Castorocauda lutrasimilis #paleoart #sciart #sketch

Awesome image showing how birds can be so smart despite having small brains — more neurons packed into that small space (Olkowicz et al. 2016: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....)

Over 30 prominent scientists call for a ban on the creation of a "mirror cell"--a microbe made of molecules that are mirror images of their natural forms. It could cause a mind-boggling global disaster. Here's my story [gift link] 🧪https://nyti.ms/3OUCXp6

A ‘Second Tree of Life’ Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn (Gift Article)

Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.

nyti.ms

The birth of fruit fly's central nervous system imaged with multicolor #adaptive #lightsheet microscopy. The microscope self-aligns to a signal that appears during imaging. www.nature.com/articles/nbt...

Biomass of living mammals, compared! I knew the world was mostly humans and cows but I'm pleasantly surprised that baleen whales are a visible chunk due to pure size, rather than numbers. Original paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (This was on other sites but I haven't seen it here with alt text)

This is the face of a shark! I've stained the mineralised tissues to show that their teeth and scales are both made of the same enamel-like material 🦈 🦷 🧪

Just after thanksgiving I went to Fire Island Wilderness Visitor Center, and besides a beautiful sunset, had a visit with an old friend, Balaenoptera physalus #whales #longisland #fireisland

New croc paper alert! 🐊🚨 In this new study led by my friend and colleague Thiago Fachini, we reassessed the cranial morphology and phylogenetic position of Barreirosuchus franciscoi, a peirosaurian from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New snake renderings from CT scan data, created using our recently published SmARTR photorealistic pipeline! 🐍 Our manuscript is now in its final published form: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

📖Published📖 In our new Application article, Papadopoulou et al. present the swaRmverse package, an R package for the comparative analysis of collective motion 🌎 🧪 Find out more here👇 https://buff.ly/3CSAEQW

🧪 See the full list of speakers who will be presenting at our #biologists100 conference. https://100yearsconference.biologists.com/programme/speakers 📅 We welcome abstract submissions for both oral and poster presentations by 13 December 2024. #SciSky

Not an African safari - Trafalgar Square with hippos, elephants and lions ~120,000 years ago..Postcard from the British Geological Survey

I’m recruiting a PhD student for my new group at Stockholm University! The project will be focused on in vivo modeling epigenetic drivers of craniofacial tissue shaping. If interested, message me a CV