Hot off the presses! I reviewed the history of early ray-finned fishes, with a focus on their morphology, fossil record, and taxonomy. My principal goal is a guide for other workers to make the rich record of early actinopterygian evolution more broadly available. dx.doi.org/10.1002/jmor...

The Evolutionary History of Early Ray‐Finned Fishes (Pan‐Actinopterygii)

Ray-finned fishes, the most diverse living vertebrate clade, include over 600 extinct early actinopterygian species whose evolution is an enigma.

dx.doi.org

For years, 💀MorphoSource💀 has given researchers, educators, and students 🚨free access🚨 to 3D data on museum specimens from around the world. 🔆Now it is asking for some help to continue its work🔆 www.morphosource.org/donate/

Interested in Historical Ecology and Conservation Palaeobiology? 🪸🦀 Steve Pates and I are offering a PhD project on "Reducing uncertainty in the impact of climate on biodiversity" 🔗 unrisk-cdt.ac.uk/projects/red... 🗓️ Deadline: 13th January 2027

We’re bringing conservation paleobiology to Instagram with a new INCP science communication competition. This is your moment to share your conservation paleobiology work through visual storytelling— and be featured as part of our network re-launch.

PhD opportunity: 🦠🪱☠️🪣🔬🏞️ Do you want to test hypotheses of how fossils form, figure out if lab experiments reflect the real world? Come and join our lab! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

[School of Natural Sciences PhD Scholarships] Bridging the taphonomic gap between the lab and the real world: Experimental Insights into Fossilization and Preservation at The University of Manchester ...

PhD Project - [School of Natural Sciences PhD Scholarships] Bridging the taphonomic gap between the lab and the real world: Experimental Insights into Fossilization and Preservation at The University ...

findaphd.com

Out today: We show that Westlothiana lizziae or "Lizzie," described 35 years ago as the world's oldest reptile - is not a stem amniote at all, but a stem tetrapod. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/

We are organising an in-person Morphological Phylogenetics Workshop, in partnership with SRUK/CERU and @thepalass.bsky.social. When: Nov 9-11, 2026 Where: University College London There are limited places, so please pre-register by October 8th!!! Find more details here: tinyurl.com/52c9u7dw

Over a decade ago, Tom Challands and I noticed these strange rock pools on the Isle of Skye coast. Hundreds, each the size of a car tire, lined up in zig-zag sequences Dinosaur tracks! We announced the site, then handed it to Paige dePolo to describe for her Masters Now today:

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at ETH Zurich invites applications for the position of Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Earth and Planetary Evolution. ethz.ch/en/the-eth-z... Please apply online. The closing date for applications is 15 December 2026.

Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Earth and Planetary Evolution

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (www.eaps.ethz.ch) at ETH Zurich invites applications for the above-mentioned position.

ethz.ch

A number of 🚨Science & Museum Jobs🚨 available at different levels right now for the Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK programme 🪩 #DiSSCo 🪩 fab if you're into 🌳science digitisation🌳 #ScienceJobs #MuseumJobs jobs.nhm.ac.uk/internal/Job...

DiSSCo UK Digitiser:South Kensington

jobs.nhm.ac.uk

🚨We're hiring a new Curator of Mammals!!🚨 🦍🐕🦝🐅🦓🦌🐃🐖🐏🐫🐘🦏🦛🐿️🦔🦇🦥🦦🦨🦘🦡🐋🦭🦒🧸 Come join the Vertebrate Unit at @nhmdk.bsky.social—a fantastic team in the heart of Denmark's beautiful capital! Amazing collections, incredible history. Please share widely! 🧪🏛️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Tenure Track Assistant Professor or Associate Professor and Curator of Mammals

Tenure Track Assistant Professor / Associate Professor, and Curator of Mammals at Natural History Museum Denmark The Natural History Museum Denmark wishes to ap

candidate.hr-manager.net

Ever wondered which characters support individual clades in a tree? My new method maps phylogenetic support across a dataset. doi.org/10.1093/sysb... Try it in R: pak::pkg_install("ms609/TreeSearch@cpp-search") ?TreeSearch::ClusteringConcordance

the value of museum collections - this project rapidly snowballed from Ryan Tokeley emailing me while surveying the Carnian collections in the Warwick Museum stores to say there is a specimen labelled as 'fossil shark' which led to a very fruitful fishing expedition #fossilfriday

Richard Dearden@euphanerops.bsky.social · 3w ago

Fan of weird end-Permian-surviving fossil sharks? Check out our preprint describing the first endoskeletal fossils of Carnian jalodontiform Keuperodus brodiei. #FossilFriday doi.org/10.64898/202... Led by Ryan Tokeley (no bsky), based on his great masters project work @nitroshutter.bsky.social

Fan of weird end-Permian-surviving fossil sharks? Check out our preprint describing the first endoskeletal fossils of Carnian jalodontiform Keuperodus brodiei. #FossilFriday doi.org/10.64898/202... Led by Ryan Tokeley (no bsky), based on his great masters project work @nitroshutter.bsky.social

Re-interpretation of oral anatomy of Silurian heterostracan Athenaegis chattertoni from Northwest Territories, Canada onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday @agneselanzetti.bsky.social @palaeostephan.bsky.social @euphanerops.bsky.social @lisaschnetz.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social

Check out our new paper in @thepalass.bsky.social Palaeontology, led by @lisaschnetz.bsky.social describing the mouthparts of the oldest articulated heterostracan Athenaegis. Oral plates are organised more like those of the later pteraspids but lack key pteraspid features like ternimal hooks.

Dr Stephan Lautenschlager @palaeostephan.bsky.social · 3w ago

Second new paper this week: Reconstructing the oral apparatus of the Silurian heterostracan Athenaegis. Led by @lisaschnetz.bsky.social and in collaboration with many colleagues, including @euphanerops.bsky.social (who rendered the animation) and @nitroshutter.bsky.social

Second new paper this week: Reconstructing the oral apparatus of the Silurian heterostracan Athenaegis. Led by @lisaschnetz.bsky.social and in collaboration with many colleagues, including @euphanerops.bsky.social (who rendered the animation) and @nitroshutter.bsky.social

Another big potential #FishJob Curator of Fishes (or Mammals, but let it be ichthyology) at the American Museum of Natural History careers.amnh.org/postings/4925

Calling creatives! 🎹 🎶 Could you create a 30 second musical intro for our palaeontology podcast? We can pay for your services, but our budget is 🤏

New paper out today! Led by Daniel Schwarz, we retrodeformed the skull and reconstructed the cranio-mandibular musculature of the giant stem-amphibian Mastodonsaurus giganteus. Our results show that Mastodonsaurus had a powerful bite and a crocodile- like bite-and-hold feeding style.

Join us on Mon, 28 Sept, at 5:30pm for Dr Manfredo Capriolo's Lapworth Lecture, exploring a magmatic perspective on carbon emissions from the North Atlantic Igneous Province. The lecture is free and open to all, available to watch on campus or on Zoom. For more info: www.birmingham.ac.uk...

Interested in fossil arthropods, palaeoecology, dispersal, and interesting methods? 🦀 🌎 I'm hiring a 4-year, fully funded PhD student at the University of Geneva as part of my European Research Council (ERC) grant. Deadline: 16th October. Reach out if any questions! www.unige.ch/sciences/ter...

⚠️BIOINFORMATCIS JOB ALERT⚠️ Come and join us @bristolbiosci.bsky.social We are recruiting a Lecturer in Bioinformatics. Details here: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de... Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested!

🎓 Looking for a #PhD in Earth & Environmental Sciences starting Autumn 2027? Applications now open for CENTA Science Opportunity Scholarships for Home-fee applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds. ✅ Stipend ✅ Fees paid ✅ Research & conference funding centa.ac.uk/apply/ #DiversityInSTEM

Double preprint alert! 🚨 Squishy in the slishy 🌊 We used jellyfish and their paleoenvironments to better constrain paleogeographic reconstructions and tidal simulations throughout the entire Cambrian period. Many thanks to all my co-authors for their help and support with this study!

Constraining Palaeogeography and Palaeotides for the Cambrian using cnidarian medusae

The ocean tides influence key Earth system processes at a range of spatial and temporal scales. It is known that the geometry of ocean basins is the leading controller of tidal energetics, so well-con...

biorxiv.org

Double preprint alert! 🚨 Jaws: Baby shark 🦈 We used micro-CT scanning to examine the tessellated calcified cartilage in the jaws of 10 young chondrichthyans in 3D. We found some surprises—like chunky trabeculae in a baby nurse shark! Many thanks to all my co-authors for their help and support!

Early Ontogenetic Development of Tessellated Calcified Cartilage in Chondrichthyans

Tessellated calcified cartilage (TCC) is a hallmark of the chondrichthyan skeleton, yet its development early in ontogeny across the four major groups (batoids, galeomorphs, squalomorphs, and holoceph...

biorxiv.org

🧪So happy this is finally out after almost four years! We try to bring some order to the messy taxonomy of an iconic jawless fish. 🐟 Thanks to @evopalaeo.bsky.social, Madleen, Mike, @fossilrob.bsky.social & to all who contributed to this research! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The taxonomy and phylogeny of British ‘cephalaspids’

Osteostracans are considered the sister group of jawed vertebrates and are phylogenetically the earliest branching vertebrate lineage to exhibit true paired fins with endoskeletal support. This means...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Open Palaeontology has a new look 💜 Our brand-new website is live! Same mission as ever: Diamond Open Access palaeo research — free to publish, free to read, for everyone. Come explore ➡️ www.openpalaeo.org #PaleoSky #OpenAccess #Palaeontology

🎉 Registration for PalAss 2026 is officially OPEN! 🦖🦴 We are delighted to announce that registration for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association is now open! 🎓✨ 📍 University of Oxford, UK 📅 8–11 December 2026 ⬇️ palass.org/annual-meeti...