UMMP/Michigan Earth past & present at CBEP 2026 at the National Museum of Natural History.
Matt Friedman
@friedmanlab.bsky.social
Vertebrate evolutionary biologist | Professor University of Michigan | Director & Curator UMMP | he/him/his
Heads up for anyone that likes making cool stuff that there are bunch of exhibit mountmaking and fabrication jobs (both entry and supervisor levels) open at the Field this week. www.fieldmuseum.org/landing/care...
It's the UMMP show for CBEP 2026 at the National Museum of Natural History.
Just Published 📰 New Eocene jianghanichthyid (Teleostei: Cypriniformes) from the Huachong Formation with description of its cephalic sensory canals ✒️Liu and Zhang UC Berkeley 🔗https://ow.ly/GpbY50Zs4HC 📷Fig 1A: Fossil specimen #FossilFriday
Congrats to Brad Ibarra on the pub!! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Syrinx anatomy and vocalizations in New World vultures (Aves: Cathartidae): Implications for avian vocal evolution
New World vultures are the only avian clade proposed to lack a syrinx and have been described as non-vocal. Using dissection, diceCT, and histology, we demonstrate that cathartid vultures have novel ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Our paper (also, my first first-author paper) is now available in MEE early view! In this study, we introduced a state-dependent Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model we implemented in RevBayes to test adaptive hypotheses in macroevolution. (1/3) besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
An efficient Bayesian phylogenetic approach for joint inference of continuous and discrete trait evolution under a state‐dependent Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model
Macroevolutionary adaptation of a continuous trait to different discrete states across species can be modelled using a phylogenetic state-dependent Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) process. Existing infere...
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Everything is coming together for the Friends of UMMP BBQ this weekend. I have 24 pounds of pork shoulder marinating. It goes on the smoker tomorrow morning for about 12 hours. And, I picked up these amazing chocolate sprinerle trilobite cookies from my dear friend!
What could possibly go in this empty space between the Ordovician and Devonian display cases at UMMNH? 🤔
Exhilarated to share a 2nd @science.org cover article this month from our lab @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social! A collaboration with US & Mexico colleagues on the role of a Mexican biogeographic holding pen in shaping the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI)(1/11) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Here is @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social Bob Sanders' write-up of our Great American Biotic Interchange work: news.berkeley.edu/2026/07/30/n...
North and South America weren’t always connected, but their mammals still found a way to intermingle - Berkeley News
Before the Panamanian land bridge formed about 3 million years ago, mammals on the two continents were isolated — or so biologists thought. New fossils show that they found ways to mix long before tha...
news.berkeley.edu
I am recruiting Ph.D. students this cycle. Students interested in deep-sea fishes and phylogenetic comparative methods are an especially good fit.
🧵1/6 New paper from #NearLab dropped! Wood et al. (2026) tackle a long-standing mystery: how did freshwater perches, walleyes, and darters (Percidae) end up on BOTH sides of the Atlantic? Spoiler: they may have swum there. 🐟🌊 #Ichthyology #Evolution #Systematics
We're still looking for a Fish Collection Manager at the Sam Noble Museum in Oklahoma! Apply by August 1st. #MuseumJobs #TeamFish jobs.ou.edu/jobs/curator...
Curator Archivist - Norman, Oklahoma, United States
Pay Range: Targeted salary $18.99 per hour, based on experience Benefits Eligible: Yes Work Schedule: Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (may include some weekends) Travel: May be required For Be...
jobs.ou.edu
Two tenured, mid-career positions available in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan: Climate-Driven Hazards and Earth Surface Dynamics. Applications due Aug. 15th: lsa.umich.edu/earth/about-...
Job Postings | U-M LSA Earth and Environmental Sciences
lsa.umich.edu
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! 🧱
Out on the RV Tom Crean and had a bit of a landmark day. Technically not my first angler, but this extraordinary, beautiful animal made me genuinely emotional. It’s an absolute privilege to get to meet these animals that I’ve adored for so long! (She’s a triplewart seadevil, Cryptopsaras couesii)
New records of extinct Icacinaceae from #Paleocene #rainforests of northwestern South America New #AJB research by Laura Puente-Santos, Mónica Carvalho, Ethan Shirley & Fabiany Herrera doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #fossils
Missed out on #FossilFriday while checking out some cross bedding in the Cambrian Munising Fm. from a vantage point on Lake Superior.
Stoked to see our paper out as a pre-print! Check it out if you're interested in how we can expand comparative methods to better accommodate the many-to-one mapping of evolutionary process to pattern... (or if you think frogs are cool) @gjslater.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Beyond the Panglossian paradigm: adaptation, constraint, and anuran functional trait evolution.
Recognizing patterns in functional trait evolution is a necessary step in testing macroevolutionary questions. Quantification of these patterns and interpretation of their generative processes relies ...
biorxiv.org
New fossil fish dropped! Meet Jianghanichthys huachongensis sp. nov. Despite fragile, swampy origins, exceptional preservation of its head sensory canals is shedding new light on Cypriniformes evolution! cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.... #Paleontology #Ichthyology #Fossil #NewSpecies #Evolution
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
Our work is out! Meet Tametara mirim, a new fossil snake 🐍 from Brazil that has challenged our views on early snake evolution! A jewel 💎 from the Cretaceous brought to you by an amazing team of colleagues among which @trsimoes.bsky.social and @nicolasdipoi.bsky.social! 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
@jdpardo.bsky.social @friedmanlab.bsky.social @jackstack.bsky.social @reallyoldfish.bsky.social Fish people! The new layers they’ve been working at Kinney are quite nice
🚨 #MUSEUMJOBS KLAXON🚨 We're looking for a Senior Digitiser and two Digitisers to work across @zoologymuseum.bsky.social & @camplantsci.bsky.social to help create biodiversity data for the researchers who need it, through #DiSSCoUK. 1. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/senior-... 2. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/digitis...
New study reveals 2D morphometrics captures major patterns of fish body shape variation but can underestimate subtle 3D features. For broad comparative studies, 2D is often sufficient; for fine-scale morphology, 3D remains essential Torgersen et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
