Joshua Lively, PhD
@jlivelypaleo.bsky.social
Curator of Paleontology - dinosaur digger, Alabamian in Utah, birder, I like turtles - personal account, opinions my own. #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025
It's Toothy Tuesday! 🦷 An Allosaurus fragilis right maxilla is slowly being uncovered. 🦖 The last image is a previously prepared Allosaurus fragilis left maxilla collected from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in the 70s! #clevelandlloyddinosaurquarry #toothytuesday
Happy Fossil Friday! These fossil leaves come from the Neslen Formation and are ~75 million years old! They were deposited in the Cretaceous period and have been SAFE from cyclospora 🦠since then! 😎😉 #paleobotany #fossilleaf #fossilleaves #fossilfriday #prehistoricmuseum
Hi everyone, I’m Brooke! I’m a fossil preparator working on fossils from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry. I found an Allosaurus right maxilla hiding in my first jacket! Very cool to be the first to lay eyes on this beauty 🤩 #Fossilfriday #deathelevated
J.W.M. Jagt et al. (2026) The recovery in October 1778 of the skull of Mosasaurus hoffmanni Mantell, 1829 (Squamata, Mosasauridae; upper Maastrichtian, the Netherlands) - a reconstruction Deinsea 24: 22 - 32. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21056233 zenodo.org/records/2105...
The recovery in October 1778 of the skull of Mosasaurus hoffmanni Mantell, 1829 (Squamata, Mosasauridae; upper Maastrichtian, the Netherlands) – a reconstruction
zenodo.org
TBH, I don’t give a damn if another T. rex is getting auctioned. How about every fossil site we’ve ever worked in Grand Staircase NO LONGER being within the monument?!? Let’s talk about protecting fossils on PUBLIC land.
Hey everyone! I’m excited to share that one of my thesis projects was just published in @currentbiology.bsky.social and featured on phys.org! In this paper, we use an old statistical approach developed by the US Navy in WW2 to predict the aquatic habits of various dinosaurs and marine reptiles 🦖🐊
If you're a #teacher interested in a great #openaccess write up on reading #phylogenetic trees, check out www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/system... created by @jonhendricks.bsky.social and Elizabeth Hermsen.
2.1 Reading Trees
Chapter contents: Systematics — 1. Taxonomy — 2. Phylogenetics —— 2.1 Reading trees ← —— 2.2 Building trees —— 2.3 Character mapping —— 2.4 Phylogenetic trees and classificationParts of a tree A phylo...
digitalatlasofancientlife.org
Coming to the end of another University of Birmingham Palaeontology undergraduate fieldtrip to Utah & Colorado. Thanks to the incredible @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social & @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social team - we had an amazing time digging dinosaurs in the Cedar Mountain Formation.
MORE CRETACEOUS FIELDWORK! I'm back out in the Cedar Mountain Formation with @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social, digging up dozens of ankylosaurs and streaming each day at 1pm Pacific Tune in @ twitch.tv/paleontologizing to see what we're finding and ask some questions!
We lost Mark Norell today. Dinosaur hunter extraordinaire. The coolest dude alive. My PhD supervisor. Wherever you are, raise a glass of your favorite lager or single malt, as it is what Mark would want.
Anderson BM, Allmon WD. Punctuated equilibria remains the dominant pattern of morphospecies origin in the fossil record: an analysis using the “persistence of ancestor” criterion. Paleobiology. doi.org/10.1017/pab....
Punctuated equilibria remains the dominant pattern of morphospecies origin in the fossil record: an analysis using the “persistence of ancestor” criterion | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Punctuated equilibria remains the dominant pattern of morphospecies origin in the fossil record: an analysis using the “persistence of ancestor” criterion
doi.org
Keep sciencing. We are living through a time when looking at a rock and wondering how old it is qualifies as an act of resistance.
The reproductive system of birds is an evolutionary marvel. Their only functioning oviduct is a fantastic conveyor belt of weirdness, of which parts are still mysterious. An illustration made for a pet bird magazine. You can read more on my Cara page: cara.app/post/e9f92d4...
ICYMI, the Great Salt Lake has dropped to a low that triggers forced conservation measures under a new Utah law: www.fox13now.com/news/great-s... #utpol #Utah
The first planned migration of an entire country due to climate change is happening! Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is at risk of being submerged under rising sea level, so it has signed an agreement with Australia to allow 280 Tuvaluans to settle in Australia as permanent residents each year.
The First Planned Migration of an Entire Country Is Underway
The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu could be submerged in 25 years due to rising sea levels, so a plan is being implemented to relocate its population to Australia.
wired.com
Spent yesterday checking on access to various sites in the Cretaceous-Paleocene North Horn Formation, including a new site with adult and juvenile ceratopsian material we’ll be opening next month. Paleo can be challenging at 8000-10,000’! And of course there are turtles. 🐢🥰 #FossilFriday
NEW: After spending millions on a legal and PR campaign, the state of Utah might ultimately drop its lawsuit laying claims to millions of acres of public lands: www.fox13now.com/news/politic... #utpol #Utah
Utah may ultimately abandon lawsuit over control of public lands
The state of Utah might not re-file a controversial lawsuit demanding the federal government hand over control of millions of acres of public lands.
fox13now.com
New paper today about the evolution of the wrist along the dinosaur to bird transition: a bird-like configuration appeared in predatory dinosaurs first, as suggested by new exceptionally preserved hands of oviraptors and troodontids www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reorganization of the theropod wrist preceded the origin of avian flight - Nature
The forelimbs of two Late Cretaceous theropod dinosaurs show the presence of the pisiform bone, previously thought to have been lost early in theropod evolution and regained in birds during the evolut...
nature.com
New #RSOS paper: The earliest #fossil cetacean with Osedax borings: narrowing the spatiotemporal gap between Cretaceous marine reptiles and late Cenozoic #whales. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #palaeontology @plesiosarahs.bsky.social @pdmannion.bsky.social
@prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social staff and volunteers put a TON of effort into this dig, from permitting to the actual excavation. No mention of the museum in the book, so our gift shop won’t be carrying it!
PaleoJim@paleojim.bsky.social · last yr.Got myself a copy of the Walking with Dinosaurs' companion book. I'm pretty surprised there was no focus on Prehistoric Museum's Gastonia dig, but instead focused on Utahraptor megablock project. Grand County, Utah, got a great shout-out. @paleontologizing.bsky.social @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social
For #FossilFriday, trace fossils (nest & coprolites) & body fossil (petrified wood) of the oldest termite nest in Australia (Early Cretaceous, ~127 million years old), from the Wonthaggi Formation of Victoria. For more info & images, here's a 🧵. 1/n
European mammal turnover driven by a global rapid warming event preceding the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
European mammal turnover driven by a global rapid warming event preceding the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum | PNAS
A brief global warming event known as the Pre-Onset Excursion (POE) occurred just before the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 56 Mya). The d...
pnas.org
Have you seen the Band of Brothers episode of Walking With Dinosaurs yet? Last year it was an absolute pleasure to dig at the site with our University of Birmingham undergraduates - thanks so much to @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social & @prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social for an amazing experience!
Prehistoric Museum@prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social · last yr.If you missed us on @pbs.org, you can stream the Band of Brothers episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs online! #WWD2025 #FossilFriday www.pbs.org/video/band-o...
Honestly one of the most challenging sites I’ve ever worked. We can’t even jacket most individual bones (or groups of bones) because they are so dense. Thankfully, all those smaller osteoderms are robust and pop out in one piece! #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025
Prehistoric Museum@prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social · last yr.If you missed us on @pbs.org, you can stream the Band of Brothers episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs online! #WWD2025 #FossilFriday www.pbs.org/video/band-o...
If you missed us on @pbs.org, you can stream the Band of Brothers episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs online! #WWD2025 #FossilFriday www.pbs.org/video/band-o...
Walking with Dinosaurs | Band of Brothers | Episode 3
Follow a gang of armored dinosaurs battle to reach adulthood, pursued by ferocious raptors
pbs.org
Tonight is the night! Tune in to watch our crew excavate the world’s largest concentration of armored dinosaurs and see both Gastonia and Utahraptor come to life on @pbs.org #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025
Prehistoric Museum@prehistoricmuseum.bsky.social · last yr.We’re less than 24 hours away from the premiere of our episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs! Our excavations of Gastonia and Utahraptor will air Tuesday night at 7 pm on PBS Utah. Check your local listings for show times on your PBS station. #WWD25
We’re less than 24 hours away from the premiere of our episode of #WalkingWithDinosaurs! Our excavations of Gastonia and Utahraptor will air Tuesday night at 7 pm on PBS Utah. Check your local listings for show times on your PBS station. #WWD25
