Lauren Wilson
@lnwilson.bsky.social
PhD candidate @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social/@princeton.edu | studying bird evolution and development 🐣 | MS from @uafairbanks.bsky.social | she/her Banner art: Gabriel Ugueto https://lw0428.wixsite.com/lauren-wilson
So happy to be back out in Montana! Some great finds already this season including some teeny weeny croc teeth and a very cute baby T. rex premax tooth! But by far the best thing we’ve seen so far is a parade of very cute baby turkeys with their parents #FossilFriday
Excited that the first paper from my dissertation is now out in Royal Society Open Science! @royalsociety.org We used PGLS to investigate the effect of brain size and metabolism on reproductive output across extant amniotes and dinosaurs 🧵 #FossilFriday royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Body size evolution through shifting climatic conditions in Mesozoic dinosaurs onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday @lnwilson.bsky.social
Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Body size evolution through shifting climatic conditions in Mesozoic dinosaurs
Body size evolution is commonly associated with climate change. For example, birds and mammals have been found to decrease in size with anthropogenic global warming. Recent studies have inferred dist...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
After a fun SVP, I’m thankful to have some extra time in the UK to explore! Had a wonderful day walking the Jurassic Coast in Kimmeridge and Lulworth Cove Off to Lyme Regis tomorrow for more adventures!
Opening a field jacket in the new prep lab! Preparator Jack Wilson will work his way through the matrix to the croc skull hiding inside
Proud to share a new piece in Scientific American co-authored with the brilliant @lnwilson.bsky.social , edited by @katewong.bsky.social, and featuring this spectacular depiction of the endless daylight of the Cretaceous summer in Alaska by Chase Stone! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...
Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin
Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed
scientificamerican.com
Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration
I got to paint some paleobirds! (The headline art is by the incredible Chase Stone) 🪶🧪
Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin
Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed
scientificamerican.com
Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed
Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin
Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed
scientificamerican.com
Right now, millions of birds are migrating south before the onset of the boreal winter. @ksepkalab.bsky.social and I explore the evolutionary origins of this amazing behavior in our article for @sciam.bsky.social! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...
Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin
Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed
scientificamerican.com
Back in Montana working in the Fort Union Formation for the next couple weeks! It’s my first time leading my own fieldwork and we’re already off to a great start! #FossilFriday
Need to predict an unknown trait, like body size, for extinct species? Use phylogenies! A new paper by colleagues from the @uniofreading.bsky.social and Montana State demonstrates that phylogenetic prediction is more accurate than regression formulae. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Phylogenetically informed predictions outperform predictive equations in real and simulated data - Nature Communications
Phylogenetically informed predictions account for phylogenetic relationships among species while predicting unknown trait values. Here, the authors critically compare this approach with equations deri...
doi.org
MSU alumna Lauren Wilson leads a study uncovering evidence that birds nested in the Cretaceous Arctic alongside non-avian dinosaurs! 🦖🐦Several MSU alumni were involved in this research project, including MOR Research Associate Dr. Chris Organ. Read more: www.montana.edu/news/24599/r...
Research by Montana State alumna reveals birds nested in the Cretaceous Arctic alongside non-avian dinosaurs
The evidence, published this week in the journal Science, was found in 73-million-year-old fossils discovered on Alaska’s North Slope.
montana.edu
Can’t get enough Cretaceous Arctic baby birds? ❄️🐣 Me neither! Check out the talk I gave at the Royal Tyrrell Museum! I not only get into what types of birds were living in northern Alaska 73 million years ago, but also the crazy Arctic fieldwork we do to actually find the fossils! #FossilFriday
Cretaceous Arctic Birds from the Prince Creek Formation of Northern Alaska
YouTube video by Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
youtu.be
Tiny bone fragments from Alaska are revealing how and when birds first reached the highest latitudes on Earth.
First evidence of ancient birds nesting above the Arctic circle
Tiny bone fragments from Alaska suggest birds started breeding and nesting in the Arctic 30 million years earlier than previously thought
newscientist.com
What are those tiny fossils? They're birds. That just hatched. That lived in the Arctic. 73 million years ago. And thus: polar bird nesting colonies are not new, but a long-term norm of Earth history. My take @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Birds were nesting in the Arctic during age of dinosaurs, scientists discover
Minuscule fossils from 73m years ago are oldest evidence yet for birds nesting in polar regions
theguardian.com
Ready for tiny birds from above the Arctic Circle? Our new paper on the Cretaceous origins of Arctic nesting drops today in Science. This project was led by @lnwilson.bsky.social and features amazing fossils recovered by Pat Druckenmiller’s field program in the Prince Creek Formation of Alaska.
Exceptional new fossils from northern Alaska reveal birds lived and nested alongside non-avian dinosaurs in Arctic Alaska long before the radiation of modern birds after the end-Cretaceous extinction. Learn more this week in Science: scim.ag/3Ss2yrw
Millions of birds nest in the Arctic each year. But did you know they’ve been doing this since the Cretaceous? Can’t believe I finally get to share that our paper on the birds of the Prince Creek Formation is out in @science.org (and on the cover)! 🧵 Art: Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social
Fishes from the Upper Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation, North Slope of Alaska & their palaeobiogeographical significance onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... #PapersinPalaeontology
Ever heard of Alaskan salmon? Well before we celebrated ‘Fat Bear Week’, Sivulliusalmo alaskensis, meaning "first salmon of Alaska" in Iñupiaq, was swimming in the Late Cretaceous rivers of northern Alaska! 🧵
Happy 5th birthday to Stellasaurus! My super cool husband named Stellasaurus ancellae for longtime Museum of the Rockies field paleontologist and fossil preparator Carrie Ancell, who found and prepped the holotype skull. Simply put, Carrie is one of the best fossil preparators ever!
We’re at #SICB2025! Check out @lnwilson.bsky.social’s poster today and PI Chris Griffin’s talk tomorrow morning (8:30 am, International Salon 1-2)
