#MolluscMonday Specimen of the Late Triassic bivalve Rhaetavicula contorta mounted on the tablet used when this Triassic bivalve was displayed in the old British Museum (Natural History) invertebrate fossil gallery.
Paul D. Taylor
@nhmbryozoa.bsky.social
Invertebrate palaeontologist and bryozoologist at the Natural History Museum, London.
#FossilFriday Sponge labelled Toulminia bullatus with stalk and roots in the NHMUK collections. Collected from the Late Cretaceous Chalk somewhere in southern England.
#MolluscMonday Section of a high-spired gastropod fossil in a paving stone adjacent to the National Theatre, London. #PavementGeology
It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.
An ammonite enthusiast buying produce from the market in Coutras, France.
#FossilFriday Another of Johann Beringer’s peculiar ‘fossils’ carved by an unknown hand in Triassic Muschelkalk limestone. Exhibited at the Marienberg castle in Würzburg, Germany.
#TrilobiteTuesday Magnificent slab awash with trilobites from the Ordovician of Morocco. On display at the Palaeontological Museum in Oslo.
#MolluscMonday Small (<2 cm) glycymerid bivalve shell with characteristic taxodont dentition. Photographed on a building stone (almost certainly Oligocene Calcaire à astéries) in St Émilion, the famous centre for Bordeaux wine.
Happy #FossilFriday!! 🪸 📌This Carboniferous-aged (~325 mya) colonial coral Siphonodendron is from Barns Ness in Scotland! 📸Thanks to Craig Mellon for submitting this fossil! Want to see your fossil featured? Submit photos here: tinyurl.com/PSfossilfrid... #paleontology #fossil #Scotland
#FossilFriday Field photograph of a belemnite, partly wrapped in seaweed, eroding out of Lower Jurassic rocks on the Yorkshire coast. A human finger points to this ‘witch’s finger’, one of the multitude of folklore names coined for belemnites.
If you want an up-to-date summary of whale and dolphin evolution, have a read of my new review paper in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com! I’ve tried to cover as much research as possible in this, so apologies if I’ve missed you! doi.org/10.1038/s443...
The evolution and diversification of Cetacea - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Cetaceans are a highly diverse and enigmatic group of animals with a well-documented evolutionary history. This Review describes the macroevolutionary and palaeobiological history of Cetacea, from the...
doi.org
Pleased to find bryozoans on the menu at the Bastille Day lunch in La Barde.
#TrilobiteTuesday Missing its free cheeks, a distorted specimen of Ogygopsis from the Cambrian of Alberta, Canada. Paleontological Museum, Oslo.
I'm sorry to announce that Dr. David Pawson longtime curator of echinoderms at the USNM has passed away www.facebook.com/SIInvertebra...
Out today and freely accessible, our study showing the unexpectedly high diversity of hornerid cyclostome bryozoans around southern New Zealand. doi.org/10.1093/zool...
#MolluscMonday Sectioned gastropod in a paving stone from a square in Chartres, west of Paris. @pavementgeology
(1/8) For #FossilFriday – What can ~555-million-year-old fossils tell us about the earliest animal behaviors? Excited to share a new article with Blakely Webb, @chemosymbiosis.bsky.social, Bill Parker & @marydroser.bsky.social in Scientific Reports investigating evidence of motility in Spriggina
#FossilFriday Illustration from Charles Lyell’s ‘The Student’s Elements of Geology’ (1871) of the Coralline Crag (Pliocene) bryozoan Meandropora aurantium. The fractured colony in figure b shows growth banding, perhaps representing annual growth increments.
#TrilobiteTuesday Paraceraurus from the Ordovician of Asker. Impressive left genal spine and paired pygidial spines. Galleries of the Oslo Palaeontological Museum.
While Spain and Portugal battle it out in the football World Cup, the Iberian contest of the rudist limestones pits a red Ezcaray pavement in Spain against the floor of Porto railway station in Portugal.
I’m sure this old stone wall of a building in Aubeterre-sur-Dronne must have an interesting story to tell.
Spiky Productid Brachiopod #paleoart #brachiopod #3danimation #Blender3D #SciArt
#FossilFriday Weathered building stone of Late Cretaceous (Campanian) age full of bivalves (Pycdodonte), larger foraminifera (Orbitoides), the mould of a solitary coral, plus a few bryozoans. From the wall of the ice cream parlour at Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, Charente, France.
#TrilobiteTuesday Gigantopygus bodoni from the Cambrian of Morocco, on display at the Palaeontological Museum in Oslo. Obliquely photographed to minimise reflectance from the glass top of the cabinet.
@bsky.app #MolluscMonday External moulds of the Jurassic gastropod Aptyxiella portlandica in Portland Stone cladding a bridge at Kingston-upon-Thames.
Tubulipora liliacea is one of the more common Tubulipora species in Norway. It forms beautiful, upright lobes with zooids in connate rows, and living colonies are often light purple/violet-colored! Photo: Maria Grankvist Buhaug #Bryozoa #NorDigBryo
#FossilFriday Sections of the Carboniferous rugose coral Dibunophyllum bipartitum in black Frosterley Marble from County Durham at Peterborough Cathedral. This decorative limestone is seldom seen in churches as far south in England.
