🦈🦈 🦈 For #sharkweek and #FossilFriday, here are 3 remarkable Late Cretaceous shark species of Ptychodus from Alabama. Left: P. polygyrus (rare), middle: P. rugosus (very rare), and right: P. mortoni (fairly common). 😲 Paleontology collection, The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections

🦀🦀🦀 #FossilFriday! Last year, we described a new species of frog crab: Raninoides danicus. This ~65.4 million-year-old crab lived in central Alabama, mostly buried except for the eyes and antennae. 3D model of holotype @ The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections. #paleontology #crab

#FossilFriday‼️ 😲 Who does not like a well-preserved, large Cretaceous oyster like this Exogyra ponderosa? This one comes even with a repair scar! Campanian-aged Demopolis Formation, Alabama. Specimen: The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections. #paleontology #fossil

#FossilFriday‼️🐚 These gastropods lived in central Alabama ~65.4 million years ago. The left one (Mesalia) has no shell preserved but only the infilling, whereas the right one (Straticostatum) has its shell preserved. Paleo @ The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections. #paleontology

#FossilFriday! It is just a single bone, but this new mosasaur vertebrae from the ~82 million-year-old Mooreville Chalk of Greene County, Alabama, is a reminder that Alabama is one of the global mosasaur hotspots. 😀 Paleontology collection of The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections

#FossilFriday! 😀 Plenty of fossils can be found on the University of Alabama campus from plants to marine animals. Here's one of the them from the Mississippian-aged (325 Ma) Bangor Limestone of north Alabama: a fossil nautiloid used in a building stone of Jones Hall. #paleontology #cephalopod

New paper alert‼️Surprisingly found 7 early Paleocene marine snake vertebrae a couple years ago. In a paper led by Abhishek Natarajan, they were described as a new genus and species: Parapalaeophis jeffshawi gen. et sp. nov. #FossilFriday Read news article here: tiny.cc/uil4101

#FossilFriday‼️ Two Late Cretaceous (~82 million-year-old) coprolites from the Mooreville Chalk of Alabama. These are likely mosasaur turds. We have hundreds of coprolites in the fossil collection of the UA Museums Research & Collections, some with inclusions. 😀 Collectors: Tad Rust & Jim Braswell.

🦈‼️Cretaceous shark discovery: 4 teeth are well-visible but can you find the 5th? These teeth belong to Cretalamna, and found in the Mooreville Chalk of Dallas County, Alabama. Vertebrae and some teeth of the same animal showed up in the same spot 18 months ago! 😲 #fossil #paleontology #FossilFriday

‼️#FossilFriday ‼️A large (48cm/19") Late Cretaceous ammonite Placenticeras was found within an Alabama creek (tadpoles atop!) in 2025 and fully prepared in 2026. 😀 The ammonite's phragmocene, body chamber, and a nacreous shell layer are preserved. Discovery and prep: George Martin. Specimen: UAMRC

‼️Student Highlight & #FossilFriday‼️ Finishing PhD candidate Chelsea Comans used Cretaceous shark teeth from Alabama to figure out their diet by analyzing their enamel. 🦈 Check out the video below! Specimens: The University of Alabama Museums Research & Collections. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxvW...

What did Cretaceous Sharks eat?

YouTube video by UA Museums

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Student highlight‼️ UA Blount Scholars paleontology intern Marjorie Smedley completed her internship. Final project: fully curating a collection of >650, recently donated, Mississippian-aged echinoderms. Here she's holding Agaricocrinus americanus from Alabama. Collector: Jessica Cost #FossilFriday‼️

#FossilFriday‼️ Last week, paleontology student intern Idelle Burgess presented a research poster at URCA on repair scars preserved in Late Cretaceous oysters from the Gulf Coast. Most repairs occur in larger oyster size classes, and we suspect large crabs to be the main culprit. 🦀 #paleontology

#FossilFriday‼️ Birmingham Paleontological Society member Garrett Skurka found mosasaur remains at UA's Harrell Station in central Alabama. Mooreville Chalk, Late Cretaceous (~82 Ma). These two vertebrae were added to the one collected last year at the same spot. Will more show up in the future?

#FossilFriday‼️🐳 Jaw with serrated teeth of the late Eocene (~35 Mya) whale Zygorhiza kochii from southern Alabama. This is a smaller whale species than the giant Alabama state fossil, the whale Basilosaurus cetoides. UA Museums Research & Collections paleontology collection. Collector: Mark Uhen

Student discovery alert‼️Students in my Paleontology & Society class in the Blount Scholars Program found some neat Cretaceous fossils at Harrell Station. Abby found a rudist bivalve piece and Easten a large bony fish vertebra! 😀 #FossilFriday & celebrating Honors Day at The University of Alabama.

Paleo Video Alert ‼️Over the last years, I worked with Kayla Jordan and 7 other students on curating and digitizing an historic part of the fossil invertebrates at the U of Alabama collections. We photographed ~155,000 specimens in ~1500 records. 🐚  #FossilFriday www.youtube.com/watch?v=tScH...

Curating and Digitizing the Paleontology Collections

YouTube video by UA Museums

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Taxonomist Appreciation Day post I am in freakin' AWE of people doing primary taxonomic work. To do it well, you need deep scholarship to track past naming (and misnaming) efforts. You may need to hunt down specimens only to discover they are damaged, misindentified, or lost. 1/3

🐟 Bony fish discovery‼️ During my class field (Paleontology & Society) trip this Pachyrhizodus caninus jaw of 11" (28 cm) was found. Upper Cretaceous (lower Campanian, ~82 Ma) Mooreville Chalk, central Alabama. Discovered by George Martin. University of Alabama Museums paleo coll. #FossilFriday!!

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Barbara Kleine-Marshall@barbaraikm.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We are looking for 6 motivated Postdocs interested in various aspects of Earth system sciences. More information here: fau-earth-system-science.github.io #geochemistry

🦐 Research News‼️What is fossil crustacean cuticle composed of? Research led by my colleague Russell Bicknell shows that calcium and phosphorus are the dominant elements for most surveyed specimens, including this shrimp, but one had lots of carbon! Article: hdl.handle.net/2246/7530 #FossilFriday

🦈 ‼️Very rare fossil shark tooth discovery last year in Alabama. A Late Cretaceous, in-situ tooth of Ptychodus rugosus in near perfect condition. We have less than 10 teeth of this rare crushing shark species in the University of Alabama Museums paleontology collection. #FossilFriday #shark #fossil

🦀 Crabby #FossilFriday‼️ Remarkably well-preserved claw of a crab from the Paleocene of Alabama. This is a propodus and dactylus of the family Palaeoxanthopsidae. Members of this family lived during the latest Cretaceous - early Eocene. 🦀 University of Alabama Museums Paleontology collection.

#FossilFriday student highlight‼️Last semester, undergraduate student Idelle Burgess did a Blount Scholars museum internship in paleontology. She prepared a Late Cretaceous turtle from Alabama and did other curation projects. Idelle also did a research project that is continuing into this semester. 🙂

#FossilFriday at the University of Alabama Museums' Department of Museum Research & Collections‼️ This nice nautiloid, Cimomia haltomi, found in Paleocene rocks from Alabama shows the infilled air chambers. Found and donated by an avocational paleontologist! 😀 #fossil #paleontology

#FossilFriday‼️ We have hundreds of unstudied Cretaceous bony fish and shark coprolites in the University of Alabama Museums paleontology collection. Some have bone inclusions visible from the outside. 😲 Here's a ~82 million-year-old shark turd I found at Harrell Station, Alabama, in 2025.

😀 It has been a while since posting last about mosasaurs, but this one was my second best Alabama mosasaur find of 2025. There is more of the jaw and skull but these are the best teeth. Late Cretaceous (Campanian). Specimen: University of Alabama Museums paleontology coll. #FossilFriday‼️ #fossil

🦀 #FossilFriday ‼️Concretions sometimes contain exquisitely preserved crustaceans. Here are some Eocene (~45 million-year-old) crabs from Oregon, USA. Collected, prepared, and donated by Bob Manley. Specimens: University of Alabama Museums' paleontology collection. #paleontology #fossil 🦀

🦀 🦞 🦐 Research alert‼️A special issue about arthropod paleontology was recently published in the Journal of Paleontology, honoring the late Dr. Rodney Feldmann. Specimens from the UA Museums' paleontology collection were also used. Read the short news story here: tinyurl.com/bdwp3v2j #FossilFriday

😲 Pterosaur discovery Alert‼️David Braswell found pterosaur vertebrae in ~82 million-year-old (Cretaceous) marls of Harrell Station Paleontological Site in Alabama at a trip I organized for the Alabama Paleo Society! These are now the first pterosaur vertebrae in UA's fossil collection. #FossilFriday