Happy to share this 'capstone' project from my time as a postdoc @umich.edu, where we show that hierarchically nested bursts of body-shape evolution may underlie much of perching-bird diversification over ~50 million years. Free access link here: rdcu.be/fuxB1

Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space

Nature Ecology & Evolution - A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of passerine body plans over the past ~50 Myr shows rare bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origin of major...

rdcu.be

New paper from @jakeberv.bsky.social harnesses a massive skeletal measurement dataset for passerines to show nested bursts in phenotypic evolution, many of which appear coincident with intervals of climate instability. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Especially given the breathtaking fossils and cool papers that have come from Skye of late, this sounds like a really cool position!

Richard Butler@richardjbutler.bsky.social · 3w ago

23 month research associate job now available with our team to work on Middle Jurassic mammals from Scotland. Requires strong experience with segmentation of CT data but does not require a PhD. Deadline for applications is 26th July. edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Typical evening. I can finally watch a soccer game I want to and the only goal is scored in the minute I see to the toddler who woke for said minute. On a brighter node: paper accepted.

🚨 #PREPRINT ALERT 🚨 Do gaps in the #fossil record bias phylogenetic inference? And do priors on gap duration improve estimates? Surprising results from the intersection of #stratigraphy, #paleontology and #phylogeny @rachelwarnock.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n

Phylogenetic inference from an incomplete fossil record

Fossil data is crucial to construct phylogenetic time trees, which serve as the basis to test a wide range of evolutionary hypotheses. While the fossil record is known to be incomplete, modern stratig...

biorxiv.org

1/12 🚨🚨 I am so excited to share chapter 1 of my dissertation, now preprinted here: biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We ask if are their fundamental, shared mechanisms that stop us from inferring the relationship of species and their timescale of divergence #biology #science

This is a great resource and primer to the topic! It was great fun to edit this one - more cool review papers in this series to come 😉

Stephan Spiekman@stephanspiekman.bsky.social · last mo.

New review paper with Martín Ezcurra just published in @journalsystpal.bsky.social as part of a special issue! Modern reptiles comprise archosaurs 🐊🦉, lepidosaurs🦎🐍, and turtles🐢, but their origins is murky. Where do turtles fit in, really? And most marine reptiles? Choristoderes? Drepanosaurs? ->

Technically, they’re Remains now.

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · last mo.

A fifth of Leave voters have died.

Legendary morphometrician Fred L. Bookstein (1947–2026) passed away (news by Hugo A. Benítez). Made the analysis of morphological shapes rigorous and mathematically justified. Paleontology here benefitted from the geometric morphometric innovations the most. 🧪 #EvoBio #Paleobio

New in @science.org ...since our first discoveries of early tetrapods, they have been thought of as "amphibians" characterized by aquatic larvae. But is this true? For the first time, we report exceptional fossils of stem tetrapod babies that upend this paradigm. 1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Direct development of stem tetrapods across the fin-to-limb transition

Modern amphibians are characterized by an aquatic larval stage that ends abruptly with a period of widespread tissue remodeling (metamorphosis) upon transition to terrestrial adulthood. A transient la...

science.org

Oh - the first one is out! I’m editing several of these systematic reviews, and am looking forward to seeing all other contributions :)

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology@journalsystpal.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Read the first review in our new special collection- Perspectives on the Systematics of Fossil Organisms: Challenges and Opportunities. A decade after Deuteropoda – insights into the systematics, evolution and dynamics of Cambrian euarthropods by Ortega-Hernández. 🔗 buff.ly/r4sZQez #PaleoSky

My kids like the right kind of animals 🐢❤️

Double satisfaction today: Important reptile phylo paper out, & my family & I reached Vienna - a cycle trip of more than 400km down the Danube fr where we started in 🇩🇪. In this stunning building (Natural History Museum), they house one of the coolest turtle fossils (Archelon) - just passing today.

The coolest paper I’ve been involved with in a while just dropped! 1. we have (plenty) morphological support for turtles+archosaurs. 2. Eunotosaurus is a millerettid stem reptile, no stem turtle. 3. Without clear fossorial precursors, the ecology of shell evolution needs to be revisited (aquatic!?)

Xavier A. Jenkins@semifossorial.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...

Very well-timed publication of my most recent work at @royalsociety.org Proc B showcasing the backbone of my future research at @stonybrooku.bsky.social! There is still much to learn about ray-finned fish neurocranial evolution and the diversity of ways brain and endocasts interact in this lineage!

The ray-finned fish blackbox: unprecedented morphological diversity and the interplay between brain and endocast

Abstract. Vertebrates are unique among animals as they bear a neurocranium, which almost completely encapsulates the brain. Thus, within vertebrates, the e

royalsocietypublishing.org

My new paper with @gdarlim.bsky.social and @hoehna.bsky.social is now out in Proceedings B! We set out to compare two different approaches to time-calibrate a molecular phylogeny: traditional node calibrations, and unresolved FBD... @royalsocietypublishing.org doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

How to date a molecular phylogeny: comparison of effective priors between node calibration and fossilized birth–death

Abstract. Time-calibrating a phylogenetic tree is a fundamental step in phylogenetic inference, as it allows the study of macroevolutionary processes such

doi.org

New paper! Thanks to John for initiating & leading this work, in which we describe the collumellae/stapes of sauropsids, including turtles 🐢, birds 🐦‍⬛, lepidosaurs 🐍 and crocs 🐊. "Clade-wide morphological and functional variation of the sauropsid columella" Open access: doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

Clade‐wide morphological and functional variation of the sauropsid columella

The columella (=stapes) is the middle ear bone of reptiles that transmits vibrations from the environment to the inner ear. It has been shown to exhibit extensive interspecific morphological disparit....

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

A partial skeleton of Temnodontosaurus cf. trigonodon in three-dimensional bone preservation from the upper Toarcian of Mistelgau, Germany zitteliana.pensoft.net/articles.php...

A partial skeleton of Temnodontosaurus cf. trigonodon in three-dimensional bone preservation from the upper Toarcian of Mistelgau, Germany

Temnodontosaurus, a large ichthyosaur from the Early Jurassic, was one of the first ichthyosaurs to be scientifically described as early as the 19th century. Over time, various large Toarcian ichthyos...

zitteliana.pensoft.net

Good to see that this specimen will reside in Brazil in the (hopefully near) future.

Paul Stewens@p-stewens.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The #fossil of Irritator challengeri is finally going back to Brazil after 35 years in Germany. This is a major event for #DecolonizeScience and the #restitution of natural history specimens. Let's talk about #IrritatorBelongstoBR. [1/17]

📢 Paper alert! Excited to share the first publication of my PhD!😁 We analysed fossil occurrences of the last 23 Ma to understand how geographic range change relates to extinction risk.🌍🐚🪸🦈 Keen to learn more? Here is the paper: 👉 dx.doi.org/10.1111/geb....

The Extinction Risk–Range Change Relationship: Evidence From the Fossil Record

Aim Climate change is a major driver for the wave of species extinctions predicted for this century. Extinction risk assessments are often estimated from climate-driven reductions in the geographic .....

dx.doi.org

If you're interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral (or any other) fellowship to come work with me @es-ucl.bsky.social on sauropod dinosaurs, crocodiles, fossil birds, past biodiversity patterns, and/or vertebrate conservation palaeobiology, please get in touch

This was actually my 50th peer-reviewed paper 😊 feels like a bit of a milestone, even though I know it’s just a number.

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology@journalsystpal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper out in JSP! Evers 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭 explore the inner ear labyrinth morphology of 𝙀𝙪𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙤𝙨𝙖𝙪𝙧𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙪𝙨 and compare it to other amniotes, revealing a shared ancestral labyrinth shape that persisted throughout the evolution of many reptile stem lineages. Read here: buff.ly/Ugds6Rx #PaleoSky

Finished Nothosaurus marchicus skull sculpture. Life size print, sculpted in #Blender. #paleoart #sciart

Ooo super cool! Look @fossilrob.bsky.social

Matthew Cobb@matthewcobb.bsky.social · 4mo ago

At last! Ediacarans and Cambrian animals in the same site! Amazing! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Also congratulations to Dr Juliette Menon, who defended her PhD today just after Guilherme. I supervised one of her chapters, but otherwise she was Walter Joyce‘s student 🐢

Very special day: congratulations to Dr. Guilherme Hermanson for defending his PhD today - my 1st PhD student 🥹This brings our Swiss SNSF Ambizione project to an official end - many papers still coming. Guilherme will start an own postdoc project joining @singerstone.bsky.social‘s lab 🐢

Postdoc in Macroevolution - Deadline April 12th - Join a team of Stuttgart botanists & myself to test drivers of Angiosperm diversification! Fully open process Submit cover letter, CV, 3 referees & publication list in a single PDF to postdoc-botany@smns-bw.de + 3 key papers (if possible) as PDF

Jobs | Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart

Offene Stellen

naturkundemuseum-bw.de

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.

New paper: we describe the inner ear anatomy of Eunotosaurus africanus, based on a specimen that has not been published previously. Open access @journalsystpal.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us