Double preprint alert! 🚨 Jaws: Baby shark 🦈 We used micro-CT scanning to examine the tessellated calcified cartilage in the jaws of 10 young chondrichthyans in 3D. We found some surprises—like chunky trabeculae in a baby nurse shark! Many thanks to all my co-authors for their help and support!

Early Ontogenetic Development of Tessellated Calcified Cartilage in Chondrichthyans

Tessellated calcified cartilage (TCC) is a hallmark of the chondrichthyan skeleton, yet its development early in ontogeny across the four major groups (batoids, galeomorphs, squalomorphs, and holoceph...

biorxiv.org

🚨New Pub!🚨A new Late Devonian dipnoan from the Ketleri Formation of Latvia🦴🇱🇻by Clement et al. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A new Late Devonian dipnoan from the Ketleri Formation of Latvia

Dipnoans (lungfishes) reached their peak of taxonomic diversity and morphological disparity during the Devonian Period, followed by a pronounced decline in both thereafter. The Late Devonian (Famen...

tandfonline.com

🧪 The latest from the Origin of Tetrapods project! For decades our Latvian colleagues have been excavating at Pavari, a Devonian locality yielding the tetrapod Ventastega. Here's a new lungfish from the same fauna, described by @draliceclement.bsky.social and the rest of us.

Dr Alice Clement@draliceclement.bsky.social · 3w ago

New #lungfish just dropped! Welcome to the world, Jumisodus latus, a #Devonian lungfish from the Famennian of #Latvia! Named for the Latvian figure 'Jumis', god of fertility and harvest, whose symbol represents the tooth plate outline in this new taxon... www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New #lungfish just dropped! Welcome to the world, Jumisodus latus, a #Devonian lungfish from the Famennian of #Latvia! Named for the Latvian figure 'Jumis', god of fertility and harvest, whose symbol represents the tooth plate outline in this new taxon... www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A new Late Devonian dipnoan from the Ketleri Formation of Latvia

Dipnoans (lungfishes) reached their peak of taxonomic diversity and morphological disparity during the Devonian Period, followed by a pronounced decline in both thereafter. The Late Devonian (Famen...

tandfonline.com

🎉 Registration for PalAss 2026 is officially OPEN! 🦖🦴 We are delighted to announce that registration for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association is now open! 🎓✨ 📍 University of Oxford, UK 📅 8–11 December 2026 ⬇️ palass.org/annual-meeti...

A great week spent in the #Stockholm Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, photographing, scanning and loaning beautiful fish fossils. Big thanks Vivi, Thomas, Therese and Ashley for all your help 🙏🏾 #museum #fossils

🧪I'm delighted to present a new open-access paper from our team, describing the contents of a fish coprolite assemblage from the beginning of the Late Devonian, about 382-380 million years old, in northern Russia. Data collected in happier days before the war. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Investigating a Devonian vertebrate assemblage with synchrotron microtomography of coprolites - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Investigating a Devonian vertebrate assemblage with synchrotron microtomography of coprolites

nature.com

Sifra Bijl nails her thesis "Step into the Synchrotron Light: Microanatomy and Evolutionary Adaptations of the Appendicular Skeleton of Palaeozoic Sarcopterygians" to the wall. The "Spikning" is a tradition for PhD students once they are ready to defend their thesis, as Sifra will on June 12th.

To celebrate the 100th birthday of the greatest living natural history broadcaster: a fantastic rap collage by Arthur Newton, the son of two of my closest friends from university days. Enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4m1...

David Rappin'borough

YouTube video by Arthur Newton

youtube.com

Last week was a blast at Uppsala. I gave a seminar talk, chatted to so many brilliant palaeos, and enjoyed the Swedish Valborg festival that welcomes Spring. One of the highlights of the PhD journey. Huge thanks to @perahlberg.bsky.social @captain-colosteid.bsky.social and others not on bluesky

Annual update on the Mars Expedition: No Tetrapods yet. We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of Tripods.

Out now in Contributions from me and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social, a deep dive into an early member of the sturgeon and paddlefish lineage. Bear with me, but there’s a long backstory highlighting uncertainty about the anatomy of living species and how well-studied fossils can still yield new insights.

Thrilled to have been a part of this project and the accompanying (but slightly younger and much bigger) Megamastax. The osteichthyan stem group is coming into focus!🧪

Henry Gee 亨利·纪@endofthepier.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Meet Eosteus, a tiny bony fish from the Silurian - paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Megamastax, a mighty chew from the Silurian - paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Largest Silurian fish illuminates the origin of osteichthyan characters - Nature

New findings from articulated head and trunk material of Megamastax amblyodus yield previously unseen morphological details of a Silurian stem osteichthyan.

nature.com

This paper carries a special satisfaction for me. Years ago, Donglei Chen and I discovered small tooth-bearing elements in Silurian vertebrate micro-residues (obtained by dissolving rock in acid) of the stem osteichthyans Andreolepis and Lophosteus. We worked out that they must be the inner dental

Henry Gee 亨利·纪@endofthepier.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Megamastax, a mighty chew from the Silurian - paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The second reports a tiny (~3 cm) articulated fish from the early Silurian. The material is challenging, but it is unquestionably a bony fish. Fittingly named Eosteus, it co-occurs with the oldest articulated jawed fishes and cements the antiquity of osteichthyans. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The oldest articulated bony fish from the early Silurian period - Nature

A tiny, articulated, near-complete osteichthyan from the early Silurian Chongqing Lagerstätte, represents the oldest osteichthyan occurrence including microfossils, and the earliest articulated remain...

nature.com

Osteichthyans--the bony fishes--are by far the most diverse group of living jawed vertebrates. Two papers out today in @nature.com feature remarkable new Chinese fossils that paint a picture of substantial morphological diversity among stem osteichthyans.

Following on from our post yesterday, we are honoured to announce that we will be hosting the 19th International Symposium on Early and Lower Vertebrates (ISELV) meeting here in Uppsala in 2027! #ISELV #ISELV19 #ISELVUppsala #fossilfriday

This February, the Uppsala team attended and presented at the 18th ISELV in Berrechid, Morocco, sharing our research with the global early vertebrate community #ISELV18 @iselv18.bsky.social

#ISELV18 was incredible, even the parts that weren't early vertebrates related! #morocco #fossils

Vanavond in het 8 uur journaal over ons nieuwe onderzoek waarin wij ontdekten dat mosasauriërs ook in rivieren voorkwamen! #aardwetenschappen #paleontologie #mosasaurus @vuamsterdam.bsky.social @uuvertpalaeo.bsky.social @ndgspaleo.bsky.social @perahlberg.bsky.social @boydpaleo.bsky.social

Here it is! The #news of the week comes from two of our PIs, Mattias Jakobsson & the #humanevolution program, #UppsalaUniversity. Congratulations! www.uu.se/en/news/2025... #humanpast #genetics #Africa #AncientSouthernAfricans

Ten-thousand-year-old genomes from southern Africa change picture of human evolution – Uppsala University

uu.se

Go my Bothriolepis... This year's fish pecan pie! Bothriolepis was a peculiar-looking placoderm from the Devonian period or the Paleozoic. It had two long pointed pectoral fins and silly little eyes on top of its head. #fossil #fish #paleontology #bothriolepis

The hidden pattern of the primary teeth in an ancestral ray-finned fish provides a clue to how the strange lungfish dentition could have evolved simply by modifying the growth mode of bone. More information in this newly published piece from @uuvertpalaeo.bsky.social here: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

A team from our lab recently joined fieldwork organised by the University of Latvia, helping to excavate fossils from the Devonian, including armoured fish (Placoderms) and early tetrapods in western Latvia. #fossilfriday #paleontology

"It is by love alone that we understand anything" -The birth of Bran, James Stephens A new study comes from the questions you love to ask. My question "How do vertebral building blocks come together to make different anatomies?" inspired this project ❤️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Could a slab of ancient Australian rock rewrite everything we thought we knew about the origin of land-dwelling vertebrates? @perahlberg.bsky.social , @evobiouppsala.bsky.social @uuvertpalaeo.bsky.social , discusses: faculti.net/earliest-amn... #natural sciences

Could a slab of ancient Australian rock rewrite everything we thought we knew about the origin of land-dwelling vertebrates? @perahlberg.bsky.social , @evobiouppsala.bsky.social @uuvertpalaeo.bsky.social , discusses: faculti.net/earliest-amn... #natural sciences

‼️To all early vertebrate enthusiasts‼️ The 18th International Symposium on Early and Lower Vertebrates #ISELV will be held in Berrechid, Morocco on 3-8 February 2026! 🐟🦈🦎🦴 We look forward to hosting you there! For more info, see our website (link in bio) #fish #vertebrate #palaeontology #fossils

Back in Sweden to receive my diploma at the Uppsala University doctoral conferment ceremony, followed by a reception at Gustavianium and banquet at the Castle was incredibly special. I think it is only now dawning on me that I really did it, I really am Dr Melanie During.