Lizzy Steell

Meet the ‘Old Mother Goose’ from NZ’s subtropical prehistoric past The newly described fossil goose Meterchen luti lived alongside crocodilians and turtles on the shores of the ancient Lake Manuherikia.

You can also read about our research in this @aunz.theconversation.com piece theconversation.com/meet-the-old... 13/13

Welcome to the world Meterchen luti, the St Bathans goose that lived in subtropical New Zealand 14-19 Mya (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....), making it ten waterfowl species that lived around the giant palaeolake Manuherikia. Artwork by Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa CC BY-NC-SA. 1/13 🧵

Check out the new bowerbird special issue in Emu - Austral Ornithology!

Lots of interesting new #bowerbird research, featuring a fancy flame bowerbird on the cover!

Check out our review on the origins and functions of bower construction behaviour here: doi.org/10.1080/0158...

Say👋 to *Gorgonavis alcyone*, the newest enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of Spain✨🐦

We welcome here the 1st adult cranial remains of a bird from the fossil site of Las Hoyas, and the 1st longipterygid out of China...

Thread!!🧵👇

Paleart by Roc Olivé

🚨 For those with access to collections of bird specimens: we are looking for collaborators who can quickly measure bulbuls/greenbuls (Pycnonotidae) for a project on intraspecific trait variation. We need 100s specimens measured from common species in return for co-authorship. Anyone up for it? 🧪🌐🪶

This #FossilFriday I am delighted to share a postdoctoral position that we @deeptimeecology.bsky.social @camzoology.bsky.social are advertising on early animal evolution in the #Ediacaran.

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/postdoc...

Mandibular morphology clarifies phylogenetic relationships near the origin of crown birds - BMC Ecology and Evolution Background The phylogenetic relationships of fossil birds near the origin of the avian crown group remain debated, in part due to a limited amount of character evidence from incomplete fossils. The av...

🚨NEW PAPER OUT🚨
The anatomy of bird lower jaw bones has been understudied...until now! Here, we examine avian mandibular anatomy, answering some and raising more questions about the phylogenetic affinities of key early crown-group birds. Read on!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Join us at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. We’re searching for an Assistant Professor in Biology. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Don't forgot your fossil friends on Penguin Awareness Day. Here's the skull of Eudyptes warhami, an extinct crested penguin from the Chatham Islands. Its such an interesting species that it's features on a NZ coin!

Read more here:
fossilpenguins.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/a...

Beyond excited to announce that as of today I officially started a Ramón y Cajal 5-year senior fellowship (tenure-track) at University of Alcalá in Madrid, if you are interested in birds & vertebrate macroevolution & you like sun & good food, hit me up to explore postdoc or PhD opportunities!

Our paper re-evaluating the notosuchian Eremosuchus elkoholicus is out now! This work formed a chapter of my PhD thesis, and sheds some light on the complex evolutionary history of sebecid crocodyliforms 🐊🌎
@es-ucl.bsky.social

Save Geology at the University of Leicester Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?

The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure

Please show your support by signing the below!

c.org/KtYyZB8dHk

I reviewed The Tree of Life by @maxjtelford.bsky.social for @natecoevo.nature.com 🌳
You can access my review for free here: rdcu.be/eOcYY

Eurasian Jay posing for the camera this weekend ☺️ #birding #photography

Ancient bone discovered in New Zealand – and scientists are amazed at what it may belong to | Discover Wildlife The small foot bone, unearthed in Central Otago, is millions of years old.

www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts...

Wooohooo congratulations!!!!

A tiny fossil suggests bowerbirds once lived in ancient New Zealand – new research New Zealand’s ancient bowerbird was smaller and more slender than the species living in Australia and New Guinea today.

What better way to finish off #FossilFriday than to read about the latest discovery from St Bathans of a possible Miocene bowerbird in Aotearoa #NewZealand theconversation.com/a-tiny-fossi... @lizzysteell.bsky.social

Bowerbirds are Australo-Papuan birds engaging in some of the most flamboyant displays among vertebrates, and they might have been in New Zealand - Aotearoa in the Miocene too!

Amazing descriptive research with a tinge of quantitative flair lead by @lizzysteell.bsky.social

Check it out!

👇

A tiny fossil suggests bowerbirds once lived in ancient New Zealand – new research New Zealand’s ancient bowerbird was smaller and more slender than the species living in Australia and New Guinea today.

Check out our @aunz.theconversation.com article covering the St Bathans #bowerbird story!

theconversation.com/a-tiny-fossi...

@nicrawlencenz.bsky.social @atennyson.bsky.social @plubbe.bsky.social

Welcome to the world Aevipertidus gracilis - the gracile one from a lost age. 14-19 Mya ancient #NewZealand appears to have had a bowerbird. Check out this amazing research mahi led by Elizabeth Steell (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....). Artwork by Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa CC-BY-SA. 1/9 🧵

I think the NZ Miocene holds many more surprises for the passerine fossil record. Stay tuned for more discoveries! (11/11).

These passerine lineages, as well as Aeviperditus gracilis, probably represent lineages that dispersed out of Australia during the Oligocene and Miocene, but not all survived in NZ. Aeviperditus means 'lost through the ages' - it came from a distant land but went extinct before the present. (10/11)

Aeviperditus gracilis is one piece in the puzzle to understanding NZ's ancient biodiversity. NZ is home to several endemic passerine families that arrived there early in passerine evolutionary history, but most families have not been found in the fossil record as of yet. (9/11)

Passerines from Miocene St Bathans are not well known or described, because passerine morphology is difficult to work with. The bones are mostly tiny, passerines are so diverse (~6000 living species), and key features of each group are poorly known. There's a lot more work to be done. (8/11)

We estimated the mass of A. gracilis at ~33g, which would make it the smallest of all bowerbirds. Living bowerbirds range from ~62g-292g. Our fossil bird would be about the same size as the NZ Bellbird, but with longer feet.

📸 New Zealand Bellbird. © Daniel J. Field @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social
(7/11)

Aeviperditus gracilis has a foot most similar to the avenue bowerbird clade. Bowerbirds are famous for their colourfully decorated bowers, which males of many species build to attract mates.

📸 Satin Bowerbird at his avenue bower decorated in blue. © Daniel J. Field @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social

(6/11)

A trait similarity analysis revealed it was very similar in shape to the bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae) from Australia and New Guinea, which are not endemic in New Zealand or known from the NZ fossil record! (5/11)

Unfortunately it was broken at the proximal end, but the proportions are long and gracile, hence 'gracilis' in the species name. We compared it to all the endemic NZ passerine species, but nothing was similar. Scratching our heads, we looked further afield to Australian species. (4/11)

Our new fossil was described from a single 3D well preserved foot (tarsometatarsus). The bone is from a small passerine, and only measures about ~3cm in length. Micro-CT scanning meant we could study it in greater detail than under a microscope. (3/11)