Dr Orla Bath Enright

Prof. Daniela Schmidt

Prof. Barry Lomax

Prof. Phil Donoghue

#PalAss25 kicked of yesterday with our #ERC workshop! Three absolutely fantastic talks and panel discussion with expert speakers on academic publishing, grants and funding applications along with applying for jobs.

Congratulations Emily!! Fantastic news.

🚨Join our fantastic Panel of Speakers this evening at 1730 GMT to discuss the #LeverhulmeTrust Early Career Fellowship!

Registration open to all here 👇 us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

@thepalass.bsky.social

Join us in just over an hours time (1730 GMT) to hear from our panellists about their exciting career journeys! #PalAss

Register here 👇
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

🚨We have exciting new webinar series starting next Wednesday @1730 BST!

Join me as we discuss the #ERCStartingGrant with our panel speakers who have recently obtained this funding.

Anyone is welcome to join this webinar - register here 👇
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

🚨Check out our new paper! 🦠

Led by @taphonomist.bsky.social our experiments show the influence of endogenous bacteria in the early stages of decay.

Picture of a smiling Ichthyostega called Kevin. He is a chonk.

Very excited to announce that I will be joining the staff at @uniofreading.bsky.social in the new year.

Especially looking forward to working alongside Kevin the Ichthyostega and the team at the @colezoology.bsky.social as part of my new role.

Taphonomy of aquatic insects from the Crato Formation Lagerstätte (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) under an actualistic look The Crato Formation (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) is a fossiliferous deposit of global significance, representing a lacustrine palaeoenvironment which offers insights into aquatic insect taphonomy. Despi...

Really interesting and excellently executed taphonomic study alert!

The authours designed neat insect disarticualtion experiments to better understand preservational patterns of insect found in the Crato Formation, Brazil. 🪰🪳🦟

Very very cool work by Storari et al.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Understanding environmental impacts of plastic requires a palaeontological lens - Nature Ecology & Evolution Growing evidence suggests that timescales for plastic degradation have been vastly underestimated. The fossil record of plastic-like biopolymers might provide a perspective on plastic fossilization in...

Sarah Gabbott's @thepalass.bsky.social plenary talk has been living rent free inside my head ever since December so I'm delighted that she's written it up as a Comment for @natecoevo.nature.com: we need taphonomy to understand plastic pollution

rdcu.be/eAmRU

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out my little sisters work published in Nature Communications today! 👩‍🔬📃

Out today, our Nature cover debut! @stephanspiekman.bsky.social @she-paleo.bsky.social @nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com

Reconstruction and illustration of Mirasaura in its natural forested environment, hunting insects. Credit: Gabriel Ugueto

A paper in Nature describes a Triassic reptile with a crest of appendages on its back, which are neither feathers nor skin. The findings demonstrate that feathers or hair-like protrusions are not unique to birds and mammals. go.nature.com/4nZCySR #Paleosky 🧪

Unusual fossil skin appendage is not a feather Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers.

Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers

go.nature.com/3J0pOLt

Illustration showing a pair of Mirasaura perched on fern fronds. The green animals show their tall orange, brown and white crests while a small beetle flies over one of them

Here it is! Please welcome the AMAZING Mirasaura grauvogeli, a NEW MARVELOUS Drepanosaur published in NATURE today!
This astonishing reptile lived during the Middle Triassic in Europe and it possessed an amazing crest made of plume-like structures!

I was commissioned to bring it to life
#paleoart

My sister Orla and team just changed our understanding of the fossil record! 😍

Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

Check out our video for a wonderful illustration of #Mirasaura
@smnstuttgart.bsky.social

#Mirasaura brought me home to #Ireland during this work, where I could show my 92-year-old grandad these exceptionally preserved fossils. To which he replied, "It's just wonderful to see something older than me and age so well"
He couldn't be more right. ☘️ #FossilPreservation @nature.com

Analyses with @ucc.ie detected melanosomes within the crest's soft tissues. These resemble those in modern feathers more than those in reptilian skin or mammalian hair. This suggests the crest of #Mirasaura may have been pigmented and displayed visually 🌈 #FossilMelanosomes @she-paleo.bsky.social

Using #synchrotron imaging, the skull revealed a bird-like cranium with a narrow, mostly toothless snout. #Mirasaura was likely suited to feasting on insects in the early Triassic forests soon after the P-T mass extinction🌴🪳

#Mirasaura provides the first fossil evidence that such integumentary structures actually formed in early reptiles - distantly related to dinosaurs or birds. This pushes back the origin of these traits! #Evolution #FossilPreservation

This impressive crest of #Mirasaura had densely overlapping individual appendages with feather-like contours. But our work shows these are unlike true feathers and indicate an independent evolutionary origin 🦎🪶

🚨 So excited to finally share an incredible discovery from the #Triassic, Grès à Voltzia! Our international team, led by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and published today in @nature.com, reveals a new reptile, #Mirasaura grauvogeli, donning an elaborate crest 🦎🔬✨
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Using #synchrotron imaging, the skull revealed a bird-like cranium with a narrow, mostly toothless snout. #Mirasaura was likely suited to feasting on insects in the early Triassic forests soon after the P-T mass extinction🌴🪳

#Mirasaura provides the first fossil evidence that such integumentary structures actually formed in early reptiles - distantly related to dinosaurs or birds. This pushes back the origin of these traits! #Evolution #FossilPreservation

✨Tonight✨ we are kick starting our new and fully booked #ECR #PeerReview Training Programme with the wonderful help from our editorial officer and journal editors as review mentors!

✨Tomorrow✨ we have our panel discussion on "Careers in Palaeontology"

Join @thepalass.bsky.social to get involved!

Simplified flowchart illustrating generalised steps in palaeobiological research processes and the various factors that introduce inequity with regard to data collection, storage, study, analysis, publication, and reuse.

Delighted to share our paper on data equity in #palaeobiology as part of Paleobiology's 50th anniversary issue 🥳

We look at how palaeo data is collected, stored, curated & shared, and how equity in these processes is crucial for our field's future (1/n) 🧪⚒️

doi.org/10.1017/pab....

A great opportunity to join online and learn more about ichnology ⬇️
#ichnology #online #webinar

☎️Calling PalAss members! We have an exclusive webinar this Wednesday on our #EngagementGrant with expert panellists to answer all your questions.

💫Register using the link below