Kai Caspar

Result from the Wadi al Hitan #paleostream!
The "valley of the whales" as it is better known is a classic locality from the late Eocene of Egypt. Most famously it is place filled with the remains of early whales, Archaeoceti, but it's less straight forward as a piece than one...

Vector illustration of Birbalomys sondaari, a large squirrel-like ctenodactyloid rodent from Eocene South Asia, leaping towards the viewer, landing on its front feet. The animal is dark brown with a grey underbelly and bright orange cheeks

#marchofthemammals2026 Day 6: A leaping Birbalomys sondaari! Part of a pretty mysterious and obscure early radiation of rodents

I would disagree, given how rampant convergence in locomotor adaptations seems to be among apes (including ones related to bipedalism). Claiming this femur is that of a hominin requires complex assumptions, so that I think it's reasonable to take alternative explanations seriously.

Shared from my PhD lab’s WhasApp chat, how a journal published a paper about the Arctic fox which is 100% an AI hallucination, and journal isn’t retracting it.

www.canids.org/resources/Le...

Damn depressing how fake science and AI is increasingly flooding real science and real work.

What data do you feel are dismissed here?

Bird skeletons in a museum collection. Cassowary in focus.

3D-printed endocast of a nightjar. Segmented by students as part of the course.

Brain of a Nile crocodile - as the extant sister group to birds, crocodilians featured prominently in the course.

Hyacinth macaw taking a bath at Wuppertal zoo.

The last 3 weeks I spent teaching a special new course on bird ecology & behavior: From phylogeny to neurology & behavioral observations; visiting birds in the field, collections, zoos, & labs. Only possible thanks to dedidacted students & support from many excellent colleagues - awesome experience!

My two cents: Just as with previous Graecopithecus papers arguing for a hominin status and "Out of Europe", we are dealing with highly ambiguous data here and considering ape locomotor diversity, parallel evolution of bipedal habits in the Miocene might further complicate the story.

Thoughts?

The genome of the relict earless monitor lizard, Lanthanotus borneensis, and the Toxicofera hypothesis - BMC Biology Background The earless monitor lizard, Lanthanotus borneensis, is a unique living fossil restricted to the island of Borneo and a possible key to understanding the evolution of the venom delivery syst...

This is really interesting. There is evidence for strong natural selection on titin (striated muscle elastic component) in snakes and other Squamata/Toxicofera -- especially in wide-gaped snakes. Which makes sense biomechanically. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A close-up of a dark seabird with a long hooked bill, dark blue eye, and a bright turquoise throat patch. Photographed in La Jolla, California.

A Brandt’s Cormorant rocking that electric blue!

#birds #nature #wildlife #photography

Sample images of worker ants of different sizes at various magnifications: 3D models (top) and section views of the heads of four ants (bottom)

#Digitalization: The “Antscan” web platform is the world’s largest digital database of 3D #insect data. It is the result of an international and interdisciplinary cooperation initiated by #KITKarlsruhe and the @oistedu.bsky.social in Japan. www.kit.edu/kit/english/...

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea The chances of finding one mammal species thought to be lost was ‘almost zero’ and finding two is ‘unprecedented’, biologist Tim Flannery says

"Two charismatic marsupial species that had been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West Papua."

Oh yeah this is super cool as both the pygmy long-fingered possum and ring-tailed glider were previously only known from fossils 🤯🧪🐀
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Even more excited — our paper is featured on the cover of Science Advances!

Huge thanks to @alexandrejan.bsky.social who took this incredible photo of a ctenophore (aka comb jelly) and the editors.

Here’s the cover 👇

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congrats - all the best for things to come!

Result from the Koobi Fora #paleostream! This region on the east side of modern day Lake Turkana in Kenya is a treasure trove for fossils of the early Pleistocene and is most famous for many early human remains, with up to 6 species present throughout the layers...

✨ Starting a new postdoc ✨
I will study decision-making in great tits with @mothprof.bsky.social at the University of Amsterdam, conducting fieldwork with @jmappes.bsky.social in Finland. Very excited about this new adventure! 🤩

Plesiosauria: A Systematic and Taxonomic Overview Comprehensive systematic and taxonomic overview of Plesiosauria, including valid taxa and nomina dubia based on recent data, with detailed taxon listings.

I’m excited to share a new project that I hope will be a valuable resource for the paleo community!

I'm working on a textbook about plesiosaurs and compiled a comprehensive overview of all currently valid plesiosaur taxa and some nomina dubia. 1/3
www.sachspal.de/plesiosauria/

#FossilFriday

Just saw the incredibly sad news that Hans-Dieter Sues has passed away. Beyond his major contributions to paleontology, in all my interactions with him over the years, he was a stellar human being. He took great joy in life and in being a paleontologist. I learned so much from him.

Postdoc Position in Animal Behaviour Does intergroup conflict shape intragroup (parochial) prosociality in primates? If so, what behavioural, neuroendocrine, and (epi)genetic mechanisms drive it.

#Postdoc #Job opportunity in #AnimalBehaviour with Jorg Massen at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social. Check out the position here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

The few observations that I have made are necessarily imperfect, but I send them, as they afford a method which might lead a naturalist to notice habits otherwise difficult to observe, and so to arrive at conclusions which I in my ignorance of natural history must leave to others. C. V. Bovs

We just don't end papers like this any more. Maybe the world would be better if we did?

⚒️🧪

Thank you - much appreciated!

Just got my hot-off-the-press copy of the new edition of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, written by @tetzoo.bsky.social and yours truly, with gorgeous new cover art from @bobnichollsart.bsky.social: finally, a sauropodomorph on the cover 🦕🦕🦕 On sale soon!

I see! Yes, this could well be relevant for families huddling together in the main chamber of the burrow system. I'm not aware of studies on this in the wild (esp. in naked mole-rats, which are very well-established in labs by now but remain understudied in the wild)

The hypoxia tolerance of eight related African mole‐rat species rivals that of naked mole‐rats, despite divergent ventilatory and metabolic strategies in severe hypoxia Aims Burrowing mammals tend to be more hypoxia tolerant than non-burrowing mammals and rely less on increases in ventilation and more on decreases in metabolic rate to tolerate hypoxia. Naked mole-r...

I would be surprised if that was the case specifically for naked mole-rats - all African mole-rats show exceptional tolerance to hypoxia/hypercapnia. But mole-rats as a group might have evolved somewhat elongated HA to counter hypoxia-related oxidative stress.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Here’s a selection of some incredible prehistoric beaked whales you’ve never heard of!

#paleoart

1/3 It seems that otters outperform chimpanzees in a well-known anticipation task.

This test uses a Y-shaped tube and is renowned for demonstrating the ability to predict an uncertain future with mutually exclusive possibilities

(preprint) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
by @sharinade.bsky.social

Cool investigation of hyaluronan - a substance that has led to much discussion in our lab over the years - & skin biomechanics in subterranean & surface dwelling species 👇

Fukomys mole-rats huddling

This has been a fun integrative study very long in the making co-led by @sabinebegall.bsky.social and HA expert Delphine del Marmol (not on Bluesky). Always a pleasure to return to the mole-rats! (8/8)

Ansell's mole-rat, held by a human. Loose skin on the back is obvious. Photo by Sarah M. Wilms.

In any case, the idea of increased skin elasticity in burrowing mammals is not supported. Has elasticity been confused with skin looseness (adherence to underlying muscles) in the past? Perhaps, but whether skin looseness is remarkable in burrowers also needs to be tested (not trivial to do) (7/8)