Isaac Kerr

Seen from the side, a four-legged mammal with a unique horn at the tip of its snout. Displayed as though walking; positioned in the middle of the room with fossil displays of other species on either side.

#FossilFriday Megacerops robustus, 38-34 mya, #SouthDakota, at the Yale Peabody Museum

Another case of island gigantism: the extinct Hodgens’ Waterhen (Tribonyx hodgenorum) is a member of Porzana (Aves: Rallidae) - Journal of Ornithology Tribonyx hodgenorum (Scarlett, Rec Canterb Mus 6:265–266, 1955) was a flightless rail (Rallidae) endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand that became extinct in the eighteenth century. The affinities of this r...

New #research out today led by George Sangster, with Trevor Worthy, Pascale Lubbe, Paul Scofield & myself.

Recently #extinct flightless #rail Hodgens' waterhen from #Aotearoa New Zealand is a 'giant' crake of the genus Porzana, rather than a nativehen of Tribonyx.

(📷 credits given in ALT text)

A close relative of the strange and very cute dorcopsins (forest-wallabies), today found only in New Guinea. They are very under-studied - we don't even know what they eat, much about how they move, etc.

A new fossil kangaroo species of the genus Dorcopsoides (Marsupialia, Macropodinae) from the late Miocene Ongeva Local Fauna, central Australia The kangaroo tribe Dorcopsini is represented today by six species of New Guinean forest-wallaby. However, the group has a patchy fossil record beginning on the Australian mainland in the upper Mioc...

NEW #RESEARCH WOOHOO
Here's our description of Dorcopsoides cowpatensis sp. nov., a little #fossil macropodine #kangaroo from the late Miocene Ongeva locality in central #Australia.
doi.org/10.1080/0311...

This would be such a huge loss to the biology community......

Once more some mammoths

Digital drawing of Anisodon grande, a species of chalicothere. It is a mammal with a somewhat horselike head, very long arms with large claws and very short hind limbs, giving it a sloping back and gorilla-like shape. The animal is coloured orange-brown with a white belly and has a small mane and a beard-like tuft of fur on its throat.

Midsummer cottage doodle: Anisodon grande, a wonderfully weird gorilla-horse from the Miocene of Europe.

I gave her a pacing gait as in camels and other animals with short torsos and long legs, where ordinary walking gait might cause the front and hind limbs to collide.

Ozboneviz: an Australian precedent in FAIR 3D imagery and extended biodiversity collections Abstract. Billions of specimens are in biodiversity collections worldwide, and this infrastructure is crucial for research on Earth's natural history. Thre

Today we’re publishing Ozboneviz, an open-access 3D atlas of Australian vertebrate (mostly mammal) bones: doi.org/10.1093/bios...

Earliest amniote tracks recalibrate the timeline of tetrapod evolution - Nature Analysis of a fossil trackway from the earliest Carboniferous of Australia shows prints of toes with claws, suggesting that the origin of amniotes was at least 35–40 million years earlier than pr...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

#tetrapods are older than we thought! Cool new #trackways #research in @nature.com from Flinders colleagues

Hit submit on two #fossil papers in two days, it feels goooood to have some fun new #research out soon(ish) on the funny little ancestral #kangaroo that is Dorcopsoides...

I agree though, we still know very little. Especially with regards to the variation within Sthenurinae, which often gets treated as a unit when talking about locomotion etc but is surely very varied. I'd be very keen to chat about them sometime!

You make very good points, I just can't see how they wouldn't topple forwards! Strange animals.

Looks great! I love their crazy hands.
If I had a note it would be that it's hard to see them leaning so far forward without a big tail to counterbalance, and the pelvic morphology would support a more upright stance...

New #evolution #research on dear little rat-kangaroos from Flinders Palaeos! (amongst distinguished others)

Kiana Cliff: a new fossil vertebrate site of probable last interglacial age from Eyre Peninsula, South Australia The distributions of modern vertebrate species and their molecular phylogenetic relationships across southern mainland Australia point to a long and complex history of dispersal and vicariance shap...

Out now with Transactions of @royalsocietysa.bsky.social: #fossil #research from friends & colleagues describing an interesting #palaeofauna from the oft-forgotten but (as they demonstrate) biogeographically important Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Have a look!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The “silent majority” of Australians support having more national parks, no matter who they vote for. Listen to the full interview and learn more about the study from @monashuniversity.bsky.social via our website: biodiversitycouncil.org.au/news/austral...
🌱 🐨 🦘 🐸 ⛺ 🥾 🌳

An annotated checklist of Australasian fossil mammals Australasia has had a rich history of discovery of fossil mammals, with the first specimens collected within Wellington Caves, New South Wales and described by Richard Owen in 1838. Currently, a to...

New publication: taxonomy and classification of every fossil mammal species in Australasia—Wallace Line to New Zealand!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If ever you are displeased with a taxonomic description, I hope you can be comforted by the low bar set here by George Shaw in 1800 – still the taxonomic authority on the common wombat, Vombatus ursinus...

Truly social media at Australian universities - Online petition We call on universities and other higher education institutions in Australia to shut down their accounts on 'X' (formerly, 'Twitter') as soon as possible. Their presence on X/Twitter is incompatible w...

I've just created a new petition demanding Australian universities dump X/Twitter (#Xitter) in favour of other, more socially responsible social-media platforms

www.openpetition.org/au/petition/...

Please sign and share widely

#eXit #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter