Chris Manias

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Mystery creature found in 'forbidden cloud forest' of Peru is new species of marsupial The newly described mouse opossum was discovered at a surprisingly high altitude in the Andes.

👀

Double page spread from an Argentinian magazine from 1912. Shows models of prehistoric animals, including a Toxodon, Macrauchenia, Mylodon, Megatherium, Mastodon, Glyptodon and sabre-toothed cap. The central image is an illustration of all the creatures standing in a landscape.

A sadly never-realized Pleistocene animal park in La Plata, Argentina. Article from from Fray Mocho (9 August 1912)

The animals were designed by Josef Pallenberg, who also did the dinosaur sculptures at Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg

(more info in this article: doi.org/10.31048/185... )

#FossilFriday

The Netherlands will return Dubois collection to Indonesia The Netherlands plans to transfer more than 28,000 fossils from the Dubois collection to Indonesia, following a request by Indonesian authorities. Today, Gouke Moes, Minister of Education, Culture and...

The news in English: www.government.nl/latest/news/....

Breaking news: Netherlands to return the Dubois collection of fossils to Indonesia

Great thread on the Field Museum's mid-90s palaeontology galleries, which look amazingly bonkers

Lecturer in Irish/British History at King's College London Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Lecturer in Irish/British History on jobs.ac.uk!

We have two jobs at KCL History!

16-month post in Modern Irish and/or British History: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOU178/l...

And 5-year post in Early Modern Europe & The World: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOU182/l...

(both to start in January 2026)

Hey you. Wanna apply for a fellowship on collections? the AHRC Early career fellowships in cultural & heritage institutions are open!

The Natural History Museum priorities are below.

If you wanna talk birds, hit me up. Collectors, colonialism, Canada, Australia & more

www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

Good point! I'd be a bit more forgiving in this case too if the F. John Moa image wasn't so comically ridiculous by the standards of the time it was produced in...

Ugh

Moa - xtinct giant bird in New Zealand. In the background a Canary... Moa - xtinct giant bird in New Zealand. In the background a Canary dragon tree . Chromolithograph after a drawing by F. John, published in 1900.

Also seems like a good earner for Getty Images. £275 for the medium res version of that!

www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/illustration/moa-extinct-giant-bird-in-new-zealand-royalty-free-illustration/1409766603

(I'm sure you could license some more plausible modern palaeoart for less...)

Yeah, was struck by that when I saw the article - the choice of using F. John's Turkey-Moa was bizarre....

Page of an advertisement from a German journal from 1920. In the middle is a picture of a portly black-clad man with a large white beard, black hat and walking cane, pointing at a glass case with a fossil reptile skeleton inside, and the words Kühnscherf at the base. The main text reads "Kühnscherf Museums-Schränke, aus Eisen and Glas … Anerkannt die besten Museums-Schränke der Welt" (translation --- "Kühnscherf Museum Cabinets, made from iron and glass … Recognized as the best museum cabinets in the world.")

For #FossilFriday - advert for Kühnscherf Museum Cabinets, for when you need a display case for your indeterminate fossil reptile in early Weimar Germany

From Natur und Museum (1920)

Hugely looking forward to this, and enamoured of the sloths already

(main source of all this is Buxton Museum, which has a great archive for Dawkins and Jackson)

Yes, checked back and the ones I have most records of are mainly university extension or local lectures, or delivered via the Museum. His Geology & Palaeontology course at Owens College (in the 1870s) seems to end with a discussion of human prehistory too

I think there is earlier teaching of prehistory in Geology departments - Boyd Dawkins has courses on it in the 1890s at Manchester (have some archive docs on this - a lot of it seems lifted from his book Early Man in Britain)

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

We're hiring a new lecturer @stsucl.bsky.social. We're looking for someone with particular interests in the environment. Please share widely www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Cover featuring what is probably my favourite of Bob's many brilliant artworks!

Eilean nan Dineasair Revealing the variety and importance of Jurassic dinosaur finds on Skye. Beairteas làraich chudromach dìneasar na linne Jurassic san Eilean Sgitheanaich.

If you want to learn about dinosaur palaeontology on Skye (and are in the UK), then BBC Alba have put 2021 documentary "Eilean nan Dìneasar" back up for this month

Featuring appearances from @stevebrusatte.bsky.social and @elsa-panciroli.bsky.social !

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Assistant Professor – Global History of Technology - Department of History University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

UC Berkeley Depart of History tenure-track asst prof job in Global History of Technology. History of technological artifacts & infrastructures through a global & transnational lens. All fields, areas, & periods of #HistTech considered
For more info:
aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05065
#HPS 🗃️

Massively well deserved - congratulations Sadiah!

Mounted skeletons of two meat-eating dinosaurs. One is slightly larger and lighter. Art deco-ish train station setting, converted into a museum hall

The Cincinnati Museum Center is housed in a restored art deco train station from 1933. I love how Torvosaurus and Allosaurus kinda look like they’re waiting for a train. #FossilFriday

Watch: Camels, penguins and capybaras set for London Zoo's annual weigh-in The weigh-in helps zookeepers monitor the health of their animals and the data is shared with conservation groups.

One of the highlights of the year - live coverage of the annual weighing of the animals at London Zoo: www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz...

This looks like a brilliant resource -

(it's going straight on the reading list of my histories of objects and collecting module!):

I tried to find out if the fossil I bought online was real. Then I realized I was asking the wrong question | CNN It’s obvious a 95 million-year-old fossil would have a rich past — but what a CNN writer discovered about a dinosaur tooth he bought for about $100 was more than he anticipated.

I was interviewed for this article. It's pleasing that a Moroccan fossil dealer confirms what I said the law was and clarifies that it isn't 'a grey area'. It's got nothing to do with UNESCO, btw John. www.cnn.com/2025/08/15/s...

Visited the Mikasa Ammonite Museum in Hokkaido today. What a cool place! Yes that’s a literal pile of ammonites.

Very much looking forward to this conference on extinction & sustainable futures in Manchester in a few weeks!

I'm talking about the construction of narratives of "the Great Dying" at the end of the Permian

Places still available if you'd like to attend in a non-presenting capacity (link below):

Oh great! Very much looking forward to reading it when it's out

That's really interesting! Is there much written on that?

(am currently looking a bit at similar projects in the US and Germany in the Depression, where unemployed workers are hired to work on archaeological and palaeontological sites, and hadn't known there were equivalents in the UK)