Harry Savage

Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

A bottle of sake with a label featuring the Ordovician fish Sacabambaspis, written as 酒バンバスピス (sake bambaspsis).

Perhaps the best find from Japan so far - sakebambaspis!

🚨 Time for a #FossilFriday round up: our selection of some recent research highlights. THREAD

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time Understanding the role of humans as ‘ecosystem engineers’ requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. Howev…

New in Trends in Ecology & Evolution: 'Earth system engineers' and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time 🔓 #ecoevo #openaccess

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A thread 🧵:

YouTube video by The Fossil Files Podcast Dinosaurs on the moon confirmed

In this week's episode of @thefossilfiles.bsky.social, I complete loose control
I think you can even pinpoint the exact moment that @tweetisaurus.bsky.social makes me laugh so hard that I burp.
Tune in for 🦕🌔🐝
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JI4...

Kimmig, J., Nanglu, K., & Jamison, P. G. (2025). A problematic soft-bodied fossil from the Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) of Utah. Geological Magazine, 162, e37. doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Sample movement path (thick grey line), subdivided into equidistant segments, with measures used in this study

Partial autocorrelation boxplots for the sampled Ediacaran specimens and Cambrian specimens

Creative use of autocorrelation in analyzing trace fossils in the Ediacaran-Cambrian explosion:
"..lack of temporal correlation in the studied Ediacaran trajectories and its presence in...Cambrian trajectories, indicating time-tuned behaviours.."
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.02940
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

🚨 Bonus mini-episode released today!

Where do Squid come from?
Susie and Rob discuss squid origins and the use of digital techniques a new paper from Imegami et al

Available on Spotify, YouTube and all the usual places. Links in our bio

Saving bees with 'superfoods' – engineered supplement boosts colony reproduction

A new food supplement, designed to provide essential compounds found in plant pollen, could help tackle the devastating decline in honeybees 🐝

This cost-effective and sustainable solution enhances resilience without depleting natural floral resources

w/ @rbgkew.bsky.social & more 👇
bit.ly/3JvRYyh

Conservation of bilaterian genome structure is the exception, not the rule - Genome Biology Species from diverse animal lineages have conserved groups of orthologous genes together on the same chromosome for over half a billion years since the last common ancestor of bilaterians. Although no...

Delighted to share the peer-reviewed version of our study led by @tomlewin.bsky.social now out in Genome Biology @bmc.springernature.com! We analyzed 64 chromosome-level genomes across 15 animal phyla and found that extensive genome rearrangements are the norm in bilaterians.
doi.org/10.1186/s130...

The origin of vertebrates gets a shake up as one of the first fossils of vertebrate skeleton turns out to be an invertebrate. Latest episode of @thefossilfiles.bsky.social out now, where ever you get your podcasts

Specimen tray ("Vermetus sp., Recent) and four high spired gastropod shells showing a progression from top to bottom: Top: tightly coiled whorls forming a tall cone, the final whorl losing contact with preceding ones. 2nd, 3rd: longer shells where the spiral becomes looser, unraveling into a tubular helix Bottom: kinked tube otherwise resembling the others, but abandoning any attempt at regular geometric chirality.

A #MolluskMonday metaphor for the 21st century, in five shells. 🧪⚒️🐌

The shells are vermetid gastropods, sedentary filter feeders characterized by loosening whorls that become progressively unwound, exploring regions of Raup's theoretical mollusk morphospace no snail explored before.

YouTube video by aquatic pro 【 クマノアシツキ 】海底の火星人 Acrocirrus validus

OH WOW. Never seen this polychaete before- Acrocirrus validus! QUITE the mover and shaker! #wormwednesday youtu.be/HEziSG7EerI?...

Where did Pterosaurs come from? The Fossil Files · Episode

Our new is episode out today!

In it Susie and Rob discuss the origins of pterosaurs and how environmental changes influenced their evolution.

Available now from Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

open.spotify.com/episode/32rP...

The biomechanics and evolution of quadrupedal gaits at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The biomechanics and evolution of quadrupedal gaits at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com

Funded PhD claxon!! Bill Sellers at University of Manchester is advertising a fully-funded PhD position on the evolution of quadrupedal gaits. Exact focus is open and *could* include fossils. Deets here: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Very similar to the swimming of polyclad flatworms - amazing how locomotion convergently evolves so frequently!

The two Mesquite logos. At left, a mesquite tree leaf is against a black background. At right, a leaf is against a blue sky and sun.

Mesquite 4.0 released! A major update — many new features, small and large (phylogenomics, visualizations, workflow management, &c). Check out the trailer video: www.mesquiteproject.org.

Come discuss in our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-project). @bembidion.bsky.social ‬🧪 #evolbio

A new Cambrian stem-group echinoderm reveals the evolution of the anteroposterior axis Woodgate et al. describe a new bilaterally symmetrical echinoderm, Atlascystis acantha, from the Cambrian of Morocco. Comparisons of plate growth with other echinoderms reveal that Atlascystis possess...

Delighted to share our paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social iology.bsky.social‬ with a palaeo-evo-devo perspective on the evolution of symmetry in echinoderms. Led by Steffi Woodgate with Frankie Dunn, @echinerd.bsky.social, @laurentformery.bsky.social & Sam Zamora
www.cell.com/current-biol...-5

The Fossil Files In “The Fossil Files”, a pair of palaeontologists delve into the latest discoveries from the world of palaeontology and seek to bring fossils to back to life. Each episode, Susie and Rob will discuss ...

Hello! We’re a new podcast from
@fossilrob.bsky.social & @tweetisaurus.bsky.social for anyone interested in the world of palaeontology!
Every episode we have fun discussing & exploring recently published research

Listen on the website fossils.libsyn.com, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

A new paper in Nature Ecol & Evol by
@rosafernandez.bsky.social et al. shows a #punctuated burst of genome evolution in #annelids as they transitioned from marine to land and freshwater habitats.

Another 🚨Paper alert🚨 Everything you ever wanted to know about colony development in graptolithine pterobranchs 🪸 Still much to uncover, but this sums up what we know so far. Enjoy, it is open access 😜
doi.org/10.1111/ede....

A photo of an elongate white shell belonging to a common piddock(?) with an encrusting bryozoan colony on the external surface.

A nice find from the beach this evening - a lovely shell I didn't recognise (common piddock?) with an encrusting bryozoan colony on the external and internal surface.

If you’re looking for something fun to listen to then this is an excellent palaeo podcast to dive in to!

The head of a very old fossil worm reconstructed in 3D using digital approaches - the fossil is white, and looks... wormy... agains t a black background. You can see some repeated segments, and it comes to an end at the head, which has a few projections off it

Part of the trunk of this worm - white on black again, and each segment has a curly projection

The front segment of a worm, head towards us, with bits of the trunk - segments clear again, and it looks a bit like a sausage :) A really weird sausage.

For #FossilFriday meet a fossil worm. Kenostrychus is a bristle worm that lived 425 million years ago, and was preserved in three dimensions in volcanic ash. What you see below is a 3D reconstruction created by grinding it away, photographing it, and creating a 3D computer model.

⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

New paper! 🧪

Phylogeny and macroevolution of a “dead clade walking”: a systematic revision of the Paragaricocrinidae (Crinoidea)

Glad to see the return of the awesome title slide!

Microscope photo of a fragment of organic micro fossil that looks like an ancient piece of papyrus covered with ancient cuneiform style writing.

Why does this billion year old #acritarch fragment look like an ancient cuneiform scroll!? Object about 150 microns wide #geology #paleontology 🧪⚒️

The Mesquite icon shown, as a Mesquite leaf against a black background, and as a leave against the sun and a blue sky.

Mesquite 4 beta released! Many new features, esp. phylogenomic. Check out the trailer and longer video on the home page: www.mesquiteproject.org, and use the download link there to get a copy.

Feedback welcome! Ask and discuss on our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p...).