Richard Dearden

A photograph of a fossil insect in a rock. The rock is beige fossil black, and kinda patchy in colour. It has a head towaerds the top, and the majority of the fossil is two easy to spot wing cases, which is how we know this little dude(tte) is a beetle.

Beetles are the most speciose animal order: 25% of described animal species are beetles. Everything has to start somewhere, though, and for #FossilFriday, here is the earliest known 'beetle' - the 297 million year old Coleopsis, found in Freisen (Saarland, Germany).

⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

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....

🚨 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...

Panels c-f of Figure 1 depicting the lower jaw of Devonian actinopterygian Gogosardina coatesi

Curious about Devonian actinopterygian lower jaws? Look no further--our new paper provides comprehensive descriptions for 19 species in a tidy ~50 page summary! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Registering for #2025SVP #SVP2025? Why not get your hands on some of the merchandise featuring our amazing logos designed by @markwitton.bsky.social

vertpaleo.org/2025-svp-ann...

Registration is now open for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting 2025 in Birmingham! Register now for the best possible rates! #SVP2025 #2025SVP

vertpaleo.org/2025-registr...

⚠️The website's new look ⬇️🎊
palass.org

#Website #palaeontology

An enigmatic armoured chaos minion holding a massive sword

A purple lizard minion toots a horn in the ear of a blue wizard who clutches some scrolls. Behind them lurks a hungry toothed cauldron.

(I say sorcerer but the real stars are the minions)

A painted Warhammer miniature with a chaos sorcerer standing on a rock surrounded by nefarious minions

Finally finished a #Warhammer chaos sorcerer I've been chipping away at for ages! #miniatures

Hello palaeontologists. After a bunch of work @thepalass.bsky.social has a new website. We're still fiddling to get emails working, but if anyone wants to check it out and report e.g. broken links, feedback would be warmly welcomed

palass.org

🫡🧪⚒️

Ever wanted to infer a morphological or total-evidence phylogeny in BEAST2?
It’s long overdue, but we now have a tutorial on Taming the BEAST to talk you through the process 💻🌳⚙️
Thanks to Joëlle Barido-Sottani for helping me pull this together!
taming-the-beast.org/tutorials/To...

A large fossil fish, preserved in a dark brown color, set against creamy rock matrix cut into a rectangular slab.

For #FossilFriday, a handsome specimen of Mioplosus (UMMP VP 17587) from the Eocene Green River Formation.

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 lagerpetid Scleromochlus, one of the closest relatives of pterosaurs. Artowrk by Gabriel Ugueto

‪[1/n] New paper co-lead by @emmadnn.bsky.social‬ @macroecoevoale.bsky.social‬ and I: we combined fossil occurrences, biogeography and climate modelling to investigate the origins and early evolution of pterosaurs 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This week, Open Palaeontology published our first research article: a reassessment of the giant millipede-like Arthropleura by Lhéritier, Vallois and Durand! Thank you to the authors for being part of the open-access publishing revolution!
www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...

.@openpalaeo.bsky.social has published its first research paper!

Publish your research here too! Its totally completely FREE! There are NO publication costs and NO access costs.

www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...

Lower gallery of the Museum of Zoology

📢WE'RE HIRING📢Could you be our new Senior Collections Lead? Would you enjoy working with one of the UK's most important natural history collections? Apply by 22 June to look after our amazing Collections Management, Care & Conservation team. @camunivmuseums.bsky.social www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51272/

⚠️We are excited to invite you to a member-only webinar✨
🔹When: 4th of June, 17:30 BST
🔹Where: on Zoom, register ⬇️
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#webinar #June #palaeontology #career

✨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!

A three year postdoctoral position is available in my group, investigating plant centromere structure, function and evolution @camplantsci.bsky.social
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51488/

Postdoc position with Erin Saupe at Oxford on whales past and present my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Erin’s great! And who doesn’t like whales? 🐋🐳

Wonderful new 5-year postdoctoral fellowship opportunity at the University of Cambridge on #Biodiversity:

www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darwin-hamie...

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...).

The structure of the end-Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record in North America Dean et al. examine the fossil record of North American dinosaurs prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Estimates of detection probability from occupancy models decrease prior to the extinction...

🚨 I'm super happy to announce that our new paper is finally out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🚨

We used the ecological approach of occupancy modelling to investigate the structure of the dinosaur fossil record prior to the K/Pg mass extinction!

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Postdoctoral Fellow: Self-Developed Project (280531) | University of Oslo Job title: Postdoctoral Fellow: Self-Developed Project (280531), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Monday, June 23, 2025

Come postdoc in Oslo! 3 years. You design the project! Get in touch with me or others at our museum! Deadline 23 june www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... share and repost !

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor / Associate Professor in Bioinformatics at Aarhus University, Denmark - Vacancy at Aarhus University Vacancy at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - BiRC - Bioinformatics Research Center, Aarhus University

📣 🥳 🧑‍💻 Our department is hiring:

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor / Associate Professor in Bioinformatics at Aarhus University, Denmark

Deadline June 1st

Thanks for sharing!

mbg.au.dk/en/news-and-...

Interested in Developmental biology? Imaging? Marine invertebrate body plans? Then this three year postdoc in my group @sotonbiosciences.bsky.social is for you! Join our team to decypher how signalling molecules shape skeletal phenotype in juvenile sea urchins. jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Avian+island biology postdoc alert! We are looking for a postdoc to study biogeography, genomics and conservation of birds on land-bridge islands, with a focus on the tropical island of Bioko. Please share! 🐦🏝️🐤🦉🧬 www.naturalis.nl/en/about-us/...

MSCA opens €404.3 million call for Postdoctoral Fellowships Postdoctoral Fellowships offer researchers holding a PhD the opportunity to acquire new skills through advanced training and international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral mobility.

If you are interested in working on the macroevolution of plant or the plant fossil record, get in touch with me! I am happy to help you prepare a proposal!

marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-op...

A graphic for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), showing a historical portrait of Marie Skłodowska-Curie overlaid with an image of four young researchers walking down a hallway. The European Commission logo is in the top left. Text reads: "Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – €404.3 million to support postdoctoral researchers”

Choose Science. Choose Europe.

A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open.

With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond.

Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF