WitmerLab at Ohio University

From https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70150. FIGURE 10 Life reconstruction of the head of Triceratops prorsus with nasal soft tissues inferred in the present study shown. Soft tissues include the main narial nerves and blood vessels, nasal gland, nasolacrimal duct, and respiratory turbinate. Note that the nasolacrimal duct and respiratory turbinate were inferred mainly in centrosaurines. Artwork by K. Sakane. n & bv, nerves and blood vessels; ng, nasal gland; nld, nasolacrimal duct; rt, respiratory turbinate.

Excited to see this article led by @seishirotada.bsky.social out in @anatrecord.bsky.social. Triceratops and their ceratopsian kin are more than horns and frills! Check out their narial regions! doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

Witmer poses with freshman undergrad researcher Klazina McKeigan and her brother Alexander and our T. rex skull (AMNH 5027) as part of a tour for Sib Weekend.

It's Sibs Weekend here at Ohio University, and I was happy to help new freshman undergrad researcher in our lab Klazina McKeigan give her brother Alexander (a current high school junior...and future Bobcat?) a tour of the lab this afternoon. More about Klazina's research another time.

This is fantastic work and super-important for those of us interested in evolution of the hearing apparatus and braincase! Well done!

The Accidental Ichthyornis Field identifications are problematic. In mid October of this year the weather in Kansas was still warm enough to extend our dig season. T...

Ah, @mosasaurologist.bsky.social, I think I found the backstory of "The Accidental Ichthyornis."
rmdrc.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-...

It must have been exciting to dig up! Why weird?

Witmer studies a slab of the Cretaceous bird Ichthyornis at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science.

Skeleton of the the Cretaceous bird Ichthyornis still in its Niobrara slab at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science.

I'm a couple days late for #MuseumSelfieDay but we'll count it for #FossilFriday. Here's one of me studying a lovely specimen of Ichthyornis at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science (the public museum is in nearby Tokyo).

Great piece, Andy! Really well done! I also enjoyed working with the Nature editors for my News & Views on the Zanno & Napoli article—altho’ the battles on the title were exhausting! 🤣 And yeah, selecting a hyoid bone for histology was brilliant! Opens up opportunities for other skull-only fossils.

The book The Voices of Nature by Nicolas Mathevon sits on a table surrounded by skulls of the animals depicted on the cover (which were all drawn by the author's dad, Bernard Mathevon!) The skulls are American robin (Turdus migratorius, OUVC 9766), spectacled caiman (Caiman cf. C. crocodilus, OUVC 11550), northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris, OUVC 9581), and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, OUVC 10571).

Just finished this awesome new-ish book by @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social on animal communication. It covers a lot of ground with a huge diversity of species—& it's a blast to read! Great for those interested in sensory ecology. (I had skulls of all the cover animals, so I snapped a photo! 😃)

The tiny skull of a ruby-throated hummingbird (OUVC 10851) sits on the tip of a finger. The even tinier humerus of this bird sits in front of the skull.

T. rex is more closely related to this little dinosaur (a hummingbird) than T. rex is to Allosaurus. Also, a hummingbird's humerus is way smaller than it's eyeball. Go home, evolution, you're drunk! 🦖

Cover of the Ohio University student newspaper, 30 years today (Jan 8th).

Project Summary page of an NSF grant proposal submitted 30 years...a grant we got.

Covers of some journals with articles that derived from the NSF grant we got 30 years ago.

30 yrs ago today, a blizzard paralyzed the whole East Coast, closing Ohio University & all roads. But I still had an NSF grant deadline, so I trudged the three miles to campus to get it done and submitted. It was my first major proposal in my new job—dubbed "the DinoNose Project." Got the grant!

Wisdom the Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) — band number Z333 — also known as the mōlī in Hawaiian language, has returned to her nest site on the sands of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Jon Plissner / USFWS / public domain). Photo and caption from https://bit.ly/4qu6IxN

However, in a twist of fate, the chick's passing meant that Wisdom had left Midway before the tsunami, allowing her to return a month ago to start over! May we all have the resilience—and wisdom—of Wisdom in 2026. bit.ly/4qu6IxN 3/3

If you thought 2025 was rough for us humans, an earthquake in July 2025 sent a tsunami that hit Midway late in the albatross breeding season, killing many mōlī. Wisdom had successfully mated and hatched a chick 🥹, but sadly the chick died earlier in the season 😢. 2/3

Disarticulated skeleton of a mōlī (Laysan albatross, Phoebastria immutabilis, OUVC 10448), with the separated bones laid out on a table and spelling "Happy New Year."

Happy New Year from your friends at WitmerLab! 🎉
As hope for 2026, here's the beautiful skeleton of a mōlī (Laysan albatross). May it bring us all the wisdom of Wisdom, the 75-yo mōlī—the oldest known wild bird who still returns to Midway Atoll annually to nest & breed! 1/3

Here's our #TopNine #Top9 posts on BlueSky for 2025 based on engagement metrics. More theropod dinosaurs—especially tyrannosaurs—this year than in previous years. We posted about other things, but these are what y'all seemed to go for. Looking forward to what 2026 brings to our lab!

From all your friends at WitmerLab at Ohio University, have a Merry Christmas, a happy holiday season, and a safe and productive new year! 🎄 ☃️🎅

This year, Jane the tyrannosaur received the special gift of being designated the holotype of a new species of Nanotyrannus, N. lethaeus! 🦖

Why Santa's elves hate dinosaurs...! 🎄🎅🦖. A Santa's hat hangs from the jaws of a festive Tarbosaurus.

Why Santa's elves hate dinosaurs...! 🎄🎅🦖

Getting in the spirit...! The bony foot of the ornithomimosaur Gallimimus busts through a Christmas stocking with the caption "Dinosaurs make the best stocking stuffers...!"

Getting in the spirit...! 🎄🎅🦖🎁

Apparently Bill Simpson, longtime Collections Manager of fossil vertebrates at the ⁦‪@FieldMuseum‬⁩ in Chicago, is retiring—after 46 yrs! Bill has always been so helpful, including pulling out the skull of ⁦‪@SUEtheTrex‬⁩ for study multiple times! Happy Retirement, Bill! 🎥: Emily Rieff #FossilFriday

Earlier this week, John Noble Wilford (1933–2025)—giant of science journalism & Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the @nytimes.com for 50 yrs—passed away. I almost froze when he phoned me to report on my 2001 article in @science.org. Few science reporters like him remain today.

Volume renderings of CT scan data of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541). The top image is mostly a left lateral view. The bottom image is a ventral view showing the caudal half of the hyoid bone preserved in place.

Additional images (all in ventral view) of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541). The top right image is from the original 1946 article by Charles Gilmore showing the full ceratobranchial hyoid bone in place. The bottom photograph (that I snapped in 2005 when I had the skull on loan for study & CT scanning) shows the caudal half of the hyoid bone preserved in place. The top left image is similar to the bottom image but is grayscale except for the hyoid bone.

The main photograph (again, that I snapped in 2005 when I had the skull on loan for study & CT scanning) shows the caudal half of the hyoid bone of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) preserved in place, but it's more of a front view. Notice the broken end of the ceratobranchial in a close-up in the inset.

#FossilFriday The awesome new article in Science by
@griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social et al. adds more evidence for the validity of Nanotyrannus by showing that the hyoid bone in the holotype has adult bone histology. Here are some more images showing the ceratobranchial bone in place in the skull. 🦖

The book "Unearthing the Dragon" published in 2005 by Mark Norell (1957–2025)and Mick Ellison, with a blurred T. rex skull cast in the background. The T. rex is a specimen (AMNH 5027) from the American Museum of Natural History where Mark worked for many years.

I learned from the wonderful obit of Mark Norell in Current Biology by Pete Makovicky, Jim Clark, & @stevebrusatte.bsky.social (bit.ly/4rtBlEP) that Mark "was most proud of Unearthing the Dragon," so I pulled it off the shelf & read it cover to cover. It was like hearing Mark's voice again. 🥹

#HappyThanksgiving from WitmerLab! You have your holiday traditions, and we have ours! Yes, we CT scanned our turkey on our best turkey platter. Science has never been so delicious! And like any good dinosaur biologist, I prepared and accessioned the skeleton—OUVC 10789. 🦃🦖

OHIO researcher co-authors new study showing pterosaurs and birds evolved flight-ready brains in different ways A new study published in Current Biology, co-authored by Lawrence Witmer, now sheds light on how pterosaurs evolved the neurological structures required for powered flight.

Here's the version of the news release from Ohio University that provides a common language explanation of the project: www.ohio.edu/news/2025/11... 2/2

Life restoration by Matheus Fernandes showing a Triassic scene with the lagerpetid non-pterosaurian pterosauromorph Ixalerpeton with early pterosaurs flying overhead. The publication is here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01467-8

Life restorations and labeled cranial (brain) endocasts of the lagerpetid Ixalerpeton and the pterosaur Allkaruen.

Happy to be a part of this big project led by Mario Bronzati & Matteo Fabbri—out today #OA in @currentbiology.bsky.social
bit.ly/3M5weun —on the brain endocast of a close pterosaur cousin & what it means for pterosaur brain evolution...maybe different from bird brain evolution. 1/2

Highly recommended! I just finished a cover-to-cover read, and it's a great addition to the avian sensory ecology literature with excellent discussions of the links between brain & behavior. I prefer reading paper books (better retention) but the whole thing is freely downloadable! bit.ly/482xPZm 🦉🧠

We went with the "lawnmower" analogy for Nigersaurus since it was an herbivore, but yup, I see toenail clipper, too.

Such great news! Always excited to hear about science being promoted in Athens and southeast Ohio. If you need help, give me shout!

Philippe Taquet & Witmer in Dr. Taquet's office (19 July 2007, Paris)

Restored skull and brain endocast of the rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur Nigersaurus taqueti (MNN GAD512). Published in November 2007 in PLOS ONE (Sereno et al. 2007: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001230).

The paleo community is mourning the passing of giant. Philippe Taquet passed away on Sunday at 85. I was honored to meet him in his Paris office in 2007. Later that year, we published on a sauropod from his beloved Gadoufaoua in Niger, Africa, & named for him—Sereno et al. 2007: bit.ly/3WZLKdF 🦕

Former lab member Peter Rhynard did a great job presenting his undergrad honors thesis research on the skull of the Allosaurus specimen known as Big Al (MOR 693) at the #2025SVP meeting! Thanks to @seishirotada.bsky.social for the photos since I was unable to attend myself!

Your book King Tyrant is outstanding…and remains so! I was reading it about the same time that I was reviewing the Z&N manuscript, and yes, I noted a few passages that would be impacted, but whatever. I recommended in my review that Z&N read & cite your book! It’s so well researched & well written!