James Lamsdell, PhD

It's that time of year again.

Limulidae signs

A framed print of a scary looking woman wearing victorian-type clothing weilding a fan. It is captioned "Beware!". I believe it is not just a warning, but also a threat.

I have terrible friends who send me horrible things.

New paper with @peterjwagner3.bsky.social, @wrightam.bsky.social, Jen Bauer, and Maggie Limbeck!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

TLDR; it is too early to stop doing taxonomic & natural history work and exclusively do meta-analysis; our existing datasets are highly structured & biology is weird. we shouldn't assume we already know enough to extrapolate a species' needs for conservation- we still need taxonomy & autecology

Brendan gives a great summary of our latest paper.

Sole (fish) - Wikipedia

"Therefore, we caution against considering our present understanding of organismal natural history and taxonomic sampling sufficiently complete to focus research support *sole*ly on meta-analyses" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_(f...

In reality these assumptions don't hold up and can be incredibly detrimental to conservation efforts and our understanding of ecosystems.

If you want a simple summary, we put much more effort into studying organisms that we eat or are dangerous to us (or we just like or are easier to sample) and have a bad habit of assuming everything else related to them are exactly the same.

Yes, the name is a pun relating to the founder effect, and came about when we pulled a flounder species in our random sampling of publication effort and blew out our data with a huge outlier.

The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation - npj Biodiversity npj Biodiversity - The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation

Excited to present the flounder effect - how our biases in sampling and worker effort impact our view of organisms.

A long term collaboration with @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Jon Hendricks, and Curtis Congreve!

#FossilFriday ⚒️🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

A screenshot from the Disco Elysium engine, with an elderly cleaning lady saying "The problem these days is no one wants to work harder to earn more, and they all want to live beyond their means. Everyone expects to own a fridge."

Real sentence from a conversation with my 90 year old grandmother.

PRI's Wonderful Life — Paleontological Research Institution By Dr. Warren Allmon , Director of the Paleontological Research Institution December 30, 2025 The holidays are a time for “Christmas movies” in my house, and one that is always on our list is&nbs...

Excellent news from PRI and a wonderful start to the new year.

www.priweb.org/blog-post/pr...

A photograph of myself with a ton of arcade reward tickets jammed into my fleece.

A total count of the number of tickets acquired (3,011).

Pondering my orb (a pokeball)

Pinball* wizard.

*2p slots

An acrylic painting of a tabby cat sitting on a book.

A photograph of the same cat in the same position.

Can now share thr latest bit of art I've been working on for my sister in law, one of their family cats.

A photograph of a fossil mammal with spiky fur and a long face.

The Mesozoic mammal Sinodelphys, discovered in China and photographed at the Carnegie Museum, for #FossilFriday. Originally described as a marsupial but now thought to be an early placenta mammal, in my considered opinion this is clearly a creachure. 🧪⚒️

The cutest little possum toy ever with a glass of champaign.

Bug and I got upgraded.

Lol no

YouTube video by Ambrose-Meyer Entertainment & Educational Channel The Amazing World of Fossils: Decoding Early Life

Just got notification that a video I was interviewed for on Paleozoic lagerstatten is out, also featuring numerous excellent people including Brenda Hunda, Nigel Hughes, and Derek Briggs.

(I did not know about the unfortunate use of AI generated "animals", I'm sorry T_T)

youtu.be/DJOm5PQnhN8?...

My linocut horseshoe crab is hand printed on 8” x 8” cream coloured Japanese paper speckled with some tiny brown bark inclusions. The crab is viewed from above and its body is printed with a base of grey, with some darker gold-green especially around the edges to give the impression it is a bit domed and then texture, edges, hairs around the edge of the horseshoe shape and the tail are printed in dark brown.

Day 7 #artAdventCalendar my #linocut horseshoe crab (Tachypeus gigas) in grey, blue-bronze and dark brown on 8” x 8” cream-coloured Japanese paper with bark inclusions. 🧪🐡 They get their name from their horseshoe like shape but they are not crabs; they are chelicerates, more closely related to 🧵

Happy #fossilfriday everyone,

Enjoy a feel good story about one of the Museum of the Earth's high school supporters!

Thanks to big giving Tuesday support, PRI is now within ~400,000 of its end of year goal of ~4 million for the mortgage+ops. We can #SavePRI !🧪⚒️🦣🐚

www.localsyr.com/news/local-n...

A view of the headshield of Megalograptus, preserved as reddish-brown cuticle on a pale grey rock. The headshield is generally equilateral in shape, with a rounded front bearing small spiny projections. A pair of round eyes are also located at the front of the head. The surface of the headshield is curved in dense, pustule-like scales.

A fossil of the second appendage of Megalograptus, preserved as dark cuticle on a light grey rock. The appendage is short with robust spines coming off of it.

A view of the body segments of Megalograptus, preserved as dark cuticle on pale grey rock. Four body segments are present, again preserving small, pustule-like scales.

One of the earliest large predatory eurypterids, Megalograptus, for #FossilFriday. Megalograptus is known from abundant - and very unusual - material from the Ordovician of #Ohio, affording an important insight into the morphology of this rather bizarre species. ⚒️🧪

Top songs from Spotify wrapped, featuring Suspirium for the 5th year in a row. 1. Short Change Hero (The Heavy), 2. Suspirium (Thom Yorke), 3. Precinct 4q Major Crime Unit (Sea Power), 4. Francis Forever (Mitski), 5. Enemy (Imagine Dragons, JID)

Top albums from my Spotify wrapped, all soundtracks - 1. Scavengers Reign, 2. Disco Elysium, 3. Hollow Knight, 4. Battletech, 5. Baldur's Gate 3

A view from my Spotify wrapped showing that my listening age is 30.

Fun to see what I've been listening to over the course of what has been, in all honesty, an absolutely terrible year.

Save the Museum of the Earth and PRI – Secure Its Future! In these challenging times, places like the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) stand as beacons of hope, fostering understanding of the natural world and inspiring action for a sustainable fut...

Today I’m joining the #GivingTuesday challenge to save the Museum of the Earth. As a Board of Trustee emeritus member, I see first-hand the Museum's impact on educating our community and the world about climate change, biodiversity, and our home planet. Please donate at priweb.org/support.

Now, that could prove useful 🧪

A great overview on benefits, pitfalls, and limitations.

Been having too many conversations with colleagues of late where I explain that this is where I feel it's all going.

A Practical Guide to Phylogenetic Paleoecology The burgeoning field of phylogenetic paleoecology combines paleoecological data with hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships to tease apart the roles that ecology and relatedness both play in the evo...

Out late for #FossilFriday, it's our invited @annualreviews.bsky.social paper with @sarahlsheffield.bsky.social and @bigfacecats.bsky.social on why Phylogenetic Paleoecology is useful and how to do it.

doi.org/10.1146/annu...

A Practical Guide to Phylogenetic Paleoecology The burgeoning field of phylogenetic paleoecology combines paleoecological data with hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships to tease apart the roles that ecology and relatedness both play in the evo...

Out late for #FossilFriday, it's our invited @annualreviews.bsky.social paper with @sarahlsheffield.bsky.social and @bigfacecats.bsky.social on why Phylogenetic Paleoecology is useful and how to do it.

doi.org/10.1146/annu...

A tubular fossil with bumps on it next to a hand written note by Erik N. Kjellesvig-Waering, a prominent eurypterid researcher. The note reads "I give up - what is it?"

Always enjoy running into Kjellesvig-Waering's notes in collections. #FossilFriday