Abi Crane

This work brings new insights into the early morphological evolution of crown-birds and reveals the value of exploring previously-overlooked morphology! Thanks to my coauthors @albertonykus.bsky.social, @ksepkalab.bsky.social, @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social for all the work that has gone into this project

...but the lower jaws of Vegavis and Dasornis are much weirder, not exhibiting the expected duck-like features. They look much more similar to each other and share many features with the stem-bird Ichthyornis, raising questions about their phylogenetic affinities.

…and we found that the mandible Asteriornis fits what we would expect of an early galloanseran, with a combination of duck-like and chicken-like features...

In this paper we focus on the mandibles (lower jaws) of three early bird taxa with uncertain phylogenetic affinities- Asteriornis, Vegavis and Dasornis (an early pelagornithid). We compared their mandibles to those of extant birds and the toothed stem-bird Ichthyornis…

Mandibular morphology clarifies phylogenetic relationships near the origin of crown birds - BMC Ecology and Evolution Background The phylogenetic relationships of fossil birds near the origin of the avian crown group remain debated, in part due to a limited amount of character evidence from incomplete fossils. The av...

🚨NEW PAPER OUT🚨
The anatomy of bird lower jaw bones has been understudied...until now! Here, we examine avian mandibular anatomy, answering some and raising more questions about the phylogenetic affinities of key early crown-group birds. Read on!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

What a mad couple of weeks- 3 conferences #SVP2025, #AOC2025, #CAVEPS2025 across 2 continents. 1 poster, 3 talks and 1 best student talk prize! Thanks to everyone who came to listen to me talk about dead birds 🦤

The power of non-destructive techniques! #2025SVP

You know what they say about early birds catching worms? I’ll be talking at 8am Saturday at #2025svp all about CT scanning female bird bone and what it means for the dinosaur fossil record

New ‘miniature T rex’ rewrites the history of the world’s largest predator The fossil may help end a long-running debate in palaeontology.

#Nanotyrannus is real! Read about this awesome new paper by @jgn-paleo.bsky.social and Dr Lindsay Zonna and what it means for the future of T. rex in my article for the Conversation: theconversation.com/new-miniatur...

Lunchtime on Southampton Common with one of my all-time favourite UK birds 🔥🔥
#birds #ukwildlife #ukbirding #wildlife #nature #photography

🚨 My first PhD paper is out! 🚨
In it we characterise the 3D structure of medullary bone, a type of bone tissue found only in female birds and (possibly) non-bird dinosaurs.
Read about it here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#palaeontology #birds #dinosaurs #science #phd

Adorable great crested grebe family this weekend- amazing that they have chicks so early in the year!
#birds #birding #ukwildlife

A spherical mouse
(Apodemus sylvaticus)
#ukwildlife #wildlifephotography