Matt Friedman

#MolluscMonday Sectioned specimen of the ammonite Parkinsonia parkinsoni on display in the Enlightenment gallery at the British Museum. This Jurassic fossil was named for the great James Parkinson (1755–1824).

Disc-shaped fossils with concentric grooves scattered through a limestone block.

Image of the apex of the Great Pyramid, taken from the base of the southeast corner. The layers of massive blocks of limestone composing the pyramid are clearly visible. The pyramid is set against a sunny blue sky.

I've seen fossils in some remarkable places, but this takes the prize: the benthic foram Nummulites in the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. These massive blocks were quarried from the Eocene Mokkatam Formation when a relictual population of woolly mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island.

From 1,750–2,000 m deep, we collected one of the rarest deepsea fishes out there: a one-jaw eel (family Monognathidae). Only ~100 specimens of this group are known worldwide and we hold the largest collection (~46), most just a few inches long… The one we collected though, 6 inches or 154 mm!

Winifred goldring award: apply by April 30th! Coral decorative image in background

Opportunity for women students in paleontology! The Winifred Goldring Award will be presented to three women graduate students and the AWG Undergraduate Paleontology Award will be presented to a student pursuing a career in paleontology. Due April 30th. More information here: tinyurl.com/msdc3m68

Selfie of Matt and the paleontologists of Mansoura University.

Grateful for the opportunity to present a research talk to the amazing team at MUVP!

Matt leaning over a specimen on a lab table, drawing in a sketchpad.

Spent a very satisfying day looking at and drawing fossil fishes.

Photograph showing a large reddish-orange sediment pillar in the foreground, with a whale skull eroding out at its top. The weathered bone is white, and impressions of several teeth are apparent. Fantastical wind-carved outcrops fill the background, and are set against a blue-grey sky.

I spent this #FossilFriday at Wadi al Hitan in Egypt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where early whales like this Basilosaurus are hard to miss as they weather out of the Eocene Birket Qarun Formation. (Wadi al Hitan translates as "Valley of the Whales.")

Selfie of several smiling people in a lab full of fossils, shelves with microscopes, cabinets, etc.

Having an amazing time at Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center. Great to catch up with old colleagues and meet new ones. Thanks for hosting me on my first (but certainly not last) trip to Egypt! 📸: Hesham Sallam

by Nobu Tamura

New paper story time. 👁️🐟🦴🩻
Here is your gormless jawless relative Jamoytius:
[1/8]

Congrats Hadeel! 🐠🪸🌏

So much gorgeous anatomy 🤩

Just in time for #FossilFriday, the next paper in the Grande volume! Two new double-armored clupeomorphs (Ellimmichthyiformes) from the Jurassic (!!) of Peru 🇵🇪 Open-access paper led by Elizabeth Ordóñez and including the incomparable Gloria Arratia: deepblue.lib.umich.edu/items/4a9a1b...

Fossil otolith assemblages reveal millennial-scale changes in reef fish biomass and trophic structure across the Isthmus of Panama Abstract. Human activities have disrupted food webs across ecosystems, but opportunities to quantify pre-impact baselines are rare. Here, we present a nove

royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Congrats!

New paper is out 🔓!
We reconstructed the 145-myr diversity of sharks & rays using deep learning, unveiling hidden patterns:
- modern diversity levels by the Cretaceous 📈
- small decline in the K/Pg 🤏
- a peak in the Eocene 🌄
- a long-term decline towards the present �
www.cell.com/current-biol...

If you’re interested in extinction risk, please check out our new paper in @science.org led by my former PhD student Cooper: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Also Žilov, Czechia (Acrolepis gigas)

www.zilov.cz

Close-up of the heads of two bichirs sitting on gravel at the base of their tank. They look as though there is not a single thought between the pair of them.

Just some Polypterus doing Polypterus stuff at the Belle Isle Aquarium.

When @omearabrian.bsky.social saw the manuscript, he described it as: ‘What if this figure could be an entire paper?’

I choose to interpret that as high praise.

Now accepted at AmNat: The geometry of macroevolution (with Dan Rabosky). www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Illustration of an American Paddlefish swimming along a rocky river bottom. The viewer is looking slightly up at the paddlefish, and in the background the sun is shining through the waves.

An illustration of Cownose Rays. The illustration is a bird's eye view of five Cownose Rays swimming in shallow, turquoise water. The sea floor is sandy, and water ripples are reflected on it.

An illustration of a Grass Carp swimming through a forest of lily pads. The water is slightly murky and the sun is illuminating the lily pads from above.

An illustration of a small school of Lookdowns. The fish are swimming along a sandy ocean floor, sunlight filtering through the waves above. Small nondescript fish, silver in color, swim in the background. Overall, the image has a very aqua blue tone.

Hi #PortfolioDay, I'm Jennifer and I love to draw all kinds of fish 🐡

Big news for Cambridge Prisms: Extinction! 🎉

We’re now indexed in ESCI and will be announcing our first Journal Impact Factor this summer.

A huge milestone for the journal and the extinction research community. Learn more and read the latest articles here: https://cup.org/4bsn3vl

Chalk street art decorating a right-angle bend in a concrete city bench. It depicts a flying saucer with a domed canopy piloted by a green alien with eyes on stalks. The saucer is emitting a green, cone-shaped beam that is lifting a mouse wearing a blue dress and red shoes off the ground.

Out-of-this-world art by @davidzinn.bsky.social spotted on South U.

Mass extinction triggered the early radiations of jawed vertebrates and their jawless relatives (gnathostomes) A mass extinction 445 million years ago triggered the rapid rise of armored and jawed vertebrates.

Mass extinction triggered the early radiations of jawed vertebrates and their jawless relatives (gnathostomes) | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Vector illustration of Dibango volans, a bizarre fish from the Monte Bolca lagerstatte of Italy. This tiny fish is overall long and thin, with a large anal fin that stretches down its length. It's body is suspended in a large flag shaped pouch connected to its small head, with long trailing pelvic fins and a very long first ray of its dorsal fin. The fish is grayish and semi transparent, with bands of yellow on its long fins. Text reads: Dibango volans. Donald Davsne and Giorgio Carnevale. "An enigmatic teleost fish from the Eocene of Bolca (Italy) with unusual larval-like features." Papers in Palaeontology 11, no. 3 2025e70017 May 8 2025

#Cenozoicpaleo2025 Meet Dibango volans!

#sciart #paleoart

Meanwhile, other ammonites weather the impact winter to limp along into the Danian . . .

Life reconstruction of a disc-shaped ammonite (Placenticeras) with a straight-shelled ammonite (Baculites) in the foreground. These models are in a display case with text and figures apparent in the background.

Life reconstruction of an ammonite with a corkscrew-shaped shell with spines (Didymoceras) in a display case. Some text is visible in the background.

Life reconstruction of a squid-like cephalopod called a belemnite in a display case. Some text is visible in the background.

Some wax models of Cretaceous cephalopods for your enjoyment.

Radiation of a clade containing super-progenitors

The median percentage of sampled super-progenitors

Creative approach using birth-death mathematical theory in exploring so called "super-progenitor" species. New support for the prevalence of the budding speciation and the 'polytomies-as-signal interpretation'.
doi.org/10.1017/pab....
🧪 #Geology ⚒️ #Paleobio

AMNH REU

Come learn with us! #REU!

Miyazato et al have revealed, via μ-CT scans of Belonostomus longirostris skulls from Alberta, fused cranial bones, hidden sensory canals, and features that challenge its placement in Teleostei—reshaping views on aspidorhynchid evolution. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A powerpoint slide entitled "Radiation in jaw morphology of early ray-finned fishes after the Late Devonian extinction".

Tomorrow at 11am is my #SICB2026 talk on early ray-finned fishes! Come by and see all the cool fossils we've CT scanned. Track me down during the rest of the conference to see some 3D printed jaws.....