David Bapst

'Tis the season for graduate school applications, so here's a reminder that I'm recruiting! My lab uses a combination of fossils, statistical phylogenetics, fieldwork, & computational methods to study macroevolutionary dynamics in the marine biosphere. Check the link below & feel free to reach out

Cuban ground owl

On the non beautiful side, there’s a peak of peak-dinosaurism for the Cuban ground owl, which was probably terrifying to behold

one of the pics is Billboard Chris (professional troll) saying "individuals who identify as trans should be automatically disqualified from holding any position as teacher or professor", with the undergrad's mom- an attorney defending J6 rioters- agreeing.

this is about kicking us out of teaching.

An ocellated turkey of the Yucatan

Disagree, peak dinosaur evolution is the ocellated turkey of the Yucatan

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...

You know what happens when you don’t have a faculty senate? In a crisis, there is no one to ask questions — even to give illusion of holding anyone responsible — so misinformation spreads like wildfire among faculty & students, admin aren’t believed, and no one else has authority to clarify facts.

Ohhh, birth records, that might be it. Lots of families with kids moved to Texas, so there might be lots of out of state kids who (if they stay here) should be Texan in ten years

ACS 2023 demographic data from Neilsberg for Texas

Demographic Cliff plot for Texas from CollegeTabels

I’m not sure decline seen in the Texas A&M plot matches what I see in the ACS 2023 demography — I don’t think we should see a decline at all in Texas for ten more years

Brian do the ‘demographic cliff’ figures based only on demographic trends for the US as a whole (and thus only varying for each school based on the proportion of enrollment taken from each state, or do they account for each state’s projected demography?

There’s also differences in how ctenorphores build their neurons, using different genes than other metazoans.

I am sure this will not be the last word on the subject…

A black and white drawing by noonillustrations on Instagram showing two panels of an isopod on the left the isopod is open on the right the isopod is rolled up. Underneath the panels, associated with each one, text says, “fuck it we ball“

Mood, by noonsillustrations on IG.

Incorporating continuous characters in joint estimation of dicynodont phylogeny Abstract. Continuous characters have received comparatively little attention in Bayesian phylogenetic estimation. This is predominantly because they cannot

Check out this new paper in Systematic Biology! Aside from the author list including leaders in the field who happen to be some of my favorite scientists, this paper discusses * both * phylogeny inference incorporating continuous characters AND dicynodont evolution. How cool is that? 🧪

Need a free-to-read preprint? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Interested in using continuous traits for phylogenetic estimation? We took a hard look at this in a well-studied clade. There’s a lot of promise to these data, but still much work to do to be able to make full use of them

doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

A comic panel from Watchmen, showing a partially muscled skeleton (Dr Manhattan) screaming in pain in front of two horrified security guards. Text reads: “November 14th: a partially muscled skeleton stands by the perimeter fence and screams for thirty seconds before vanishing…”

Happy partially muscled skeleton screaming before vanishing day to all those who celebrate.

Reminder that my lab is seeking graduate students for fall 2026. As part of @oupaleobiology.bsky.social, my lab uses a combination of fossils, statistical phylogenetics, fieldwork, & computational approaches to investigate macroevolutionary dynamics in the marine biosphere. Link w/ more info below:

Figure caption: “An AI-generated reconstruction of what a 'drop croc', or mekosuchine crocodile…”

ughhh, BBC, I expected better from you

Want to do a PhD linking palaeontology, ecological modelling and polar ecosystems? Look no further than this NERC GW4+ DLTP funded project with @rowanwhittlebas.bsky.social at @bas.ac.uk & @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and others (inc me).

www.bristol.ac.uk/media-librar...

Of course the pro-mollusc crowd wants to claim victory in spite of their absolutely devastating defeat at the hands of their bivalved enemies (or ships that pass in the night[?]), but we all know the real winner of the Clash-of-the-Clades was a brachiopod-loving vertebrate who sure loves fossils 😂

Oh look, some monograptids

(Taps the sign, in an urgent fashion)

Texas AAUP-AFT Calls on the Texas A&M University System Not to Muzzle Faculty, Students in the Classroom ‣ Texas AFT This week, the Texas A&M System Board of Regents will vote on whether or not to add severe restrictions on academic freedom and freedom of expression that would codify institutional censorship of curriculum and classroom discussions.

This is important!

Adaptive landscape and the evolution of flight in mammals

A big review of the evolution of bats:
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

I *literally* had some construction workers tell me my flat tire on a mountain road in WY last summer was because of DEI.

It was the dumbest fuckin' thing I had ever heard with my own two ears

(the installer was some 19 year old white kid in Laramie btw)

TARDIGRADE ON A BUILDING

What the heck is a dead ball????

Sketch of the small Cambrian arthropod in murky water with particles floating around it. It has one large compound eye.

Sketch of the synapsid resting on the dirt.

Sketch of the grapolites floating above the ocean floor.

Catching up #Paleoctober2025 days 25, 26, 27 with paleoart sketches of Cambropachycope, Sphenacodon, and Cyrtograptus.

#Paleoctober #Paleoart #Cambropachycope #Sphenacodon #Cyrtograptus