Dr Thomas Clements

Why wouldn't you? 🤷🏼‍♂️

The relationship between microbial community succession, decay, and anatomical character loss in non‐biomineralized animals A fundamental assumption of hypothesis-driven decay experiments is that, during decay, the loss of anatomy follows a sequence broadly controlled by the intrinsic compositional properties of tissues. ...

Bacteria 🦠 🧫 play a crucial role in how animals become fossils!
Read about how decay experiments demonstrate that bacteria from the gut dominate the thanatomicrobiome (the internal microbiome of decay) and probably control fossilisation in our new paper!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Had the amazing privilege earlier in the year to watch a lithographic limestone plate be made by one last plate makers in Germany. Each plate is cut and then hammered by hand into shape - and after having a go it's very skilled work. Currently they have no apprentices, so a truly dying art.

A colour illustration of Vampyroteuthis infernalis. The main body is painted black, with eyes painted to look bioluminescent

From our rare books collection we have this illustration of Vampyroteuthis infernalis, also known as the vampire squid from hell. In an order of its own, we don't really think the vampiric moniker is fair either as they actually feed on detritus and not blood #EYAMonsters

Many many pumpkins

Even more pumpkins

It's Kürbiszeit (pumpkin time) here in Bavaria! Bumper crops this year from the local farms, so every type of pumpkin dish is on the menu 🎃

A skeletonized American alligator decomposing in a wood framed box

Happy #Croctober to all who celebrate.

#Marine #origins and #freshwater #radiations of the otophysan fishes: dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adr4494

Illustration of the googly eyed squid, teuthowenia pellucida. A deep sea squid with a spherical body that is orange and transparent, see-through at the fin on the left hand side. Has two giant eyes with arms shooting straight up from the middle and a siphon underneath. On a starry night background with a blue gradient behind them. Text reads “googly eyed for the googly-eyed squid. Teuthowenia pellucida

I’m googly eyed for the googly-eyed squid (Teuthowenia pellucida) 😍🧵🧪

World Heritage Officer in Dorchester | Dorset Council View details and apply for this World Heritage Officer vacancy in Dorchester. Join a passionate and collaborative team at the heart of Dorset's environmental and heritage work. As part of the Dor...

AMAZING JOB ALERT!!! Dorset Council are recruiting a World Heritage Officer to support the management of the Jurassic Coast! Would suit an Earth Science graduate with an interest in digital comms and content: deets here: www.jobs.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/vacancies/32...

Illustration if teuthowenia pellucida, the googly-eyed glass squid. A spherical squid. On the right side is two larger eyes with arms and tentacles between them, pointing straight up, and a siphon just below. The left side has a translucent fin. A truly goofy looking squid.

This one was my arch nemesis for a hot minute. But theyre finally done. Teuthowenia pellucida, the googly-eyed squid. A deep sea cranchiid aka glass squid 🦑 🧪🐙🐡

Quick scan for you:

No definition of 'woke'

Key finding: "There was no wider correlation between how woke a university was and how it fared on the rankings."

Utter drivel designed to drive culture wars.

Weirdly, I am really up for this.

Happy #fossilfriday !

Staffordshire is probably best known for its extensive carboniferous coal measures

This gorgeous specimen in a borehole was found at a depth of 452m.
Lepidodendron aff. ophiurus
Middle Carboniferous, Beech, Staffordshire
Photo taken @potteriesmuseum

#paleobotany #plants

When scrolling, my brain couldn't compute the space between the fingers. It made me....uneasy 😂

New out of office:

"Contrary to any reports currently circulating I have actually been Raptured and will not be responding to emails.

Thank you for your understanding during this exciting time".

Poster for the new exhibition "Edmond, the last days of the dinosaurs" (in German). A closeup to an Edmontosaurus, also known as a duck-billed dinosaur, looking at the sky in a dark background.

A large hall with a tyrannosaurus and a triceratops skeleton (fore and back). Two skulls of Triceratops stand next to an open display case below a large skeleton projected on a wall (6 x 3 m).

A miniature of a Tyrannosaurus walking through the forest of swamp cypresses and fig trees.

A herd of a miniature Edmontosaurus (two young ones and two large adults), roaming in a riverbank.

Like Angela Bassett, I did the thing. I am knackered but yesterday morning I heard a group of 10 children screaming with excitement and suddenly everything was worth it.

My favourite part of German trains is when they cancel them with no warning so that they can pad stats of how many trains are late...

A sketchbook page full of Shrimps in a stylized gouache style

Shrimps Shrimps 🦐
#gouache

Screenshot of part of the LEGO Ideas website, showing a side view of a diorama featuring both creatures

🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨

We’ve just seen this, by creator “Menapian” - a 4,998-piece set of the Great Exhibition (1851) Crystal Palace - complete with a bonus Megalosaurus and Ichthyosaur…

beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Taphonomy of aquatic insects from the Crato Formation Lagerstätte (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) under an actualistic look The Crato Formation (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) is a fossiliferous deposit of global significance, representing a lacustrine palaeoenvironment which offers insights into aquatic insect taphonomy. Despi...

Really interesting and excellently executed taphonomic study alert!

The authours designed neat insect disarticualtion experiments to better understand preservational patterns of insect found in the Crato Formation, Brazil. 🪰🪳🦟

Very very cool work by Storari et al.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Donate Now « Royal Saskatchewan Museum World's largest T. rex lives here. Two locations Regina, Saskatchewan and Eastend, Saskatchewan.

To donate, please visit: www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/donate/donate-now and indicate the "Pierre Cockx fund" in the notes field above the payment details. Your donations will be managed by the Friends of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, a non-profit group supporting student research.

A picture of Emma splitting the paper shales of the Solnhofen Plattenkalk looking for fossils.

🎵 Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong,
West Bavaria, Solnhofen Plattenkalk,
Take me home, country roads 🎶

⚠️ We’re excited to announce our invited speakers for the #PalAss Annual Meeting! 🎉
🔗 Registration link ⬇️
palass.org/annual-meeti...

#conference #uk #palaeontology #meeting

From paper: Figure 2: Photographs and interpretation of specimen MNHNL TV211. (A) overview of the specimen. (B) anatomical interpretation of the right lateral portion of the skull. (C) zoom on the fossilised gut content, showing a vampyromorph gladius (red arrow).

LOVE papers about gut contents!

Vampyromorph coleoid predation by an ichthyosaurian from the Early Jurassic Lagerstätte of Bascharage, #Luxembourg

Valentin Fischer et al

peerj.com/articles/197...

(Seen thanks to @arctomet.bsky.social!)

An ad for 'cute dinosaur rings', with rings that have dinosaur shapes on them. The stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops are aptly named, while the plesiosaur is labelled 'long neck dragon'. And yes, I KNOW a plesiosaur isn't a dinosaur, it's a marine reptile. But A) That's what the ad claims it is, and the joke I made assumes the role of the people responsible for the ad, so it would need to be in character, and B) Shoehorning that incredibly specific caveat into the supposed conversation would have ruined the whole thing and rendered it meaningless. So, basically, please don't feel compelled to point this 'error' out to me as if I'm embarrassingly ignorant of palaeontological taxonomy

"How's the online ad coming?"

"Pretty much done"

"Great. You knew the names of all the relevant dinosaurs?"

"...yeah. Definitely."

"Cool. Just go ahead an launch it then"

😀

Picture of a smiling Ichthyostega called Kevin. He is a chonk.

Very excited to announce that I will be joining the staff at @uniofreading.bsky.social in the new year.

Especially looking forward to working alongside Kevin the Ichthyostega and the team at the @colezoology.bsky.social as part of my new role.

I also find that 90% of the time they are garbled nonsense.

Karl the geology dog recieving scratches during a symposium

Hard to concentrate on a symposium when the person sitting next to you keeps snuffling you for scritches.

Ask them to take their shoes and socks off before they come in. They won't want to bother after a while.