Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab

I neglected to mention that I will be co-chairing this session with @tegnikus.bsky.social. Please reach out to either or both of us if you have any questions or would like more information.

The monolith of Sheep Rock, the most dramatic outcrop of Oregon's John Day Formation, whose rocks and fossils may have a lot to say about the timing of amphicyonid ("bear-dog") migration between Eurasia and North America.

Skeleton (and fossilized trackway) of the giant "bear-dog" Amphicyon, a genus whose range encompassed both Europe and North America (seen here in the Raymond Alf Museum, Claremont, California).

While I'm promoting conferences this #FossilFriday, the @eavpalaeo.bsky.social early registration window is closing soon. It'll my first EAVP and I'd love to see as many of my 🇪🇺 colleagues as possible in 🇱🇹 to share my work on the migration of giant amphicyonids between Europe and North America.

The Afrotheria: Origins & Evolution of Africa’s Iconic Mammals Despite comprising fewer than 100 extant species, few mammalian lineages contain as high a degree of morphological and ecological disparity as do Afrotheria. So great is the disparity between extant aardvarks, sengis, golden moles, tenrecs, otter shrews, hyraxes, sirenians, and elephants that they were not recognized as a monophyletic clade until the advent of molecular phylogenetics less than 30 years ago. The rich afrotherian fossil record includes not only members of extant families, but stem taxa and extinct orders such as embrithopods. This incredible diversity has inspired a corresponding variety of palaeontological and evolutionary questions. This symposium will showcase the diversity of research and researchers working on Afrotherians in areas that may include, but are not limited to the origin of the group, phylogenetics, systematics, major transitions, functional morphology, biomechanics, palaeoecology, biogeography, biostratigraphy, ichnology, and conservation palaeobiology.

The Nye Formation near Newport, Oregon, unexpected site of a warm-water sea cow in the cold North Pacific.

An extinct Steller's sea cow (a not-too-distant relative of the Oregon sirenian) and an African manatee (a much more distant relation) in the skeletal menagerie of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris).

West Indian manatees, the most familiar living sirenians to those of us in North America, Crystal River, Florida.

It's #FossilFriday & @ipc7.bsky.social registration & abstract submissions are open! I'll be there co-chairing a session on afrotheres & talking about the ecology of an out-of-place sea cow from Oregon. I hope you can join us to share your work on elephants, aardvarks, sengis, tenrecs, hyraxes, etc.

The Paleontological Society statement on recent events.

Miohippus was one of the first genera to move out of the forests and onto the savannas of Oligocene North America (mural from John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon, painted by Roger Witter).

While not nearly as diverse as they used to be, equids are very much still with us today, not only in the form of domestic horses and donkeys, but as wild horses, asses, and zebras on the plains of Asia and Africa (photo from South Luangwa National Park, Zambia).

Eurohippus from the Eocene Messel lagerstätte was, like most early horses, a small forest-dweller that lived alongside closely related hoofed mammals that would give rise to rhinos and tapirs (photo from the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt, Germany).

Over the last 25 million years, horses have been part of an evolutionary dance with grasslands, which shaped and were shaped by increasingly large, fast, and grass-eating equids like Merychippus (back right), Equus simplicidens (Idaho's Hagerman horse, middle), and Equus occidentalis (front left; photo from Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

Chúc mừng năm mới

새해복많이받으세요

恭喜发财

Whichever language you say it in, happy lunar new year! Equids loom large in the study of paleontology and evolution, so we in the MEAT Lab are excited to celebrate the Year of the Horse!

(See picture alt text for details and photo credits).

#SICB2026 is a wrap! Thanks to @sicb.bsky.social for hosting a great conference (as always), to all the speakers and workshop organizers for sharing your inspiring work to move biology forward, and especially to everyone who came by our poster and gave my student excellent feedback!

Took the scenic route to #sicb2026 today. If you’re in Portland too, come say hi, and make sure to catch my student’s poster on Tuesday to learn about our work on desmostylian shoulders!

So excited to be a part of this symposium at next year’s @ipc7.bsky.social! If you work on elephants, sea cows, aardvarks, tenrecs, hyraxes, or any of their relatives, I hope you can join us in Cape Town!

FT25CN427. Bracken Cave Bat Flight Full Title: Bracken Cave Bat Flight Led by: Fran Hutchens and Geary Schindel Date: Mon. 20 Oct. 2025 Time: 5:30-9 p.m. CEUs: 0.35 Bracken Bat Cave is located near Garden Ridge, Texas, about a 45-minut...

As a follow-up PSA, if you're currently registering for the @geosociety.bsky.social meeting, don't neglect (as I nearly did) what looks like the coolest field trip of the conference!

Three student researchers enthusiastically pointing out fossils from the Sooke Formation in the collections of the Royal BC Museum

Lab members in the field on the banks of the Sombrio River on Vancouver Island

Lab members locating the site of an important marine mammal fossil on the coast of Vancouver Island

Lab members find the first fossil of the season on a boulder on the seaweed-covered cobble beach near the Sombrio River on Vancouver Island

Our undergrad researchers have been doing some great work in the field, museum, and lab on the paleoenvironments of Oligocene marine mammals from the Northwest Coast. And now it's confirmed that they'll be presenting that work at the @geosociety.bsky.social meeting in October!

Ancient Footprints Unearthed at John Day Fossil Beds Reveal Prehistoric Animal Behaviors - Office of Communications (U.S. National Park Service)

News release on our cool fossil track paper!

www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/an...

As of this #FossilFriday, I'm officially hosting a symposium on Afrotheria at next year's IPC in Cape Town! There's still a lot to work out, but if you work on elephants, sea cows, aardvarks or any of their relatives (and can make it to South Africa) please consider being a part of this session!

The John Day River flowing past the monolith of Sheep Rock

The monumental wall of badlands at Foree

The green and red badlands of the John Day Formation

The Clarno Palisades, towers formed by erosion of Eocene volcanic mudflows

The scenery outside is none too shabby either!

Fossil display cases in front of colorful murals of life in central Oregon during the Eocene Epoch.

Fossil display cases in front of myself depicting the drier, grassier world of the Miocene Epoch

The fanged jaws of the cat-like sabertooth Pogonodon

Skulls of oreodonts, vaguely sheep-like animals that are superabundant in the John Day fossil record

One of the perks of doing research at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is getting to stroll through the exhibits afterwards. Besides telling a great story about climate change and evolution, they are a textbook example of how great paleoart can elevate a paleontology display.

The pyramidal peak of Sheep Rock, Oregon, with sagebrush in the foreground

The lab is working on describing some carnivores from Oregon's John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, so I had an excuse to run down to one of our planet's more dramatic fossiliferous landscapes (and my old stomping grounds) over our Spring Break.

Skeleton of the barrel-chested, short-legged rhino Teleoceras on display at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum.

Hello from the Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab at @gonzagauniversity.bsky.social! We use the fossil record to explore the evolution of mammals and the forces that drive it. Follow us for research updates, news, and fossil photos (like this one of the rhino Teleoceras in the Carnegie Museum)!