Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D.

I finished 87 books this year, and it's time to rank my top ten! #booksky

Very grateful for a full weekend of learning at Castle Rock State Park and Nachusa Grasslands. Friends of IL Nature Preserves brought 14 volunteers together to meet with ecologists and leaders who have spent decades stewarding these lands. Hopefully more pictures of plants to come!

Hi all, please join us next Thursday 29th October for the third webinar of the year - given by Prof Carrie Mongle from the Stony Brook University. More details on the poster below. Please register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/7e4807... We hope to see you there!

Zebra premolar from Kenya dating to 300,000 years ago for #FossilFriday

Outdoor cats are one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity. Ever. Full stop. If you have an outdoor cat, I respect you less.

I'm personally in the camp of the anthropocene as an ongoing event (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...) That said, the amount of attention this debate has generated is just so out of proportion with its (i would argue) lack of nearly any practical relevance

Red-Bellied Snake in Vermont

I'm only two chapters in and this is already my favorite book of the year

Partial mandible of a small Kobus species, a wetland antelope (related to modern Kob) from 750,000 years ago in Kenya for #FossilFriday

Slow-blinking big wet boba eyes

We planted the first 1,344 trees today out of nearly 10,000 to be planted over the next three years as part of our Community Reforestation project. The goal is not to return to some "pristine" past, but rather to create a climate-resilient Indigenous food forest that will thrive for centuries.

Here's the press release on the new finds from White Sands: news.arizona.edu/news/footpri... 🧪

It's #NationalFossilDay in the US! This year the site of interest is White Sands National Park in New Mexico, US, where human footprints document the earliest confirmed record of people in the Americas. Not coincidentally, a new paper on these fossils is just out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪

NEW PALEO JOB!! The Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) in Johannesburg is hiring a Director. Famous for human origins, dinosaur evolution, and most importantly (😅) Permo-Triassic tetrapods, this is a huge opportunity to lead one of the world’s greatest paleo institutes. Please share!

We're hiring a cellular/molecular biology Assistant Professor! Details below oneonta.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdeta...

Tree is treeing

Foraging some Riverbank Grapes and hanging out with the local Jefferson Salamanders

I am angry tonight. Because tonight ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.

This is your annual reminder that honeybees aren't native to North America

Humans are, and always have been, a natural part of environments

Deciduous pemolar of a horse from 1.5 million years ago in Kenya for #FossilFriday

Red Maple outside my office window

Why am I hopeful about the future of forests? Hope is a major theme of my new book — The Forest Year: Finding Hope in a World Worth Saving — which is now available as a hardcover, ebook and audiobook anywhere books are sold! Pick a copy up from your local indie bookseller. #forest #nature #hope

That time I put almost all the chipmunk species in the western USA on one map. Did you know there’s 1 species of chipmunk in Asia, 1 in eastern USA & >20 in western USA? (I’m not the crazy one here. The chipmunks are the crazy ones.)

Every river in North America, every day for two years. The combined flow to the sea sinks as low as 53,000 m³/s in winter and swells past 290,000 by late June, more than quadrupling each spring. Data: GloFAS, @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social #rivers #dataviz #hydrology

Urban Whitetails for #MammalMonday

Wintergreen growing in a Hemlock forest

Maitake and waterfall in an Oak-Hemlock Forest

I often see people claim that because clean energy sources like solar, wind, or nuclear are manufactured using fossil fuels their emissions are high. But thats absolutely not the case: even accounting for full lifecycle emissions they are vastly better than burning coal or gas:

Fossil molar of a very small Eurygnathohippus, one of the last surviving 3-toed horses, from 1.5 million years ago in Kenya #FossilFriday

Deeply unserious animal

Xenorhinotherium & Macrauchenia my beloveds This was mostly an exercise in achieving different fur textures in Blender, as well as an excuse to make an infographic since I haven't made one of those in a while. #SciArt #artbyjulio

Good way to end the night

Night foraging Maitake

Every day we get closer to this:

Oryx molar from the Late Pleistocene of southern Kenya--one of the individuals I sampled for stable isotopes as part of my PhD

This one has been a long time coming! I'm happy to share that another chapter of my PhD has been published! In this one, I'm shaking up the taxonomy of North American metoposaurids. This work was largely done in museum collections, and more on that below. peerj.com/articles/217...

Sad piglet

One of my students presenting on her summer research in Kenya!

Announcing October and November dates for The Forest Year book tour!!! See full links and details at EthanTapper.com/forestyear And there is still time to preorder The Forest Year!!! Preorder from your local indie bookseller or their website or find some options at EthanTapper.com/forestyear

Two new papers: we re-dated the Buluk fossil site in Turkana, Kenya, and applied proxies to reconstruct climate and vegetation. Out now in GSA Bulletin! @danpeppe.bsky.social @munyaka.bsky.social @kevinuno.bsky.social @geosociety.bsky.social #MammalMonday #isotope #GSAPubs 🧪⚒️🌱🌦️🐒

Whitetail doe in the Red Oak forest for #MammalMonday

Larch Boletes

Buster is threatened by the 4lb Maitake

Maitake

10,000 year old Warthog molar from Kenya for #FossilFriday

BREAKING NEWS: New cat species just dropped! 🧪 What is a tilcayo, exactly? Well, it's a small wild cat in the genus Leopardus and a member of the tiger cat species complex, but it is NOT a tigrina, oncilla, kodkod, Geoffroy's cat... www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...