Richard Dearden

New #OA paper in @royalsocietypublishing.org #RSOS: we use CT to describe a 3D shark from the Cretaceous Chalk, giving a rare skeletal perspective on shark evolution. A bit of the backstory in 🧵below featuring 🦴 MYSTERY FOSSILS 🦈 CUTE SHARKS 🦷 CHALK DENTISTRY doi.org/10.1098/rsos... (1/13)

🎉 Two fern evo-devo PhD opportunities available at the University of Birmingham: warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa... warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa... Application deadline 23rd November. Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested 🙂 #Plantsci_jobs #Plantscience

This fossil is of a lobed-finned fish named Osteolepsis macrolepidotus and was found in Scotland. The Devonian Period (named after fossils first found in Devon, England), is known as "The age of fishes" and was fish transformed into three major groups: lobe-finned, ray-finned, and sharks.

Dear students/ECRs/etc., I know we all procrastinate abstract submissions... but this is the state your friendly abstract wrangler is in... Please send your #YSF2026 abstracts in ASAP! Deadline is Monday, OCT 26 11:59AM GMT+0 FREE MEETING: online NOV 13 REGISTER: tinyurl.com/bdzxt2ht

Happy Hagfish Day! Today we’re celebrating hagfishes - hagfishes are ancient marine animals perhaps best known for their remarkable ability to produce large amounts of slime when threatened. When the slime hits seawater, it expands to form a gel which can clog a predator's mouth and gills.

@swbiodtp.bsky.social will soon be advertising a competitively funded PhD with myself, @jameswclark.bsky.social & Davide Pisani @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social on the 'evolutionary assembly of plant genomes, development and phenotype', application deadline of Dec 2 - please contact me if interested

📈 Do you use data science tools for palaeobiological research? 👩‍💻 Are you interested in learning how to create these tools from scratch, and in improving the clarity of your workflows? If so, consider applying to our new Palaeoverse Mentorship Scheme! Find out more: palaeoverse.org/training/men...

Could not be more pleased to share the culmination of my "sturgeon project" out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41... I and my co-authors estimate neck mobility in some of the first vertebrates on the road to conquering life on land. We found that the necks were surprisingly stiff!

Hot off the presses! I reviewed the history of early ray-finned fishes, with a focus on their morphology, fossil record, and taxonomy. My principal goal is a guide for other workers to make the rich record of early actinopterygian evolution more broadly available. dx.doi.org/10.1002/jmor...

For years, 💀MorphoSource💀 has given researchers, educators, and students 🚨free access🚨 to 3D data on museum specimens from around the world. 🔆Now it is asking for some help to continue its work🔆 www.morphosource.org/donate/

Interested in Historical Ecology and Conservation Palaeobiology? 🪸🦀 Steve Pates and I are offering a PhD project on "Reducing uncertainty in the impact of climate on biodiversity" 🔗 unrisk-cdt.ac.uk/projects/red... 🗓️ Deadline: 13th January 2027

We’re bringing conservation paleobiology to Instagram with a new INCP science communication competition. This is your moment to share your conservation paleobiology work through visual storytelling— and be featured as part of our network re-launch.

PhD opportunity: 🦠🪱☠️🪣🔬🏞️ Do you want to test hypotheses of how fossils form, figure out if lab experiments reflect the real world? Come and join our lab! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Out today: We show that Westlothiana lizziae or "Lizzie," described 35 years ago as the world's oldest reptile - is not a stem amniote at all, but a stem tetrapod. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/

We are organising an in-person Morphological Phylogenetics Workshop, in partnership with SRUK/CERU and @thepalass.bsky.social. When: Nov 9-11, 2026 Where: University College London There are limited places, so please pre-register by October 8th!!! Find more details here: tinyurl.com/52c9u7dw

Over a decade ago, Tom Challands and I noticed these strange rock pools on the Isle of Skye coast. Hundreds, each the size of a car tire, lined up in zig-zag sequences Dinosaur tracks! We announced the site, then handed it to Paige dePolo to describe for her Masters Now today:

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at ETH Zurich invites applications for the position of Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Earth and Planetary Evolution. ethz.ch/en/the-eth-z... Please apply online. The closing date for applications is 15 December 2026.

A number of 🚨Science & Museum Jobs🚨 available at different levels right now for the Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK programme 🪩 #DiSSCo 🪩 fab if you're into 🌳science digitisation🌳 #ScienceJobs #MuseumJobs jobs.nhm.ac.uk/internal/Job...

🚨We're hiring a new Curator of Mammals!!🚨 🦍🐕🦝🐅🦓🦌🐃🐖🐏🐫🐘🦏🦛🐿️🦔🦇🦥🦦🦨🦘🦡🐋🦭🦒🧸 Come join the Vertebrate Unit at @nhmdk.bsky.social—a fantastic team in the heart of Denmark's beautiful capital! Amazing collections, incredible history. Please share widely! 🧪🏛️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Ever wondered which characters support individual clades in a tree? My new method maps phylogenetic support across a dataset. doi.org/10.1093/sysb... Try it in R: pak::pkg_install("ms609/TreeSearch@cpp-search") ?TreeSearch::ClusteringConcordance

the value of museum collections - this project rapidly snowballed from Ryan Tokeley emailing me while surveying the Carnian collections in the Warwick Museum stores to say there is a specimen labelled as 'fossil shark' which led to a very fruitful fishing expedition #fossilfriday

Re-interpretation of oral anatomy of Silurian heterostracan Athenaegis chattertoni from Northwest Territories, Canada onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday @agneselanzetti.bsky.social @palaeostephan.bsky.social @euphanerops.bsky.social @lisaschnetz.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social

Check out our new paper in @thepalass.bsky.social Palaeontology, led by @lisaschnetz.bsky.social describing the mouthparts of the oldest articulated heterostracan Athenaegis. Oral plates are organised more like those of the later pteraspids but lack key pteraspid features like ternimal hooks.

Second new paper this week: Reconstructing the oral apparatus of the Silurian heterostracan Athenaegis. Led by @lisaschnetz.bsky.social and in collaboration with many colleagues, including @euphanerops.bsky.social (who rendered the animation) and @nitroshutter.bsky.social

Another big potential #FishJob Curator of Fishes (or Mammals, but let it be ichthyology) at the American Museum of Natural History careers.amnh.org/postings/4925

Calling creatives! 🎹 🎶 Could you create a 30 second musical intro for our palaeontology podcast? We can pay for your services, but our budget is 🤏

New paper out today! Led by Daniel Schwarz, we retrodeformed the skull and reconstructed the cranio-mandibular musculature of the giant stem-amphibian Mastodonsaurus giganteus. Our results show that Mastodonsaurus had a powerful bite and a crocodile- like bite-and-hold feeding style.

Join us on Mon, 28 Sept, at 5:30pm for Dr Manfredo Capriolo's Lapworth Lecture, exploring a magmatic perspective on carbon emissions from the North Atlantic Igneous Province. The lecture is free and open to all, available to watch on campus or on Zoom. For more info: www.birmingham.ac.uk...

Interested in fossil arthropods, palaeoecology, dispersal, and interesting methods? 🦀 🌎 I'm hiring a 4-year, fully funded PhD student at the University of Geneva as part of my European Research Council (ERC) grant. Deadline: 16th October. Reach out if any questions! www.unige.ch/sciences/ter...

⚠️BIOINFORMATCIS JOB ALERT⚠️ Come and join us @bristolbiosci.bsky.social We are recruiting a Lecturer in Bioinformatics. Details here: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de... Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested!

🎓 Looking for a #PhD in Earth & Environmental Sciences starting Autumn 2027? Applications now open for CENTA Science Opportunity Scholarships for Home-fee applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds. ✅ Stipend ✅ Fees paid ✅ Research & conference funding centa.ac.uk/apply/ #DiversityInSTEM

Double preprint alert! 🚨 Squishy in the slishy 🌊 We used jellyfish and their paleoenvironments to better constrain paleogeographic reconstructions and tidal simulations throughout the entire Cambrian period. Many thanks to all my co-authors for their help and support with this study!

Double preprint alert! 🚨 Jaws: Baby shark 🦈 We used micro-CT scanning to examine the tessellated calcified cartilage in the jaws of 10 young chondrichthyans in 3D. We found some surprises—like chunky trabeculae in a baby nurse shark! Many thanks to all my co-authors for their help and support!

🧪So happy this is finally out after almost four years! We try to bring some order to the messy taxonomy of an iconic jawless fish. 🐟 Thanks to @evopalaeo.bsky.social, Madleen, Mike, @fossilrob.bsky.social & to all who contributed to this research! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Open Palaeontology has a new look 💜 Our brand-new website is live! Same mission as ever: Diamond Open Access palaeo research — free to publish, free to read, for everyone. Come explore ➡️ www.openpalaeo.org #PaleoSky #OpenAccess #Palaeontology

🎉 Registration for PalAss 2026 is officially OPEN! 🦖🦴 We are delighted to announce that registration for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association is now open! 🎓✨ 📍 University of Oxford, UK 📅 8–11 December 2026 ⬇️ palass.org/annual-meeti...

We currently have TWO collections-based vacancies at National Museums Scotland! As part of the upcoming DiSSCo UK program, we’re seeking a Digitiser and Senior digitiser to work with our insect collection: careers.nms.ac.uk/vacancies (Apply by 31st August) #Digitisation #Insects #MuseumJobs

A new fossil from the Eocene of Iran provides new insights regarding the evolution of the morphologically bizarre tube-eye fish onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #PapersinPalaeontology

Our latest: Xinyuan Meng @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social describes Bataspis crux, expanding galeaspid (jawless fish) disparity with a bat-like head adapted for dynamic lift. Xinyuan's study was aided by @ferronhg.bsky.social Davide Pisani, Zhikun Gai and myself. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

How many #sharks should there be on a coral #reef? Our new publication in Science tackles this question using thousands of fossil shark dermal denticles—tiny, tooth-like scales that are shed and preserve in sediments—from Panama's two oceans. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

A new #palaeohistology paper out from Sophie Sanchez & other great colleagues on the "Ossification of the #pectoral fin of Glyptolepis: implications for the evolution of the #lungfish appendicular skeleton". Happy to have played a very small part in this cool study link.springer.com/article/10.1...

consult.education.gov.uk/gcse-and-a-l... The DfE consultation on the proposed subject content for a new GCSE in natural history closes *4 Sep 2026*

⚠️Please repost!⚠️ Over 99% of species that ever lived are extinct. Without palaeontology, the new Natural History GCSE will only cover a snapshot of life's history. We're making the case for fossils in the new GCSE 🦴🐚🌿 teach.ocr.org.uk/palaeontolog... The consultation is open now! Have your say👇

🌍 @naturalis.bsky.social is hiring a Postdoc for the ERC Synergy Project #PROTOS (Prof. van Zuilen team) to investigate silica sinters, biosignatures & early Earth environments using experimental geochemistry and advanced imaging techniques. ⏳ Apply by 15 August. 🔗 www.naturalis.nl/en/about-us/...

Excited to share our first evo-devo modeling study exploring the developmental origins of the evolutionary transition from dentine–enameloid to dentine–enamel in vertebrates! 🦷 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Bataspis crux, a galeaspid (jawless stem gnathostome) from the Lochkovian of Yunnan with a batwing-shaped head adapted for hydrodynamic efficiency onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @morphobank.bsky.social