Lauren Wilson

Fossil bird bones are delicate, so bird teeth, which are far more likely to preserve in the fossil record, represent a unique opportunity to fully appreciate Mesozoic avialan richness. Out today in RSOS, we describe 105 bird teeth from the Cretaceous of northern Alaska. 🧵

To image these PCF teeth as best as possible, we used non-destructive, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy. This technique eliminates common issues with visualizing small teeth, including glare that can obscure details such as fine enamel ornamentation.

Fossil bird bones are delicate, so bird teeth, which are far more likely to preserve in the fossil record, represent a unique opportunity to fully appreciate Mesozoic avialan richness. Out today in RSOS, we describe 105 bird teeth from the Cretaceous of northern Alaska. 🧵

Birds could, and did, live in the seasonal, extreme latitude PCF, but crocodylians could not. In fact, in over four decades of searching, absolutely no terrestrial ectotherms have been discovered. Only warm-blooded terrestrial animals could endure such extreme seasons: dinosaurs and mammals.

Fossil bird bones are delicate, so bird teeth, which are far more likely to preserve in the fossil record, represent a unique opportunity to fully appreciate Mesozoic avialan richness. Out today in RSOS, we describe 105 bird teeth from the Cretaceous of northern Alaska. 🧵

Previous attempts to statistically distinguish the two have failed and the true identity of these teeth has remained ambiguous. So, we need all the help we can get in estimating the true diversity of toothed birds in the millions of years leading up to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

Fossil bird bones are delicate, so bird teeth, which are far more likely to preserve in the fossil record, represent a unique opportunity to fully appreciate Mesozoic avialan richness. Out today in RSOS, we describe 105 bird teeth from the Cretaceous of northern Alaska. 🧵

So happy to be back out in Montana! Some great finds already this season including some teeny weeny croc teeth and a very cute baby T. rex premax tooth! But by far the best thing we’ve seen so far is a parade of very cute baby turkeys with their parents #FossilFriday

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A special thank you to Dr. Susie Maidment (@tweetisaurus.bsky.social) and Dr. Paul Barrett (@profpaulbarrett.bsky.social) for inviting us to contribute to the 200 Years of Dinosaurs special collection!

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

2. If climate truly doesn’t have much of an impact on dinosaur body size, why not? And how the heck did they get so big?!

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Surprisingly, while we did initially find some support for increasing sauropod body sizes in more arid climates (low precipitation) following their shift in climatic preference, but when we investigated this further with a larger dataset of sauropods (n=157), that signal disappeared.

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Some very cool recent studies from Chiarenza et al. (@macroecoevoale.bsky.social) and Dunne et al. (@emmadnn.bsky.social) showed shifts in preferred climate for the major group of dinosaurs. We expected to see a shift in dinosaur body size associated with these newfound climatic preferences.

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

After a fun SVP, I’m thankful to have some extra time in the UK to explore! Had a wonderful day walking the Jurassic Coast in Kimmeridge and Lulworth Cove Off to Lyme Regis tomorrow for more adventures!

Right now, millions of birds are migrating south before the onset of the boreal winter. @ksepkalab.bsky.social and I explore the evolutionary origins of this amazing behavior in our article for @sciam.bsky.social! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Need to predict an unknown trait, like body size, for extinct species? Use phylogenies! A new paper by colleagues from the ‪@uniofreading.bsky.social‬ and Montana State demonstrates that phylogenetic prediction is more accurate than regression formulae. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

They show how to mitigate challenges (uncertain phylogenetic relationships, branch lengths, model choice) through real case studies – from predicting bush-cricket calling frequencies to the neuron density of T. rex brains. They also offer a guide and resources for making phylogenetic predictions.

Need to predict an unknown trait, like body size, for extinct species? Use phylogenies! A new paper by colleagues from the ‪@uniofreading.bsky.social‬ and Montana State demonstrates that phylogenetic prediction is more accurate than regression formulae. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Through simulations on multiple tree types and sizes, they show that phylogenetically informed predictions are more accurate than calculations from OLS and PGLS regression formulae. In the figure, you can see that the range in error (actual - predicted) is narrower for phylogenetic predictions.

Need to predict an unknown trait, like body size, for extinct species? Use phylogenies! A new paper by colleagues from the ‪@uniofreading.bsky.social‬ and Montana State demonstrates that phylogenetic prediction is more accurate than regression formulae. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Predicting traits like body size is often done by calculating them from regression formulae, based on some proxy. However, this fails to account for shared ancestry among species. Both ordinary (OLS) and phylogenetic (PGLS) regression formulae ignore relatedness during the prediction process.

Can’t get enough Cretaceous Arctic baby birds? ❄️🐣 Me neither! Check out the talk I gave at the Royal Tyrrell Museum! I not only get into what types of birds were living in northern Alaska 73 million years ago, but also the crazy Arctic fieldwork we do to actually find the fossils! #FossilFriday