Tiago Simões

Tiago Simões

@trsimoes.bsky.social

Assistant Professor @Princeton EEB. #phylogenetics/#macroevolution/#paleobiology http://simoes-lab.com Posts and views are of my own.

323 followers197 following79 posts

Tiago Simões reposted

Gabriela Sobral
@sobralg.bsky.social

Dada a correria de hoje, cuidando de crianca a indo a médico, esqueci de compartilhar mais cedo que saiu o mais recente episódio do @dragoesdegaragem.bsky.social com o @trsimoes.bsky.social sobre a evolucao de cobras e lagartos! Venham ouvir :D dragoesdegaragem.com/podcast/cobr...

dragoesdegaragem.comCobras e Lagartos - Dragões de Garagem #345 - Dragões de GaragemNeste episódio, Gabi volta aos microfones, junto com seu coautor Tiago para falarem com o André sobre o artigo que publicaram e os entendimentos sobre esses répteis interessantes (ou horripilantes) qu...
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Cool paper in snake vertebrae evolution! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.comA surprise at the tail's end: The bizarre tail vertebrae of reed snakes (Serpentes, Calamariidae) reveal an extraordinary caudal vertebral morphology for CaenophidiaCaudal vertebrae of caenophidian snakes are characterized by the presence of paired haemapophyses–a pattern observed from the earliest-diverging acrochordid lineage to the most derived viperids, and ...

Tiago Simões reposted

Princeton University
@princeton.edu

🐍 A team led by Princeton's @trsimoes.bsky.social studied a well-preserved snake fossil found in Brazil that's providing new insights into the origins of this "peculiar and yet highly diverse group" that "remains one of the biggest mysteries in vertebrate evolution."

scmp.comRare snake fossil offers new insight into the reptiles’ early evolutionOne of the best-preserved early snake fossils, the Tametara mirim fossil dates back around 75 to 85 million years to the Cretaceous Period.
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Cool detailed account by @sobralg.bsky.social on some of the back stage stories behind our paper

Gabriela Sobral@sobralg.bsky.social

So, I will take the opportunity to write about our paper on the new fossil snake 🐍 from Brazil out in @nature.com today. Tiago wrote on the science itself here 👇 so I will tell a bit about the behind the scene stages, especially segmentation and anatomical interpretation bsky.app/profile/trsi...

Tiago Simões reposted

Gabriela Sobral
@sobralg.bsky.social

Our work is out! Meet Tametara mirim, a new fossil snake 🐍 from Brazil that has challenged our views on early snake evolution! A jewel 💎 from the Cretaceous brought to you by an amazing team of colleagues among which @trsimoes.bsky.social and @nicolasdipoi.bsky.social! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - NatureA well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - NatureA well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
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Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Overall, we show that this remarkable story is not linear or simple as previously assumed. It follows a complex trajectory, with Cretaceous snakes already widespread in ecological and neuroanatomical diversity, and more specialized to different environments than the snake ancestral condition

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - NatureA well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
View full thread
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Bone microstructure and brain shape analyses independently converge on the ancestral ecology of Tametara (as fossorial) and Dinilysia (as ground dwelling). Further, it shows many independent transitions across habitats during the long history of snake evolution.

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - NatureA well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
View full thread
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Using geometric morphometrics, we found these early snake brains are more different from each other than most living snake species, indicating exceptional disparity of brain shapes early on in snake evolution.

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

But what about the ancestral ecology of this and other stem snakes? Interpreting the ecology of fossil snakes has been a challenge for decades. Fortunately, the brain can tell us a lot about the ecology of an organism. The same with the microstructural profile of the bones of their skull.

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - NatureA well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Tametara has an exceptional braincase preservation, allowing us to extract the most detailed brain endocast of a fossil snake to date. We did the same with another early snake, (Dinilysia, from Argentina).

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

To my international colleagues. You should be aware that there are two spellings of my name in Brazil: Tiago and Thiago. Each of us hates it when our names are spelled like the version. Brazilians know it… Now you also do. Just so you know…

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Last of our lab talk today at the closure of #Evol2026: rates and drivers of amniote diversification across the Permian Triassic biotic crisis at room 23 (Diversification) by Shelley Wang

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Check out my lab talks today #Evol2026! Macroevolution of aquatic adaptations in lizards by Daniel Vazquez-Restrepo at 10.15am in Adaptation 1 Performance of methods to infer evolutionary rates using multivariate continuous traits by Izabel Salvi in PCM 1 at 11.45

Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

This will make my life easier! Nice work! "MorphSim: An R package for simulating discrete morphological data" besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.comMorphSim: An R package for simulating discrete morphological dataMorphological data are essential for reconstructing evolutionary histories, particularly for fossil taxa, as they represent the primary source of information for integrating extinct lineages into ...

Tiago Simões reposted

Joseph W. BRRRAAAIIINNNSSS
@josephwb.bsky.social

The paper: Statistical and Structural Bias in Birth-Death Models by @phylieu.bsky.social & @omearabrian.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

link.springer.comStatistical and Structural Bias in Birth-Death Models - Bulletin of Mathematical BiologyAccurate estimation of speciation ( $$\lambda $$ λ ) and extinction ( $$\mu $$ μ ) rates from phylogenetic trees is central to studies of diversification, yet it remains unclear whether commonly used ...
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Tiago Simões reposted

harvardoeb.bsky.social
@harvardoeb.bsky.social

Meet Megachelicerax cousteaui, a 500myo sea predator that just rewrote the evolutionary history of chelicerates by 20 million years! New study in @nature.com by @cambrianlife.bsky.social Dr. Rudy Lerosey-Aubril and Prof. Javier Ortega-Hernandez

eurekalert.orgA 500-million-year-old clawed predator rewrites the origin of spiders and horseshoe crabsHarvard researchers reveal the earliest known Chelicerata in a new study published in Nature. The 500-million-year-old fossil, named Megachelicerax cousteaui, provides unequivocal evidence of chelicer...

Tiago Simões reposted

Erik Svensson
@evolodonata.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy

Come and join me and my colleagues at the Department of Biology, #LundUniversity in #sweden! We have am open position as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Biodiversity. Apply here no later than February 11 2026: https://lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:848749/type:job/where:4/apply:1

lu.varbi.comSenior Lecturer/Associate Professor in BiodiversityThe Department of Biology was established in 2010 through the merger of the Departments of Ecology, Cell and Organism Biology, Biological Undergraduate Education, and the Biological Museums. The depar
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Our lab's PhD student Daniel's take on body size biases in tetrapod taxonomy: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.comToo big to miss: body size biases in tetrapod species descriptions and their implications for conservationWhile species descriptions are rooted in biological diversity, their timing and patterns have also been influenced by historical, socioeconomic, and perceptual biases. Among these, body size has long...
Tiago Simões
@trsimoes.bsky.social

Our big squamate origins and early evolution review is now fully published as open access! with @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social and F. Burbrink www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

annualreviews.orgOrigin and Early Evolution of Squamates and Their Kin: From Fossils to GenomesSquamates (lizards, including snakes) are the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates on Earth today and have an evolutionary history dating back to at least the Middle Triassic (ca. 242 Mya). D...