Prof. Christine Böhmer

Faster than terrestrial carnivores: our results suggest that craniomandibular function is achieved early in Harbor seals. Steinbach, Schaar & Böhmer @vertevo.bsky.social 2026 @anatrecord.bsky.social Postnatal craniomandibular growth in Harbor #seals (Phoca vitulina vitulina) doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

Functional anatomy of the ʻakiapōlāʻau, an unusual Hawaiian finch: academic.oup.com/auk/advance-... The lower jaw is used to chisel into wood and the long, curved upper jaw for extracting prey. 🪶🧪 (📷Bret Nainoa Mossman, Samantha J. Clark)

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!

Whaaat? Flightless bird ("Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis... from southeastern China") in the Jurassic? Dude you literally just learned to fly and you are immediately dropping this superpower. Reminds me the story of limb loss in early tetrapods www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Very happy to see this finally out! Thanks to all my amazing co-authors for this multi-year effort that we manage to wrap up! Coordinated transformations of the labyrinth and occiput during the dinosaur–bird transition | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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...

⚠️ "New article alert: The rise of carnivoran mammals in Europe through the lens of body mass". By @val-fisch.bsky.social, Floréal Solé, Kevin Le Verger, Bastien Mennecart, Melvin Vankelst, @narimanechatar.bsky.social, Robert P. Speijer, Stéphane Peigné & Thierry Smith ➡️ doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Researchers found a lost set of megalodon vertebrae in a Danish museum collection. These fossils are record-breaking and support the idea that this giant shark grew to over 24 meters long! 🧪 palaeo-electronica.org/content/2026...

"These findings support the hypothesis that selection resulted in shifts to P. robustus dental morphology to increase mechanical resistance, consistent with an expanding dietary niche that incorporated increasingly challenging foods."

Our latest paper started out as a DDIG project 14 years ago and grew into an interdisciplinary reassessment of Madagascar's oldest fossil lizard, showing that Konkasaurus mahalana is a gerrhosaur and the earliest known colonization from Africa by an extant Madagascan lineage. doi.org/10.1093/zool...

African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) paper now in @anatrecord.bsky.social's Feeding Biomechanics Special Issue! Using dissection & diceCT, we show powerful bites aren't just about bigger muscles—muscle architecture, skull mechanics & fascia may be key🐺 anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Newly described Australian fossils tell a wild story: an ichthyosaur ate a pterosaur, then was itself torn to pieces by a pliosaur. This is the first evidence of these three animals interacting within the same food web! 🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌅 To learn more about the novel fish named after “The Sunrise of Java”, check out the original study here: zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1949... #newfish #newspecies #indonesia

New species of Lower Cretaceous #coelacanth Macropoma gombessae sp nov from Gault Fm of Folkestone #fossilfriday Norton et al 2026 Papers in Palaeontology: Oldest Cretaceous latimeriid elucidates cranial evolution in derived and extant coelacanths (Actinistia, Latimeriidae) doi.org/10.1002/spp2...

Excited to share our new paper in Science Advances! Led by Dr Wei Wang at #IVPP in Beijing, it presents a complete skeleton of #Austronaga, the most marine of all archosauromorphs. To boot, this fossil preserves the oldest complete digestive tract of any reptile! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Comparative micro-ornamentation patterns of reptile skin: Phylogeny-ecology debate and species-specific variations. Study by Melodi Yenmiş: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Today, very small-sized geese are found in tropical regions. This suggests warmer paleoenvironment. Mayr et al 2022 Hist Biol: Nearly complete leg of an unusual, shelduck-sized anseriform #bird from the earliest late Miocene hominid locality Hammerschmiede (Germany) dx.doi.org/10.1080/0891...

Thrilled to have my first thesis chapter published in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We combine genomics, gene editing, and performance experiments to reveal the genetic basis and functional consequences of hurricane-induced trait shifts in island lizards! Check it out: www.cell.com/current-biol...

First undoubted pre-Pliocene dasyurid. Churchill et al 2026 Australian Zoologist. A new genus of dasyurid Miyumba chrisdickmani (Marsupialia, Dasyuridae) from the Early Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, north-western Queensland doi.org/10.1071/AZ26... Art by Nellie Pease.

#DBfeature 🐠 Pax9 has a broader role in initiating development of mesenchymal structures around the mouth during zebrafish development By Sandhya Paudel, Sarah McLeod, Stefani Gjorcheska, Lindsey Barske tinyurl.com/yc3jfpux

Human-fed red squirrels in Britain developed weaker jaws and flatter skulls due to a diet of soft-shelled peanuts, highlighting the potential negative impact of human intervention on wildlife. doi.org/g8zxdx

How did our mammalian #posture arise from our sprawling #synapsid ancestors? @docrobbrock.bsky.social &co reveal #parasagittal postures in stem therians, implying that synapsids evolved & radiated with distinct forelimb trait combinations for most of their history @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4loAHoy

Lambeosaurine crests! New work compares internal nasal anatomy of adult Corythosaurus & Lambeosaurus vs juveniles & Hypacrosaurus. Strong genus-level differences, but surprisingly little variation between Corythosaurus species. Dudgeon et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Excited to announce that the 1st paper from my postdoc is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Using a large dataset of 3D preserved fossils, we explore the diversification of jaws in early bony fishes. 1/15 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Humerus shape evolved in cetaceans under relaxed selection and random drift: a new paper by Maria Ghazali and the whole @schmalhausenm.bsky.social team in the Communications Biology, the research on living and fossil whales and dolphins, 3D morphology and genetics www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Sperm whales rest in an unusual position, sleeping vertically underwater. In their recent paper, Freymond & co show that the whales blow bubbles in their sleep to keep themselves from shooting to the surface, letting them sleep soundly beneath the waves doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Our latest: Hummingbird and hawkmoth wing shape: Analyzing functional convergence in analogous structures, by Benton Walters @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social, with help from Yuming Liu, Iman Fadel @ferronhg.bsky.social @emilyrayfield.bsky.social and myself.

Earliest sabre-toothed predatory therapsid from Mallorca: Algarpes ferus. Matamels-Andreu et al 2025 Palaeogeo, Palaeoclimatol, Palaeoecol. Track-trackmaker correlation of co-occurring gorgonopsian bones and footprints from the early–?middle Permian of equatorial Pangaea doi.org/10.1016/j.pa...

A second theropod tooth from the Cauvery Basin reaffirms the presence of troodontid dinosaurs in the Cretaceous of India. Study by Harsha Dhiman et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #FossilFriday

"Mother of all lizards" Megachirella wachtleri indicates more gradual acquisition of squamatan features in diapsid #evolution than previously thought. #fossilfriday Simões et al Nature 2018 The origin of squamates revealed by a Middle Triassic #lizard from the Italian Alps doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🦇 Bat tracheal chambers may be key evolutionary innovation behind echolocation diversity by supporting higher-frequency calls & helping drive evolution of specialized echolocation, contributing to bats’ remarkable ecological success Brualla et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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...

I’m happy to say the first chapter of my dissertation has just gotten published! Here, we compared the results of two prominent tools for measuring muscle architecture from contrast data, Xfiber and Goodfibes, with some recommendations for each. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

If you want an up-to-date summary of whale and dolphin evolution, have a read of my new review paper in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com! I’ve tried to cover as much research as possible in this, so apologies if I’ve missed you! doi.org/10.1038/s443...

🐰 What drives body shape evolution in rabbits, hares, and pikas? Changes in rib length & thoracolumbar region are main drivers of body shape diversity. Body size—not burrowing or locomotion—best predicts body shape & limb proportions Brice et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Seals have a superpower: they are the only mammals with amphibious hearing! They hear well both in-air and underwater. My collagues and I have a new study in Proceedings B on the origins and evolution of amphibious hearing in pinnipeds 🦭🔊🧪 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Musculoskeletal anatomy of the flight apparatus in the southern screamer: academic.oup.com/iob/advance-... 🪶🧪 (📷 @tyrannosaura.bsky.social et al.)

🦇 How do bats breathe, smell & echolocate thru the same nose? Using simulations of 12 bat sp., researchers found nasal anatomy—not echolocation strategy—shapes airflow. Unique nasal strands in horseshoe bats affect pressure & airflow Goodwin et al anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...