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Andy Farke

@andyfarke.bsky.social
2.7K followers 1.4K following 755 posts

Paleontologist, educator, museum person, open science person, homebrewer, spouse, parent. Homebrewing blog at andybrews.com he/him

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Reposted by Andy Farke
Z. Jack Tseng @tsengzj.bsky.social · 1h
Vert paleo curator gig at LSU; see recently published "Vertebrate Fossils of Louisiana" for a preview of the collections and potential projects that can be developed: repository.lsu.edu/spmns/5/
repository.lsu.edu
Vertebrate Fossils of Louisiana
By Suyin Ting, Lorene E. Smith, Connor D. White, et al., Published on 01/01/25
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 1h
Freimuth WJ, Lively JR, Zanno LE (2026) Reassessment of the Early Cretaceous North American “troodontid” Geminiraptor suarezarum as a therizinosaurian and mosaic evolution of coelurosaurian maxillae. PLoS One 21(9): e0356471. doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org
Reassessment of the Early Cretaceous North American “troodontid” Geminiraptor suarezarum as a therizinosaurian and mosaic evolution of coelurosaurian maxillae
The only recorded member of the bird-like Troodontidae from Early Cretaceous North America is Geminiraptor suarezarum, known from an isolated maxilla recovered from the Suarez Site bonebed of the basa...
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Tapani Hopkins @tapani-hopkins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is undramatic, but invaluable, work. How do we know what belongs to which species? - By comparing to the types, the specimens used to describe the species. So where are those types? - Erm can I get back to you, I think someone saw the type of X 50 years ago somewhere in Germany..
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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 7h
🚨Postdoc job alert: Come work with my paleontology & evolution group in Edinburgh! Researcher in Cognitive Evolution Over Deep Time. You'll study how brains & neurons have evolved over time, and predict neuron count in extinct species! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DTC355/p...
jobs.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time at The University of Edinburgh
Apply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 5h
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...
The part and counterpart of the holotype specimen of Westlothiana. Paleoartistic reconstruct of Westlothiana by Jacob Schick based on our new data
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 5h
I am pretty disappointed by the lack of public acknowledgment from the American Alliance of Museums about the situations at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel (which was AAM-accredited!) & the Sternberg. There are lots of museum crises right now, but these are particularly serious.
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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
New paper! Brandon Kilbourne conducted a huge data collection effort for the limb muscle architecture (masses, fascicle lengths, pennation angles; thereby PCSAs) of mustelid mammals. We found conspicuous relationships with morphology and locomotor mode. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Muscle architecture in mustelid mammals: anatomical proxies for muscle function and their relation to locomotor habit - BMC Ecology and Evolution
Background Though skeletal adaptations for locomotion in mammals are well documented, possible limb adaptations in terms of muscle architecture have received far less study. Examining mustelid mammals...
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Thomas Cullen @thomascullen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
With all the news of museums being closed and/or defunded, I feel the message of our paper on the importance of natural history research (and the collections housing those specimens) is just as relevant (or more) today as it was when it was published. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
cover page of the linked paper
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Serjoscha Evers @sirjoscha.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New paper: doi.org/10.1002/ar.7... 🐢 In this paper, our team around Scott Bellotti describe multiple crania and mandibles of Plesiobaena antiqua, a Campanian baenid turte, assess intraspecific variation, and discuss the significance of this variation for baenid taxonomy.
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Mojave Desert sunsets are some of the most beautiful in the world!
sunset with clouds brilliantly lit up with oranges and purples
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm seeing a lot of statements that universities are inherently risky as parent organizations for museums, or that universities are inherently bad as parent organizations. Please don't forget that stand-alone and government-funded museums have a HUGE share of problems and risks, too!
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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I became a biologist because of a museum exhibit. Real artifacts tell stories that are more powerful than anything we can get from scrolling. They are part of our engine for training the next generation of scientists. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/the-awesomen...
scienceforeveryone.science
The awesomeness of museums
Genuine artifacts tell the richest stories that fill our souls. And they fuel the scientific enterprise.
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Abeeha Tariq @abeehatariqart.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I’m so proud of this actually
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Raven Amos (Autumn Edition)🎨🐦‍⬛ @alaskanime.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
I must have been added to some starter packs - hello, new followers! I am a paleoartist taking an on-again-off-again hiatus from drawn #artwork to take care of family members - in the meantime, I make sun catchers! alaskanime.etsy.com/?etsrc=sdt&ref=seller-platform-mcnav&section_id=53007571
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Boak & Bailey (Jess & Ray) @boakandbailey.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
BLOG POST: Does your AI-generated beer app actually contribute something? Is it meeting a real need, or providing new information? Or did you just get excited about being able to make something with zero effort? boakandbailey.com/2026/09/ai-h...
boakandbailey.com
AI has made it easier than ever to make apps nobody asked for
We’ve been inundated lately with AI-written press releases about AI-built tools and websites focused on beer and pubs. Who is asking for this?
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Mr. Escher A. Bug, MSc @escherbug.art · 25/09/2026
As a taxonomist I will always be a little miffed that people who make comics are cartoonists and people who make cartoons are animators and people who make jokes on stage are called comics
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Paleontological Society @paleosoc.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
PaleoArt Highlight!🦕 🌲This week we have this fantastic poster featuring the Hell Creek Formation's Triceratops prorsus! 🎨Thank you to @graysev.bsky.social for sending in this impressive piece! Submit paleoart here: tinyurl.com/PSPaleoArt🔗
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Liz Covart @lizcovart.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’m teaching a workshop this weekend about how historians research. #Skystorians, what are your favorite or most important research tips and tricks? What is your favorite method for finding archives and archival material?
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Corey Callaghan @coreytcallaghan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Do you use #iNaturalist data in research—or advise students who do? We put together a practical guide to using iNaturalist data in scientific research, covering how to access, acquire, analyze, and attribute the data, with examples in R and Python. Paper: doi.org/10.1093/bios... #ecology
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Yep. This always comes from the very best of places, but is never a long-term solution. It's rarely even a short-term solution, even in the optimal situation.
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Brittney Elizabeth Stoneburg @brittandbone.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I've worked for a natural history museum for 11 years at this point (man, yikes) and while it is sad, it isn't surprising to see two major institutions facing closure this year.
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Fossils as cultural heritage: Scientific, commercial and legislative issues - Fanti - 2026 - Geology Today - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Fossils as cultural heritage: Scientific, commercial and legislative issues
Fossils are among the principal sources for understanding the history of life through ‘Deep Time’ and can inform projections of biotic responses to environmental change. Despite a widespread recognit...
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
From @peerj.bsky.social - Let them fight: using finite element analysis to determine combative evolutionary drivers of ceratopsian (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) horns peerj.com/articles/217...
peerj.com
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Aaron Kufner @akufner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
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...
A figure with maps showing the distribution of metoposaurid occurrences in Upper Triassic outcrops of western and eastern North America (centered on the USA). The approximate chronostratigraphic ranges of the now five recognized species are plotted, and line drawings of all of the potentially or definitively diagnostic holotypes of North American metoposaurids are included.
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Skye McDavid @skyemcdavid.com · 23/09/2026
I have digitized 四川脊椎动物化石 / The Vertebrate Fossils of Sichuan by He Xinlu (1984) and uploaded it to @archive.org. Useful reference for the fossil record of Sichuan (including today's Chongqing). archive.org/details/he-1...
archive.org
四川脊椎动物化石 / The Vertebrate Fossils of Sichuan
四川脊椎动物化石何信禄编著The Vertebrate Fossils of Sichuan by He Xinlu (Chengu College of Geology)Sichuan Scientific and Technological Publishing House, 1984
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Dr. Rich B @morphometrich.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This would be a major loss for science, paleontology, and the general area in Hays, Kansas, which is a literal hotbed of Cretaceous Paleontology. I am seeing a couple of trusted sources confirming this, but I am hoping this is just a panicky post from someone and will not come to pass.
hayspost.com
Sternberg Museum future in question
" /> By CRISTINA JANNEYHays PostAn employee of the Sternberg Museum of
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Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 22/09/2026
Geologists made up for this classic blunder by first creating a prequel (the Ancestral Rocky Mountains) and naming several excellent mountain-building epochs (Laramide Orogeny, etc.)
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The tarantulas are afoot! This little fellow was on my front porch when I got home...by coincidence, wandering across Permian-aged fossil footprints from the Coconino Sandstone.
black and dark brown tarantula walking across orangish-tan sandstone slab with raised fossil tracks
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm seeing brain evolution in the news, and thinking how cool it would be if we had a branch of science that specialized in looking at changes in morphology and function in the distant past. Think of all of the things we could learn! I shall coin a new term: "paleontology"
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The tarantulas are afoot! This little fellow was on my front porch when I got home...by coincidence, wandering across Permian-aged fossil footprints from the Coconino Sandstone.
black and dark brown tarantula walking across orangish-tan sandstone slab with raised fossil tracks
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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hadrosaurs: An Artistic History in Four Parts (Art by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, William Scheele, Douglas Henderson, and Andrey Atuchin)
Detail from "Cretaceous Life of New Jersey" by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. A group of green, slender-limbed Hadrosaurus with iguana-like heads and arched postured amble alongside a shoreline.A pair of noodly-necked, erect-backed Parasaurolophus with skin sails stretching from their crest to their shoulders stand in a forest. Their sails are decorated with large, round markings.A Maiasaura nesting ground cloaked in dense fog. A mixed-age group of hadrosaurs with red and cream countershading mill about in the barren landscape, variably wandering or tending to bowl-shaped nests dug into the muddy ground.Two thick-necked Edmontosaurus with large, tubular nostrils and beaky overbites drink from a river. Their necks, covered in large, subrectangular scales, are decorated with a low ridge of triangular scaly projections. They regard the viewer with a inscrutable, bird-like expressions. Behind them, numerous mayflies dance through the steamy air.
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Esther van Hulsen wildlife art @esthervanhulsen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Something I can finally share! I made a series of paitings and drawings of woolly mammoth and other species and landscapes from the North American Ice Age, whcih will be shwon at the Art House Blackhills Hot Springs Gallery from te 25th of September.
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Some Monday morning thoughts on museum closures, spurred in part by the recent Academy of Natural Sciences, but not necessarily specific to that. <thread>
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 20/09/2026
Okay this jogged loose something I've had half-written for a while now: Despite decades of effort, scientists have still not found a substitute for reading the paper denimandtweed.jbyoder.org/2026/09/desp...
denimandtweed.jbyoder.org
Despite decades of effort, scientists have still not found a substitute for reading the paper
Science is difficult, but not for the reason you think. It’s not that conceiving a research program is difficult. It’s not that planning and performing an experiment or observational st…
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 19/09/2026
Between the human verification, and the three factor authentication and so forth, I can transfer my life savings to a random bitcoin account easier than I can read a Nature paper my library subscribes to.
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authodizer @doktrock.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"Fifty Million Years of Wonder: Paleontologist and Poet Loren Eiseley on How to Touch the Magic in the Mundane" - Maria Popova, The Marginalian ⚒️🧪
themarginalian.org
Fifty Million Years of Wonder: Paleontologist and Poet Loren Eiseley on How to Touch the Magic in the Mundane
“The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous.&#8221…
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Asher Elbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
An incredibly lovely and evocative animated short. I *highly* recommend taking the 3 or so minutes to watch this
youtube.com
'Noon of Night' a dinosaur animated short // the Morrison Formation
YouTube video by Cinedaw
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If we as a field collectively and effectively imply that our basic science infrastructure is stodgy & irrelevant, by saying any mention of those terms is outdated and irrelevant to "real" science, we can't be shocked when others agree & start cutting museums and basic research. <3/3>
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Hot take: Creating new buzzwords to avoid terms like "museum" and "natural history" and "paleontology" and "morphology" and such is just doing the dirty work for those who want to cut all of the above. <2/3>
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I just learned of the term "museomics." With all due respect to many, many awesome people, this comes across as yet another buzzword to avoid mentioning that high impact research depends on "low impact" work by unrecognized collectors, collections techs, researchers, and institutions. <1/3>
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Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Thank you for sharing this. Apparently the 3rd Edition of the Principles of Paleontology is freely downloadable. 🧪⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Paleobio
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I just learned of the term "museomics." With all due respect to many, many awesome people, this comes across as yet another buzzword to avoid mentioning that high impact research depends on "low impact" work by unrecognized collectors, collections techs, researchers, and institutions. <1/3>
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I am amazed that I still see "data available from the authors upon request" in high profile publications today. That's just another way of saying, "You're eventually going to have to use a Ouija board to confirm or build upon these results."
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Dave Rodland @daverodland.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I've barely skimmed it, but as someone who has gone toe to toe with phosphate oxygen isotope paleothermometry and survived, I like the approach and don't see any red flags!
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Student Collections Study Award for Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County - next cycle of applications due October 1. Details at their website: nhm.org/student-coll... - the Alf Museum is also close by, so it's a good visit us, too, once you are in the area!
nhm.org
Student Collections Study Award
The NHM Collections Study Awards provide funding for undergraduate and graduate students to visit and study the collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the La Brea Tar Pits & ...
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Dr Darja Dankina 🐠 @darjadankina.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The CT data revealed well-preserved internal anatomical structures, including vertebrae, ribs, fin elements, scales, and cranial bones. The study demonstrates the potential of modern imaging techniques for investigating historical museum specimens 🐟 #conference #paleontology
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Brian Sidlauskas @briansidlauskas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The American Museum of Natural History is searching for a new curator, either in ichthyology or mammalogy. This is an incredible opportunity to work with an exceptional collection and outstanding colleagues. Review of applications begins November 10. careers.amnh.org/postings/4925
careers.amnh.org
Assistant Curator/Assistant Professor, Vertebrate Zoology
The Division of Vertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) seeks an outstanding tenure-track Assistant Curator/Assistant Professor in either the Department of Ichthyology or M...
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A must-read article! (and I truly appreciate that the authors emphasize the importance of the primary data in museum collections, as well as the key roles of both molecular *and* morphological data)
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Mel Pardi @drpardi.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
There are still slots available for the Neotoma Paleoecology DB pre-meeting workshop at SVP! In this workshop you'll learn how to access data from @neotomadb.bsky.social and we'll walk you through some foundational analyses
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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Chislic! The magical fried meat on sticks of South Dakota. The BBC has a nice article on the cultural history of this SD classic, from its origins in eastern Europe and dispersal into eastern South Dakota. I always grab a bit of this when back home (including earlier this summer)!
bbc.com
How a Crimean meat kebab travelled thousands of miles to become a South Dakota obsession
Chislic may look like a simple meat skewer, but its journey from the Black Sea to the American Great Plains tells a much bigger story.
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