iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Time to become a White Sox fan.

Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Rupert Seidl @rupertseidl.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Is there generality in decomposition across substrates? We tested this in an experiment across elevation, studying carrion, dung, leaves & wood. We found idiosynchratic patterns of decomp, with local conditions being more important than macroclimate @sebseibold.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Come out to the rally on Tuesday at 10am in front of The Academy of Natural Sciences! RSVP here luma.com/1qwnrqz2 Read more here: whyy.org/articles/phi...

whyy.org

Supporters plan rally to protest closing of Academy of Natural Science Museum

The nearly 200-year-old museum is the oldest natural history museum in the Americas.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Take the break. I am sure you will be a success in what comes next.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Has been on my office door for years

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I feel like I’m going to throw up

Screen shot of an Instagram post that says the academy of natural sciences is closing its museum after nearly two centuries

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I am glad you are out of there. I cannot imagine what it is like for the NSF staff.

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪 #AcademicSky @nature.com

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Yes. I did a section on their allometry

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I think I have the crab size data in my thesis

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Noticed the same thing for blue crabs at the NMNH. The preserved ones were huge.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Congratulations! We miss you in Chicago!

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Another paper that "contradicts the purported role of oxygen in the evolution of gigantic insects during the late Palaeozoic" : Schachat, S. R., et al. 2018. Phanerozoic O2 and the early evolution of terrestrial animals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285(1871).

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Julien Kimmig @jkimmig.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Welcome to the CAMBRIAN FECAL REVOLUTION. We didn't name it the Cambrian fecal explosion for obvious reasons. I'm happy to share this paper on fecal matter and its role in Cambrian ecosystems. So if you want to read a really shitty paper (50 days free access): authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYg8cZ3X7...

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Recent paper questioned this idea: Snelling, E. P. et al. 2026. Oxygen supply through the tracheolar–muscle system does not constrain insect gigantism. Nature.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

We were there. Not an exciting game. Saw the Yankees-White Sox on Wednesday. That had drama!

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

$50.1 million could fund over 400 doctorates; 933 years worth of annual curator salaries (UK), or running cost for a millennium-worth of free events like the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. It is inane that people can accumulate such wealth, and use it explicitly to cause public harm.

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/a...

nytimes.com

T. Rex Fossil Sells for $50.1 Million, Putting the King Back On Top (Gift Article)

In a booming fossil market, the T. rex had been dethroned by a stegosaurus. No longer.

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Alan Grant in Jurassic Park was essential for me because it modeled what an ethical, kind, and caring male collaborator and research partner should be for all women in science. I won't put up with anything less.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Part of the reason I wrote my book

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Reposted by Roy Plotnick

Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Genuine rewrite the textbooks discovery! 🧪🦑 The same team led last year's discovery of even deeper chemosynthetic animal communities. And they are in a crewed submersible, so they actually SAW THE WHALE GRAVEYARD!!! Can't wait for them to keep exploring!

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Howard, R. J., R. J. Garwood, G. D. Edgecombe, and D. A. Legg. 2026. A revision of Praearcturus gigas: a giant scorpion from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) of Britain. Palaeontology 69(3):e70064.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Cole, S. R., et al. 2026. Exceptional soft-tissue preservation reveals the oldest evidence for tube feet and their ecological significance in crinoids. Royal Society Open Science 13(6).

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Song, et al. 2026. High-fidelity modular skeletons authenticate a Cambrian origin for Bryozoa. Nature. Wang, Z., and T. Shi. 2026. Trace fossils constrain the perceptual ranges of the earliest motile animals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123(23):e2609730123.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The last few weeks have seen a series of new papers (none on dinosaurs!) that demonstrate the continued intellectual vitality of paleontology: McCoy, et al. 2026. Stepwise loss of complexity in hagfish eyes prior to deep sea colonization. Biology Letters 22(5).

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

As I recall, they were reclaimed by Rush Studios

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

aka "the blade." Named after the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois (ESCONI). We have a couple in our teaching collection.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

We have the same thing from Geol. Enterprises in our teaching collection,

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

I retired in 2020 and that position remains unfilled

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Did my best: Hsieh, S., and R. E. Plotnick. 2020. The representation of animal behaviour in the fossil record. Animal Behaviour 169:65–80.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

They did not, although they cite a Mangano et al. paper on the Mesozoic Marine Revolution.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Would be interesting to compare to the trace fossil record.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Made this graph of the high temperature in Chicago over the last 50 days. Mean is 57.3 and the s.d. was 15.4. Not sure how this compares to the usual this time of year, but it the swings feel more extreme than usual.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

NSF GRFP awards just announced: www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee.... Nice to see that the overall numbers are back up, but only one award in paleontology (7 honorable mentions). No awards, one honorable mention for sedimentary geology.

research.gov

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I appreciate the dedication to Joanne Kluessendorf. I let her husband (Don Mikulic) know about it.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Just finished.Excellent paper. Very interested to see the presence of arsenic. Currently working on the Mazon Creek sea cucumber ("Achistrum") and have found arsenic in its preserved body.

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Looking forward to reading the paper! Glanced at Pohlsepia when we did our Essexella paper and was confused by it. Did you look at the fossil described by Allison in 1987?

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Roy Plotnick @fossilexpress.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Was approached by "Example 2." Then the alarm bells went off. Be aware. lits.mtholyoke.edu/news/2026-03...

lits.mtholyoke.edu

Watch out for so-called "pig butchering scams" targeting professors | LITS

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