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Matt Friedman

@friedmanlab.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1K following 727 posts

Vertebrate evolutionary biologist | Professor University of Michigan | Director & Curator UMMP | he/him/his

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Reposted by Matt Friedman
Jack Stack @jackstack.bsky.social · 15h
Hot off the presses! I reviewed the history of early ray-finned fishes, with a focus on their morphology, fossil record, and taxonomy. My principal goal is a guide for other workers to make the rich record of early actinopterygian evolution more broadly available. dx.doi.org/10.1002/jmor...
dx.doi.org
The Evolutionary History of Early Ray‐Finned Fishes (Pan‐Actinopterygii)
Ray-finned fishes, the most diverse living vertebrate clade, include over 600 extinct early actinopterygian species whose evolution is an enigma.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 16h
Congrats on the paper, Jack. And great artwork, Liz!
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Reposted by Matt Friedman
Jack Stack @jackstack.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
New paper on some very large ray-finned fish fossils! Thank you to Elizabeth Furman this awesome illustration. TLDR: Large early ray-finned fishes are rare, but show very different morphologies to the point that big body size is associated with distinct ecomorphologies. mapress.com/zt/article/v...
mapress.com
Fossils of an over 1-meter-long Permian ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) from the western USA highlight multiple origins of large body size in stem-group actinopterygians | Zootaxa
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Megan Barkdull @meganbarkdull.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I’m really happy to share that my invited review on social insect genome evolution, co-authored with @corriemoreau.bsky.social, is out now in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social 🐝🐜 This is the paper I wish I’d had when studying for quals in grad school, and was a ton of fun to write.
Greyscale illustrations of eight social taxa: the wasp Parischnogaster nigricans; the bee Ceratina calcarata; the thrips Kladothrips; the aphid Pseudoregma bambucicola; the bee Austroplebeia cincta; the ambrosia beetle Austroplatypus incompertus; and the ants and termites.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
👀
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Bruce S. Lieberman @bruceslieberman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A thoughtful, excellent write up by @richardconniff.bsky.social on the very sad situation @sternbergpaleo.bsky.social museum #paleontology #palaeontology #naturalhistory richardconniff.substack.com/p/another-na...
richardconniff.substack.com
Another Nature Museum Faces Death
Kansas is killing a centerpiece of state and world history. Follow the money.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Variety pack of eurypterids at UMMNH for #FossilFriday: Acutiramus (UMMP IP 86635), Paracarcinosoma (UMMP IP 62598), Eurypterus (UMMP IP 7157), and Dolichopterus (UMMP IP 62680). All from the Silurian of New York and Ontario.
A fossil eurypterid on a gray slab of rock.A fossil eurypterid on a gray slab of rock. It has a narrow tail and a swollen midsection.A fossil eurypterid on a gray slab of rock next to a model of the same species painted green.A fossil eurypterid on a gray slab of rock with long, extended swimming appendages. It is displayed next to a model of the same species painted brown and yellow.
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Journal of Systematic Palaeontology @journalsystpal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A bird’s eye view of the fossil record: perspectives on avian systematics by Benito & Steell. Read here: buff.ly/fJattSx This is the latest article in our collection of agenda-setting reviews in the systematics of major fossil groups - with many more articles coming soon! #FossilFriday
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John P. Friel, Ph.D. @friel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Check out this lovely profile of the University of California, Davis’s Peter Wainwright, whose lifelong fascination with fishes inspired a remarkable career in research and teaching. Peter was my postdoc advisor years ago when he was at Florida State University, and is awesome dude and mentor.
ucdavis.edu
Among the Academies: A Lifelong Fascination With Fish
For Peter Wainwright, the academic path was simple: he simply followed his fascination with fish.“I dare say there wasn't a lot of deep thought about what direction I should go in my life,” he said. “...
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Nico Mongiardino Koch @nmkphylo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I am looking for graduate students to join my lab in Fall 2027. If your interests lie within the realms of phylogenetics, macroevolution, and/or invertebrate biodiversity please reach out to me!!
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Helped unpack a similarly lovely specimen at PRI that came from the old Dartmouth collection. Presumably Patten's.
Armored fossil fish with spine-line appendages and a well-preserved postcranium.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Teaching on the main campus so no collections work today. So here's Bothriolepis canadensis (UMMP VP 3475) from this week's lab for the vertebrate paleontology course.
Bony armor of a placoderm fish with tiny eyes. The fossil is dark in color and shaped like an egg.
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Jake Berv @jakeberv.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
46.4866001, -87.6546617
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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Exciting news! We here at the LSU Museum of Natural Science @lsumns.bsky.social and Dept. of Biological Sciences are looking for Curator and Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Paleobiology! Come work with us! We are fun, supportive and active! lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Faculty curator position in vertebrate paleontology! Great opportunity to work with outstanding colleagues at LSUMNS: lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🚨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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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship program is accepting applications until November 1. If you're a finishing Ph.D student or recent grad interested in coming to Berkeley to work on a project in paleobiology/paleoecology/geobiology please feel free to reach out! ppfp.ucop.edu/info/
ppfp.ucop.edu
University of California | President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
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Lars Brudvig @lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Join us through the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in EEB! Conduct your own research, mentored by 2+ EEB faculty. $65k salary + research/moving $. All areas of EEB welcome. Apply by 11/1 I co-chair this search and am happy to field questions Spread the word! eeb.msu.edu/initiatives/...
eeb.msu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellowship - Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Extremely.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
That's a *great* trackway!
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"We have life-sized model eurypterids at home."
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
New exhibit at UMMNH. Come for the eurypterids, stay for the ostracoderms.
Image of a museum display featuring a large model of an aquatic arthropod.Close-up of part of museum display featuring casts and models of jawless fishes.
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Jack Stack @jackstack.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Really cool and important paper, as an enormous part of the fossil record of fishes is isolated teeth. @elizabethsibert.bsky.social academic.oup.com/iob/advance-...
academic.oup.com
Typifying tiny teeth: A standardized coding system to quantify morphological variation in fish teeth for comparative ecological, evolutionary, and functional morphological studies
Abstract. Teeth play a crucial role in vertebrate ecology as one of the main interfaces between predators and their prey. As the most diverse vertebrates o
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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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Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If you're submitting a reference letter for a PRFB, I was surprised to not see any option for deleting and reuploading, which contradicts the info provided in the email requesting it. In fact, as soon as you select the file it is uploaded and you can't change it. Was fine for me, but beware.
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Anne Kort | The Virtual Paleontologist @virtpaleo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I, like many in the paleontology community, have been devastated to hear about the planned closures for two major museums in the past two weeks. I have seen more coverage of ANSP, so I want to highlight the Sternberg Museum of Fort Hays State University in Kansas. sternberg.fhsu.edu
sternberg.fhsu.edu
Sternberg Museum of Natural History - Sternberg Museum of Natural History
Explore Great Plains natural history at the Sternberg Museum (Hays, KS): fossils, rotating exhibits, educational programs, tours, and camps.
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Joseph W. Brown @josephwb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Early-diverging lineages provide little information about ancestors academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... From @phylieu.bsky.social @sinkingdiatom.bsky.social @omearabrian.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
Early-diverging lineages provide little information about ancestors
Abstract. Large phylogenetic trees are often unbalanced near the root, with a species-depauperate lineage sister to a far more species-rich clade. The spec
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Gina Baucom @gbaucom.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Early career faculty in Evolution? I would love to chat with you!
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Yesterday was the annual tour of the Research Museums Center for incoming staff, students, and postdocs at UMMP. Paid a visit to some comparative specimens in the Ford-Mitchell Collection.
Hippo skull emerging from cabinet.Giraffe and horse skull in a specimen drawer.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It is an appealing creature.
Disc-shaped fossil fish.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
ANSP 22341, an unassuming slab from the Famennian Catskill Formation with portions of a few articulated lobe-finned fishes (Holoptychius) and a placoderm (Bothriolepis). Special to me as the first fossil I found to end up in a museum, collected during the first summer of my PhD. #FossilFriday
Red siltstone block containing blue-to-brown fish remains, including areas of articulated scales, fins, and skull bones. A collection label is on top of the specimen.
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Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
#fossilfriday An example of why the ANSP and its collections must be saved. Atlantochelys mortoni, a giant protostegid sea turtle - named in 1849 by Agassiz based on the proximal humerus fragment. In 2012, someone found a large distal humerus that FIT ONTO THE SAME BONE in ANSP collections. 1/ 🦖🧪
The reunited humerus of the gigantic sea turtle Atlantochelys, on display in a museum: you can clearly see the break that happened sometime prior to the 19th century.
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John P. Friel, Ph.D. @friel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My thoughts today are with the >19 million specimens held by the Academy of Natural Sciences and the dedicated staff who care for them. This ANSP holotype specimen is special to me, as I named it for my advisor, John Lundberg, a former ANSP Curator and authority on all catfishes, living, and fossil.
Composite image of the holotype specimen of Pseudobunocephalus lundbergi housed at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And here's the holotype of Tecovaserpeton perfectum in person!
Underside of large, spade-shaped metoposaur skull.
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A new quasipetalichthyid placoderm from the Middle Devonian of China onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #PapersinPalaeontology #FossilFriday @morphobank.bsky.social
Upper left: photograph of fossil specimen IVPP V26687, the placoderm Yipetalichthys maxiongensis, a natural mould of the dorsal part of the endocranium, preserving only a portion of the preorbital plate. Scale bar at lower right of photograph is 10 mm. Lower right, interpretive line drawing. Red rectangle in lower left corner is a cover image from the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
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Julien Kimmig @jkimmig.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Last chance to apply for the postdoc in paleontology. www.smnk.de/museum/aussc... 2 years, funded through DFG project #paleontology #jobs #fossilfriday #palaeontology #museum #fossils
smnk.de
Paleontologist (Postdoc) (m/f/d)
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Just in time for #FossilFriday: a new genus of metoposaur at UMMP.
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Systematics Association @systassn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We are delighted to announce the speaker for this year's Founders' Lecture: Dr. Mark Wilkinson, @nhm-london.bsky.social and former SystAssn president! TITLE: Caecilians and the growth of knowledge WHEN: Thursday, October 8th at 6PM WHERE: Burlington House, London JOIN US: tinyurl.com/ndx5az2a
Poster with details and QR code to register for the SystAssn Founders' Lecture
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Lizzy Steell @lizzysteell.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🚨 New bird paper! 🚨 Take a look at our review paper that Juan Benito and I put together about avian systematics and the bird fossil record along with what we think are important future directions in the field 🐦 🦴 🦜🦅🦤 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
A bird’s eye view of the fossil record: perspectives on avian systematics
Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented rise in avian fossil discoveries that directly inform our understanding of bird origins and evolution, the stepwise assemblage of the avian body plan,...
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Maybe Guildayichthys instead?
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Gitta Coaker @gittacoaker.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Assistant Professor position at University of Michigan. Applicants in all areas of cellular/molecular biology in prokaryotes, plants, and animals are encouraged to apply. lsa.umich.edu/mcdb/news-ev...
lsa.umich.edu
MCDB Solicits Applications for an Assistant Professor | U-M LSA Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB)
The faculty position will be tenure track with a university year appointment starting August 25, 2027 or January 1, 2028. Apply now through October 1, 2026.
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Curator of Marine Invertebrates position at the NHMLA. Great opportunity for marine invertebrate zoologists, especially echinoderm researchers! (see post below)
spnhc.org
Marine Invertebrates Curator | The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County https://nhm.org/ The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC) seeks a full-time Assistant OR Associate Curator, commensurate with experience…
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Wow! Great news for the BGSU paleobiology program. Congrats to @pegyaco.bsky.social and colleagues: www.bgsu.edu/news/2026/09...
bgsu.edu
More than $1 million in gifts expands opportunities for BGSU paleobiology students
More than $1 million in gifts from BGSU alumna Sue Goldstein, Ph.D., ’74 and the estate of longtime professor Don C. Steinker, Ph.D., will expand research, fieldwork and professional opportunities for...
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GBIF @gbif.org · 22/09/2026
⭐ Celebrating 25 years of GBIF! ⭐ To mark GBIF’s 25th anniversary, a new open access article in the Biodiversity Data Journal provides a comprehensive overview of GBIF’s history, network and infrastructure. 📖 Read the article:🔗https://gbif.link/gbif25paper-news @bdj.pensoft.net @pensoft.net
A collage of various biological illustrations with the GBIF 25 year logo in the centre
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Chris Gug @gugunderwater.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A young driftfish shelters with & in a mauve stinger jellyfish. I love observing this relationship so much, and 3 nights ago, the dive was thick with these jellies.
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Nicole Gerlach @ngerlach.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This week’s Vertz lab, on fish diversity, summarized in one photo.
An index card on a lab table that says “Teleostei: everybody else” with arrows pointing in all directions. Dozens of glass jars with specimens in them are out of focus in the background. 

For context, there are ~60 extant species of non-teleost ray-finned fish (if I’m doing my math right), and more than 30,000 extant species of teleost.
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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🚨We're hiring a new Curator of Mammals!!🚨 🦍🐕🦝🐅🦓🦌🐃🐖🐏🐫🐘🦏🦛🐿️🦔🦇🦥🦦🦨🦘🦡🐋🦭🦒🧸 Come join the Vertebrate Unit at @nhmdk.bsky.social—a fantastic team in the heart of Denmark's beautiful capital! Amazing collections, incredible history. Please share widely! 🧪🏛️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
candidate.hr-manager.net
Tenure Track Assistant Professor or Associate Professor and Curator of Mammals
Tenure Track Assistant Professor / Associate Professor, and Curator of Mammals at Natural History Museum Denmark The Natural History Museum Denmark wishes to ap
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Alberta Claw @albertonykus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New review of what we know and don't know about the evolutionary history of birds and their close fossil relatives! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 🪶🧪 (📷Benito & @lizzysteell.bsky.social)
Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships and geologic ages of birds and closely related bird-like dinosaurs.
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