iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Dynamognathus @dynamoterror.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Quick sketch of Westlothiana lizziae, grabbing some lunch in early #Carboniferous Scotland. Formerly known as an early reptile-like amniote or maybe an amphibian, “Lizzie” was just reinterpreted as more early-diverging tetrapodomorph, possessing fishy gills and spiracles. #sciart #paleoart #fishart

Colored-pencil drawing of the superficially lizard-like animal Westlothiana, curling its body in a sinuous motion as it crushes a small aquatic insect nymph in its jaws. Its body is elongated, rusty brown, and covered in relatively large fish-like scales. The front legs are tiny and swept back as it lunged forwards, the hind legs are only a bit larger and spread out as if holding on to an underwater log. The head is low and oval shaped, and near the base of the front leg is a slit-like gill opening. Its eye is fairly large and looking down towards its prey.

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Tenure-track assistant professor/curator jobs in vertebrate paleo posted at both Idaho State and Louisiana State is a nice salve right now. ☕️ Apply, apply! 🥔 🐊 🦴 ⛏️

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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

I’m super honored to have been co-first author on this study, big shout out to Ben Igielman for starting this project to begin with! This project is the first of many early Carboniferous revisions I’m a part of, keep an eye out for more in the future!

Our 3D reconstruction of the Westlothiana skull, in dorsal, lateral, palatal, and medial view.

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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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ISPH 2027 @isph2027.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We are pleased to advise that the ISPH 2027 abstract submission is now OPEN! isph2027.wordpress.com/call-for-abs...

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Uppsala University Vertebrate Palaeontology Group @uuvertpalaeo.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The 19th International Symposium on Early and Lower Vertebrates will be held in Uppsala from the 1st to the 6th of July 2027! Sign up to the mailing list here: forms.cloud.microsoft/e/sKN4rRqr7f

forms.cloud.microsoft

Microsoft Forms

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

So wonderful to finally see this out! Congrats to @houdzgeorge.bsky.social and the team. 🎉 This is a big piece to refining the terrestrial Middle/Late Triassic across southern Pangea. And the award for best use of “U” goes to the original genus: Ruhuhuungulasaurus. 👀

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Turtles. They're weird. Where did they come from? We find out in today's #FossilFiles. This one is hot off the press. We only recorded it this morning and it's out for your listening pleasure already! @fossilrob.bsky.social is my turtle hero. share.google/a5Aale2SzYyS...

share.google

The Fossil Files: Where did turtles come from?

The origin of turtles has long been a scientific mystery. Not only do they have super weird things going on with their ribs, head, and teeth, but also its unclear if they were more closely related to ...

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Gene Rayburn @generayburn.com · 08/09/2026

This is inside you.

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Big job opportunity in Johannesburg - Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University: irec.wits.ac.za/OA_HTML/OA.j...

irec.wits.ac.za

Job Details

UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Tenure-track job in vertebrate paleo! 🦬🦕🦈🦴 This is my former position at the Idaho Museum of Natural History & Biological Sciences. Can confirm that the collections are excellent & understudied; AND that the people at the IMNH and BioSci are wonderful colleagues. APPLY!

isu.csod.com

Curator/Assistant Professor, Idaho Museum of Natural History & Biological Sciences (3756)

Job DescriptionThe Idaho Museum of Natural History and the Department of Biological Sciences at Idaho State University invite applications for a joint...

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Science Magazine @science.org · 31/08/2026

This is what a Jurassic forest may have sounded like. By combining exquisitely preserved fossil wings with experiments on living insects, computer simulations, and machine learning, scientists have re-created what they say is a partial Middle Jurassic soundscape. scim.ag/4cirWKy

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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

My personal equivalent to "touch grass" is "touch fossil." Sometimes I just have to do that, to remind myself that life as a paleontologist is more than emails and pushing around bits and bytes.

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Dr. Scott Hartman - but not THAT kind of doctor @skeletaldrawing.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Have you ever wanted to visually compare the size of your favorite extinct animals? Now you can, as I'm launching an interactive size comparison tool on my website. Give it a try and let me know what you think: www.skeletaldrawing.com/compare/

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AbiWail KaBooKer @akabaker.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Finally got downtown to see Junior!

Browned fossil skull of a long horned bison with very very large horns in a large glass display case. Above the case is exhibition text reading AN ENORMOUS BEAST. Below on the display there is a chart of bison evolutions, a map of ancient bison migration, and a bison vertebra with an embedded projectile point.

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Jacob @tullamore-jew.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Strongly recommend this excellent passage from the intro to The Mismeasure of Man's second edition on the cyclical surge to popularity of interest in race science. I actually forgot what a great writer Gould was

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Anonymous Potato @anonymouspotato.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

EcoEvoJobs 2026-27 just opened for business and we've already got 79 faculty / permanent jobs listed. Please repost! ecoevojobs.net

ecoevojobs.net

ecoevojobs.net 2026-27

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Joschua Knüppe @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Result from the López de Bertodano Formation #paleostream! I have been looking forward to this one for a while as it combines some fascinating aspects of the latest Cretaceous. This formation was deposited in Antarctica and I hear you all: "wait a sec, that's not what I...

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Ed Stanley @drscanley.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

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...

A CT scan of the fossil lizard Konkasaurus mahalana showing bones and osteoderms

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 07/08/2026

Friends in Copenhagen: I'm really excited to be visiting in less than two weeks. I hope to see you at Science and Cocktails, where I'll be talking about how digital information technologies are threatening our ability to make sense of the world and make prudent collective decisions.

migogkbh.dk

Science and Cocktails in X31: Information, disinformation, and the future of society

Science & Cocktails is proud to announce an episode with evolutionary social biologist superstar, Carl T. Bergstrom, Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, and author of the book

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beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Two year anniversary of when I first posted this comic

Two panel comic. Panel 1: an anglerfish is washed up on the ocean shore, laying in the tide. It thinks to itself, “it’s so beautiful.” Panel 2: wide shot of the beach, rocky cliffs, and sky at sunset, with the anglerfish still laying in place. The anglerfish continues thinking to itself, “I might have never known.”

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Corrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I am thrilled to share that I will join the American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org as the Dean of Collections, Curator, and Professor in September!

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Emily Thomas 🦤🏳️‍🌈 @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

If a Lepidodendron falls in a forest and no one has evolved ears that can hear it, does it still make a sound?

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Absolutely, the talks I saw were excellent!

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Dino-centric postdocs at the Smithsonian 👇

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Today is my first day in office as the new curator of vertebrate paleontology at @nhmdk.bsky.social & @ucph.bsky.social! 🇩🇰 🏛️ 🦴 🦕 😁 Starting off right with some proper Paleozoic Greenlandic friends (🐟/🐸, 🦈) and an extremely Danish office surprise! 🧱

A guy stoked outside a newly painted brown office door with a lil picture of him on it

“Grace” (NHMD 72798), a particularly beautiful skull of the early tetrapodomorph Acanthostega. A light, wooden brown “rock” with a large grey orbit and small white teeth arcing below. Hand for scale.

Four fingers against a swooping dark grey rock that contains the holotype (NHMD-167021) of a very bizarre cartilaginous fish. The swoop at top is a semicircular whorl of teeth from a very special animal you’ll be hearing more about.

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Tiago Simões @trsimoes.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

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

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Caxela @caxela.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Panthalassa

Out in the ancient Panthalassic Ocean, two Triassic ichthyosaurs have risen above dark and foaming waves, one having leapt completely out of the water. The horizon and sky are obscured.
These ichthyosaurs aren't meant to be any particular genus; they're sort of just unnamed early ichthyosaurs, though they were largely based on mixosaurids.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Time to retire? A study of 12.5 million scientists’ careers suggests that older scientists are less likely to produce disruptive work and instead build on existing theories. Younger researchers are more likely to overturn established ideas or open entirely new lines of inquiry. 🧪

economist.com

Why science is becoming less innovative

A huge study suggests ageing scientists are part of the problem

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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Y'all - the Smithsonian is hiring three new curators - herpetology, ichthyology, and ornithology! Notably, this is a 2nd fish curator position - i.e., not the same as the one advertised last month. So if you applied for that one apply again. www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Curator of Vertebrates

Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History currently has openings for three early-career Research Curators in Vertebrate Zoology, one each from the disciplines of ornithology, herpetology and ichthyology. The Department of Vertebrate Zoology seeks candidates with demonstrated expertise in, and a commitment to, collections-based research centered on systematics and evolution of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. This includes the ability to pursue an original approach to systematics and comparative analyses using, for example, morphology, development, and/or molecular data, and showing evidence of broader impacts or applications in evolutionary biology and/or collections-based ecology, as demonstrated by a record of peer-reviewed publications.

Candidates must have demonstrated the ability to establish an externally funded research program and to contribute to the growth and curation of the collections. Research in the Department is supported by the Museum’s shared laboratories, including the Laboratory of Analytic Biology and the Scientific Imaging facility, among others. The Department’s scientific collections are the largest in the world for fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, and the third largest for birds.

These federal positions will be filled at the GS-12 level, with a starting salary of $102,415, and excellent benefits. The positions are permanent and require a one-year probationary period.

The official announcement is posted on USAJOBS, where applications must be submitted.
https://www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Please be sure to read the announcement and instructions carefully, as the process of applying via USAJOBS is stringent and differs from applying for an academic position. This website offers helpful advice: https://serc.si.edu/careers/tips-applying-federal-jobs

Please contact the Search Committee Chair, Michael McGowen (mcgowenm@si.edu) or the Department Chair, Helen James (jamesh@si.edu) with any questions.

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Cy Marchant @slvrhwk.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Reconstructed skull of Eunotosaurus africanus, an early reptile from the Permian of southern Africa. 🐢 Long hypothesized to be an ancient ancestor of turtles, recent work led by @semifossorial.bsky.social shows this curious creature is instead a 'turtleized' millerettid. (1/🧵) #FossilFriday

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Huge deal all! @pbseons.bsky.social has made a SIX episode series around the Permian and it is a delight. Coming soon! 📺 🍿 There will be familiar faces.

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Hady George @houdzgeorge.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

And the day after another paper has been accepted! On fossils from a very different part of the world, and this one took me years of hard work to complete. Surreal that this work will soon be out in the wild Watch this space, especially if you like the Triassic

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AshPoust @ashpoust.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Come work with some of the coolest fossils in the world! (Still time to apply!)

The huge dark fang of a sabertooth "cat" along with partial views of the skull above and lower jaw below.

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

But more remarkable are the numerous percomorphs, many of which represent the earliest skeletal appearances of their families or orders. There are mackerel-like fishes (scombrids), snake mackerels (gempylids), jacks (carangids), moonfishes (menids), and members of the seahorse and trumpetfish group.

Multi-panel figure showing images of fossil fishes. So many percomorphs.

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AbiWail KaBooKer @akabaker.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is hiring for a Research Zoologist (Curator of Crustacea) trustcareers.si.edu/en/postings/...

trustcareers.si.edu

Research Zoologist (Curator of Crustacea), IS-0410-12

Job Opening: Research Zoologist (Curator of Crustacea), IS-0410-12 at National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Spreading the good word on turtle origins 🐢

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