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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My Scandinavian research saga continued this week with a visit to the collections at the Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in Stockholm. I was here for the Palaeogene carnivores from Quercy, France, but also very much appreciated the monumental architecture and Linnaeus paraphernalia!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

After a month catching my breath in the UK, the second round of my sabbatical research tour is underway in Copenhagen 🇩🇰! Thanks so much to the staff of the @nhmdk.bsky.social for being so welcoming during my quick trip to look at some of their Cenozoic mammal fossils.

Me returning a mammal fossil to the collection drawers

A little Copenhagen scenery: the brightly colored facades and ships of Nyhavn

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The soaring hall of the Muzeum Geologiczne and its trio of Polish megafauna is also fantastic. Both museums are very well worth a visit if you are ever fortunate enough to find yourself in Warsaw!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I’m in Poland 🇵🇱 for research this week and it’s simultaneously #MuseumMonday, #MammalMonday, and #MegafaunaMonday. In honor of all that, I wanted to share the fantastic Ice Age exhibits at each of Warsaw’s lovely geology museums, starting with the brand-new display in the Muzeum Ziemi.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Whatever its true ancestry, if you study Arsinoitherium or any of its possible relatives, extant or extinct, you should be part of the Afrotheria session I'll be co-chairing with @tegnikus.bsky.social at this year's IPC in Cape Town. Abstracts are due at the end of the month! (3/3)

ipc7.site

The 7th International Palaeontological Congress

Scientific programme and session schedule for IPC7 — the 7th International Palaeontological Congress, Cape Town, 30 November – 3 December 2026.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

It's also historically been thought to be an afrothere, an extinct relative of modern elephants, sea cows, hyraxes, tenrecs, and aardvarks, though new evidence has called this into question. (2/3)

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

This #FossilFriday is a two-fer! The double-horned Eocene mammal Arsinoitherium (seen here in the @nhm-london.bsky.social ) is the 2nd in my series of salutes to the Egyptian fossil record in honor of #TeamEgypt making the @gonzagauniversity.bsky.social campus their home during the World Cup. (1/3)

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I’m in Seattle this #FossilFriday, where I’m always happy to see how the modern plants in the @burkemuseum.bsky.social garden are growing in around the slab of Chuckanut Formation palm fossils, relics and evidence of a much warmer climate in the Eocene of western Washington.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I don’t normally do selfies, but when the passing of the @gonzagauniversity.bsky.social grade deadline and the beginning of your sabbatical coincide with a ferry trip through the Gulf Islands, it feels like a moment worth commemorating.

Photographic documentation of the lab leader being skin-crawlingly narcissistic

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Today we had the chance to celebrate all the Biology majors about to graduate from @gonzagauniversity.bsky.social, including lab members Ella and Kevin. I'm proud of the great work they did over their four years here and am excited to see what's next for them!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Wadi Al-Hitan doesn't just preserve whales. Sirenians are another group of marine mammal whose evolution is documented at the site. You can't see it in this skull at the @ummnh.bsky.social, but Protosiren smithae was a relative of manatees and dugongs that still had functional hind legs. (4/4)

The skull of the sea cow Protosiren, displayed next to an impressively well-preserved fossil crab.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

These skeletons of Basilosaurus isis and its relative Dorudon atrox in the @ummnh.bsky.social and @sgn.one show some of the ways in which these "archaeocetes" differ from modern whales, including their large, complex teeth, their elongated bodies, and a pair of tiny back legs. (3/4)

A close-up of the skull and front flippers of Basilosaurus mounted above a museum lobby about to attack the skeleton of the smaller whale Dorudon

The skeletons of Basilosaurus and Dorudon seen from below

The elongated skeleton of Basilosaurus isis

A skeleton of Dorudon mounted alongside modern whale skeletons

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Wadi Al-Hitan is famous for its Eocene whales, especially the enormous Basilosaurus isis, seen here in fossil and Charles R. Knight mural form in the Field Museum. While not the oldest whales, these "archaeocetes" (ancient whales) still document an important interval in cetacean evolution. (2/4)

Three fossil whale skulls, including the toothy jaws and vertebrae of Basilosaurus isis, in front of a mural showing three basilosaurs surfacing in front of a tree-covered island in a choppy blue sea.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Spring has sprung in the Great Northwest this #FossilFriday! With leaves starting to bud it's worth reflecting on our region's incredible plant fossil record and the story it tells of deep time environmental change (Photos from the Field Museum, John Day Fossil Beds, and @burkemuseum.bsky.social).

A display from the Field Museum showing plant fossils from Oregon and Washington that appear more similar to those of modern Appalachia than the Northwest.

A mural by Larry Felder showing the John Day Basin in the Eocene Epoch, featuring a thick liana (vine) in front of a lake reflecting dense, tropical rainforest-like vegetation.

A mural by Larry Felder showing the John Day Basin at the boundary of the Eocene and Oligocene Epochs, featuring vegetation in fall color and appearing similar to what you might encounter today in the Appalachians or parts of China.

A display at Seattle's Burke Museum that uses plant fossils from around the Northwest to track changing climate during the Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene Epochs.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Happy #WorldBearDay! Alongside our 6 living bear species, ursids are also extremely well-represented in the fossil record. The most famous is the massive Ursus spelaeus, or cave bear (Höhlenbär in German, seen here in skeletal from at @sgn.one and in dioramic glory in Basel), of Ice Age Europe.

A head-on view of the impressively robust skull of a cave bear in Frankfurt's Senckenberg Museum.

A diorama of a cave bare in the Natuurhistorisches Museum Basel, showing a bear in front of a cave mouth with Swiss scenery in the background.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

A couple of notes: my understanding is that the modern Irish name for Megaloceros would be fia mór, but any Irish speakers should correct me! If you're interested in the Westropp study I mentioned, it's freely available from @clarelibraries.bsky.social and is a folkloric and linguistic gold mine!

clarelibrary.ie

A Folklore Survey of County Clare by Thomas Johnson Westropp

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

T.J. Westropp (an alumnus of @tcddublin.bsky.social, home of these skeletons) found that the peat diggers of County Clare uncovered Megaloceros skulls so often that they had a Gaelic name for them: fiadh mór. Meaning 'great deer,' it's the best name I've heard for these magnificent animals! (3/3)

Two Irish giant deer skeletons in the atrium of the opulent Museum Building of Trinity College.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

This deer, Megaloceros giganteus, has become an Ice Age icon. It ranged across Eurasia, but remains best known from Éire, as attested to by these fossils in the @nmireland.bsky.social, hence its poetic, evocative, and, sadly, geographically and taxonomically imprecise common name 'Irish elk.' (2/3)

Three huge skeletons of Irish giant deer (two antlered bucks and one doe), with even more Megaloceros skulls on the wall in the background.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the MEAT Lab! For centuries, the Irish have been finding gigantic deer skulls preserved in peat bogs across Éire. So common and well-preserved were they that some were displayed in Medieval halls like trophies, such as the skull in the rafters of Cahir Castle. (1/3)

The huge skull of an Irish giant deer in the rafters of Cahir Castle

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Last year, lab member Peyton was awarded a student research grant by @geosociety.bsky.social for her research on the paleoenvironments of Miocene marine mammals from the Oregon Coast. This #FossilFriday, we're excited to see her work featured in the most recent issue of GSA Today (on Page 15)!

rock.geosociety.org

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

I neglected to mention that I will be co-chairing this session with @tegnikus.bsky.social. Please reach out to either or both of us if you have any questions or would like more information.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

While I'm promoting conferences this #FossilFriday, the @eavpalaeo.bsky.social early registration window is closing soon. It'll my first EAVP and I'd love to see as many of my 🇪🇺 colleagues as possible in 🇱🇹 to share my work on the migration of giant amphicyonids between Europe and North America.

The monolith of Sheep Rock, the most dramatic outcrop of Oregon's John Day Formation, whose rocks and fossils may have a lot to say about the timing of amphicyonid ("bear-dog") migration between Eurasia and North America.

Skeleton (and fossilized trackway) of the giant "bear-dog" Amphicyon, a genus whose range encompassed both Europe and North America (seen here in the Raymond Alf Museum, Claremont, California).

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

It's #FossilFriday & @ipc7.bsky.social registration & abstract submissions are open! I'll be there co-chairing a session on afrotheres & talking about the ecology of an out-of-place sea cow from Oregon. I hope you can join us to share your work on elephants, aardvarks, sengis, tenrecs, hyraxes, etc.

The Afrotheria: Origins & Evolution of Africa’s Iconic Mammals
Despite comprising fewer than 100 extant species, few mammalian lineages contain as high a degree of morphological and ecological disparity as do Afrotheria. So great is the disparity between extant
aardvarks, sengis, golden moles, tenrecs, otter shrews, hyraxes, sirenians, and elephants that they were not recognized as a monophyletic clade until the advent of molecular phylogenetics less than 30 years ago. The rich afrotherian fossil record includes not only members of extant families, but stem taxa and extinct orders
such as embrithopods. This incredible diversity has inspired a corresponding variety of palaeontological and evolutionary questions. This symposium will showcase the diversity of research and researchers
working on Afrotherians in areas that may include, but are not limited to the origin of the group, phylogenetics, systematics, major transitions, functional morphology, biomechanics, palaeoecology,
biogeography, biostratigraphy, ichnology, and conservation palaeobiology.

The Nye Formation near Newport, Oregon, unexpected site of a warm-water sea cow in the cold North Pacific.

An extinct Steller's sea cow (a not-too-distant relative of the Oregon sirenian) and an African manatee (a much more distant relation) in the skeletal menagerie of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris).

West Indian manatees, the most familiar living sirenians to those of us in North America, Crystal River, Florida.

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Reposted by Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab

Paleontological Society @paleosoc.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

The Paleontological Society statement on recent events.

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Chúc mừng năm mới 새해복많이받으세요 恭喜发财 Whichever language you say it in, happy lunar new year! Equids loom large in the study of paleontology and evolution, so we in the MEAT Lab are excited to celebrate the Year of the Horse! (See picture alt text for details and photo credits).

Miohippus was one of the first genera to move out of the forests and onto the savannas of Oligocene North America (mural from John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon, painted by Roger Witter).

While not nearly as diverse as they used to be, equids are very much still with us today, not only in the form of domestic horses and donkeys, but as wild horses, asses, and zebras on the plains of Asia and Africa (photo from South Luangwa National Park, Zambia).

Eurohippus from the Eocene Messel lagerstätte was, like most early horses, a small forest-dweller that lived alongside closely related hoofed mammals that would give rise to rhinos and tapirs (photo from the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt, Germany).

Over the last 25 million years, horses have been part of an evolutionary dance with grasslands, which shaped and were shaped by increasingly large, fast, and grass-eating equids like Merychippus (back right), Equus simplicidens (Idaho's Hagerman horse, middle), and Equus occidentalis (front left; photo from Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

#SICB2026 is a wrap! Thanks to @sicb.bsky.social for hosting a great conference (as always), to all the speakers and workshop organizers for sharing your inspiring work to move biology forward, and especially to everyone who came by our poster and gave my student excellent feedback!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Took the scenic route to #sicb2026 today. If you’re in Portland too, come say hi, and make sure to catch my student’s poster on Tuesday to learn about our work on desmostylian shoulders!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

So excited to be a part of this symposium at next year’s @ipc7.bsky.social! If you work on elephants, sea cows, aardvarks, tenrecs, hyraxes, or any of their relatives, I hope you can join us in Cape Town!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Our undergrad researchers have been doing some great work in the field, museum, and lab on the paleoenvironments of Oligocene marine mammals from the Northwest Coast. And now it's confirmed that they'll be presenting that work at the @geosociety.bsky.social meeting in October!

Three student researchers enthusiastically pointing out fossils from the Sooke Formation in the collections of the Royal BC Museum

Lab members in the field on the banks of the Sombrio River on Vancouver Island

Lab members locating the site of an important marine mammal fossil on the coast of Vancouver Island

Lab members find the first fossil of the season on a boulder on the seaweed-covered cobble beach near the Sombrio River on Vancouver Island

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

As of this #FossilFriday, I'm officially hosting a symposium on Afrotheria at next year's IPC in Cape Town! There's still a lot to work out, but if you work on elephants, sea cows, aardvarks or any of their relatives (and can make it to South Africa) please consider being a part of this session!

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

One of the perks of doing research at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is getting to stroll through the exhibits afterwards. Besides telling a great story about climate change and evolution, they are a textbook example of how great paleoart can elevate a paleontology display.

Fossil display cases in front of colorful murals of life in central Oregon during the Eocene Epoch.

Fossil display cases in front of myself depicting the drier, grassier world of the Miocene Epoch

The fanged jaws of the cat-like sabertooth Pogonodon

Skulls of oreodonts, vaguely sheep-like animals that are superabundant in the John Day fossil record

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

The lab is working on describing some carnivores from Oregon's John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, so I had an excuse to run down to one of our planet's more dramatic fossiliferous landscapes (and my old stomping grounds) over our Spring Break.

The pyramidal peak of Sheep Rock, Oregon, with sagebrush in the foreground

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Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab @meatlabpaleo.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Hello from the Morphology & Ecology Across Time Lab at @gonzagauniversity.bsky.social! We use the fossil record to explore the evolution of mammals and the forces that drive it. Follow us for research updates, news, and fossil photos (like this one of the rhino Teleoceras in the Carnegie Museum)!

Skeleton of the barrel-chested, short-legged rhino Teleoceras on display at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum.

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