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Paleobiology Database

@paleodb.bsky.social
1K followers 81 following 13 posts

A public resource for the global scientific community, seeking to provide researchers and the public with information about the entire fossil record | www.paleobiodb.org

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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Still time to share your feedback! We want to hear from you!
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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"Many modern biology studies rely on curated databases that scientists hardly notice until they are gone...Curation expertise, once lost, cannot be rebuilt quickly."
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Kenneth De Baets @djbirddanerd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
That is also one of the main point made by: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The authors survey community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databas...
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
We couldn't agree more: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Treat biological databases as infrastructure, not projects
Letter to the Editor
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Survey time - we want to hear from YOU! Your answers will help us better understand how the community uses and accesses @paleodb.bsky.social and will help shape future work on the database. Browsed Navigator once? Entered 1,342 taxa? Either way, we want your feedback! forms.gle/GFZukC1koFAb...
forms.gle
Paleobiology Database (PBDB) User Community Survey
Thank you for taking a few minutes to share your experiences and insights with the Paleobiology Database team! Your answers will help us better understand how the community uses and accesses the PBDB ...
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Anne-Laure D 🌿 @aldpaleo.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
📣📣 The 12th European Paleobotany and Palynology Congress will take place September 20-24 in Münster 🇩🇪 🌿⛏️ Abstract submission will be opened from mid-April to May 31. All the information is now online here: www.uni-muenster.de/GeoPalaeonto... #paleobotany #palynology #palaeobotany
uni-muenster.de
European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️28th May 2026, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next week for a talk by Alex Howard from Natural History Museum, London, on “Combining palaeontological, neontological, & spatial data to understand evolution through time and space using the ppgm R package”. bit.ly/palaeoverse-...
A poster showing Dr Alex Howard advertising her upcoming talk: Combining palaeontological, neontological, and spatial data to understand evolution through time and space using the ppgm R package
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
The New Paleobiology Database User Guide is here! This is the second edition of the volume designed to be a comprehensive guide for Paleobiology Database users -- escholarship.org/uc/item/9gg7...
Image of a world map with colored dots on it and a geological timescale below and the title "PaleoBios" at the top.
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Graeme T. Lloyd @graemetlloyd.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Just entered the amusingly named Chromeornis funkyi into the @paleodb.bsky.social. Etymology: "Funky Chromeo bird, in honor of the Chromeo Funklordz P-Thugg and Dave 1, who like many birds, make beautiful music. Pronounced crow-me-OR-niss funk-ee.".
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GBIF @gbif.org · 04/02/2026
1) Never smile at a crocodile 🐊 unless you're deep-diving into learning about its phylogenetic history! 🧬🤩 Modern crocodilian species belong to the Neosuchia clade, but there are currently many evolutionary knowledge gaps for this group.
Crocodile on a river bank
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Emma Dunne @emmadnn.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
🚨 Hot off the press: Our look into of the palaeontological database landscape and its sustainability into the future. Palaeo databases are invaluable and continue to transform our research field - but they are vulnerable... (1/6) 🧪 ⛏️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The authors survey community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databas...
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
✨ Calling all PalAss members & future members! ✨ 👉 Explore all opportunities here: palass.org/awards-grant... Not a PalAss member yet? You’re very welcome to join us! 🔗 palass.org/membership Please share with colleagues and students who might benefit 💬✨ #PalAss #grant #palaeontology #join
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Did you know we have new data entry forms?! They're designed to make your life easier, we promise: The new Reference form allows you to enter a DOI which will (usually) retrieve pub data so you don't have to type it, and you can (and should!) now enter full author names instead of just initials.
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Great news! A new NSF Geoinformatics grant to support the PBDB was funded in June of 2025! This will overhaul the technical underpinnings of PBDB, a necessary step for carrying the PBDB forward -- www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
nsf.gov
Award Details - NSF Award Search
Find award details and explore award abstracts and publications.
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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
It’s finally out! Extremely pleased to share the last chapter of my dissertation to be published! In this study, we take a deep dive into the 242 million-year squamate 🦎🐍 fossil record to quantify factors that lead to the mostly fragmentary specimens in collections today: doi.org/10.1017/pab....
urldefense.com
Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record
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Peter Wagner (a Real Dr., not a surgeon-barber/body-tech/golfer) @peterjwagner3.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Well, I clearly need to enter this into the Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social : but who is the author?
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Emma Dunne @emmadnn.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Databases like @paleodb.bsky.social are cornerstones of palaeobiological research. Most are concentrated in the 'Global North', but the associated socio-economic advantages sadly do not make them infallible to financial and infrastructure challenges... (4/n)
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Marine animal diversity across latitudinal and temperature gradients during the Phanerozoic onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @climatesamwell.bsky.social @eesaupe.bsky.social @paleodb.bsky.social
Top: Plot showing variation in the estimated slopes of the palaeolatitudinal biodiversity gradient through time across the Phanerozoic (including data from Europe and North America) for 1000 km grid cells. Slopes are estimated as the coefficient of per-cell, stage-level SQS diversity on absolute palaeolatitude for individual stages. Triangle data points meet quality criteria; circles do not. Red points are significant; grey points are not. A blue ring around a data point indicates a post-extinction interval. Horizontal blue shaded region highlights slopes close to zero.
Bottom right: Plot illustrating the relationships between per-cell, stage-level diversity estimates and palaeolatitude aggregated across the entire
Phanerozoic, globally. Data point colours indicate palaeolatitude zone: blue triangles, low; green squares, mid; purple circles high latitude. Solid black line is ordinary least squares regression line; dashed line traces the 95th quantile for each latitudinal band.
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Taphonomic controls on a multi-element marine skeletal fossil record onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @echinerd.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social @paleodb.bsky.social #FossilFriday
Top: Grid including illustrations (top row) and photographs (bottom row) of Palaeozoic echinoid fossils demonstrating examples of 5 taphonomic grades used in the paper. Left to right: TG1, MCZ:IP:103620, disarticulated spine and interambulacral plate of the archaeocidarid Archaeocidaris sp.; TG2, LACM 2020.1, pile of disarticulated interambulacral plates and spines from Archaeocidaris sp.; TG3, MCZ:IP:101936, fragment of a test of the palaechinid Maccoya intermedia showing ambulacral and interambulacral plates; TG4, YPM 26552, denuded test of the lepidesthid echinoid Lepidesthes colletti; TG5, NHMUK Pal E 76888, holotype of Archaeocidaris whatleyensis, an articulated test preserved with
covering spines; scale bars (with photographs) are 1 cm.
Bottom: Coloured plot showing the temporal distribution of taphonomic grades from the Ordovician (on the left) to the Permian. Vertical axis represents frequency of occurrence. Different colours indicate the 5 different taphonomic grades.
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Diversification & disparity in a major Palaeozoic clade of Brachiopoda: the rise and fall of the Plectambonitoidea onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @paleodb.bsky.social
Three photographs of fossil brachiopods, examples of key plectambonitoid taxa: taffiin Taffia from the Lower Ordovician of Alabama, USA (USNM 91586); leptellinid Leptelloidea from the Upper Ordovician of Baltica (NHMUK BB 5169); sowerbyellin Sowerbyella  from the Upper Ordovician of Baltica (NHMUK BB 5149).
On the lower left, a plot showing the change in number of plectambonitoid brachipod genera through time (Tremadocian on the left to Eifelian on the right), with the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction (LOME) marked as a yellow vertical line.
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Sinjini Sinha @sinjinis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Enriching experience at the @paleodb.bsky.social workshop focused on mastering the core functions of this powerful database and research tool. Some highlights include- entering occurrence and taxonomic data, extracting data for analysis and visualization, and of course international networking!
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Convergent evolution among non-carnivorous, desert-dwelling theropods as revealed by the dentary of the noasaurid Berthasaura leopoldinae from the Cretaceous of Brazil onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday @paleodb.bsky.social @datadryad.bsky.social
On the left, two phylomorphospace plots showing the first two principal components for the dentary (top) and maxilla (bottom) of a group of theropods.Carnivores are shaded red, non-carnivores grey.
On the right, digital reconstructions from CT scan images of a left dentary of Berthasaura leopoldinae (MPCO.V 0121): at the top an isosurface of the bone in dorsal view, mirrored to show how a pair would be angled; at the bottom, a translucent model in lateral view with internal cavities highlighted in yellow.
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
🚨 Deadline extended to May 1st! 🚨 Be sure to get your applications in for this summer's introductory workshop to the PBDB ASAP! More details and application form here: forms.gle/xQqDEQwwXeTH...
forms.gle
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Matthew E. Clapham @mclapham.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Great opportunity, but - warning - may lead to you spending years of your life entering data...
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Bruce S. Lieberman @bruceslieberman.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Great to be involved in #Paleobiology paper led by @jonhendricks.bsky.social showing #stasis & #punctuatedequilibria in fossil record @nilese.bsky.social #macroevolution - also evaluates records in databases @paleodb.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/pab....
doi.org
On the basis of stasis: documentation of taxon durations in paleontology and the necessity of museum voucher specimens | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
On the basis of stasis: documentation of taxon durations in paleontology and the necessity of museum voucher specimens
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Do you want to learn how to contribute to and use the Paleobiology Database? 🌎🦕🐚 Look no further - we're now welcoming applications to the 2025 edition of our introductory workshop! More details here: forms.gle/xQqDEQwwXeTH...
Paleobiology Database Summer 2025 Workshop Application
Dates: June 2-5, 2025 (4 days)
Location: George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
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Jesse Czekanski-Moir @jessecm.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
happy to share some freshly published work in Paleobiology with Daniel Phillipi and Linda Ivany (not on bluesky): doi.org/10.1017/pab.... @paleodb.bsky.social paper #493
doi.org
Global Phanerozoic biodiversity—can variation be explained by spatial sampling intensity? | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Global Phanerozoic biodiversity—can variation be explained by spatial sampling intensity? - Volume 50 Issue 4
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
New in #PapersinPalaeontology: Awakening Patagonia's sleeping sperm whale: a new description of the Early Miocene Idiorophus patagonicus onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @paleodb.bsky.social
Photograph of a fossil skull (above), same with labels overlaid (below). Type material of Idiorophus patagonicus (MLP-PV-5-2) in ventral view. Scale bar (to left of upper image) is 10 cm. In the bottom left corner is a globe showing South America and an expanded detail of Chile and Argentina, with Patagonia shaded grey and the study area indicated with a black rectangle.
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Anne-Laure D 🌿 @aldpaleo.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
⛏️For people working on the Devonian, Carboniferous & Permian (=all the best periods). Deadline for abstract submission is April 1st. geotolosa2025.sciencesconf.org #geology #paleontology #paleobotany #paleoclimatology #paleozoic
geotolosa2025.sciencesconf.org
GEOTOLOSA 2025 - 20ème ICCP « International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permain » - Sciencesconf.org
Invitation
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Bouwe Reijenga @breijenga.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
New in @currentbiology.bsky.social Studies have found that fossil/molecular diversification rates scale with time, hinting at a disconnect between micro and macroevolution. We show that these trends are absent from the fossil record when controlling for sampling biases: www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Apparent timescaling of fossil diversification rates is caused by sampling bias
Negative scaling relationships between diversification rates and the duration of organismal groups occur in molecular phylogenetic and fossil data. This causes a disconnect between micro- and macroevo...
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Taxonomic revision of the family Squalodontidae (Cetacea, Odontoceti): emptying the wastebasket of fragmentary holotypes onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #FossilFriday @paleodb.bsky.social
Two photographs of fossil cetacean skulls in lateral view. Above: the holotype of Eosqualodon langewieschei (Museum of Bünde specimen number 326). Below: Squalodon bellunensis (specimen number MGP 26131) in lateral view. Scale bars (on the right side) are both 10 cm.
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Jeff Wilson Mantilla @diapophysis.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Yesterday one of my students taught me a couple of ways to sign “fossil” in ASL. The one on the right is evocative bc it’s the bone sign but buried. The one on the left is used more for plant fossils, apparently, and is meant to show an object on a slab. I love these!
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Are you looking to pursue a career in #Palaeontology? On our website you can find information on Undergraduate and Postgraduate (Masters and #PhD) courses, and articles on possible career paths within palaeontology: www.palass.org/careers
A photo by Lucas George Wendt (Unsplash) shows a plastic triceratops skeleton model seen through a magnifying lens. A book about dinosaurs in the background.
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
The Paleobiology Database has landed on Bluesky! ✨ Here we'll be posting database updates, new publications and all things fossil-data-related 🌍🐚 Be sure to check out our website for more info on how to contribute to and use PBDB data as well as loads of other resources! 🦕📊 paleobiodb.org
Image of the world showing fossil occurrences recorded in the Paleobiology Database as coloured dots with a geological timescale at the bottom
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