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Dr Cecily Nicholl

@piginatutu.bsky.social
247 followers 281 following 10 posts

Community Engagement Coordinator for @palaeoverse.bsky.social based at @es-ucl.bsky.social. Still dabbling in crocodylomorph evolution. But first, coffee 🐊☕️. She/her

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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
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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Harriet B. Drage @harriedrage.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Interested in fossil arthropods, palaeoecology, dispersal, and interesting methods? 🦀 🌎 I'm hiring a 4-year, fully funded PhD student at the University of Geneva as part of my European Research Council (ERC) grant. Deadline: 16th October. Reach out if any questions! www.unige.ch/sciences/ter...
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
After a nasty post-festival flu, it’s very nice to come back online and see that our paper: “Osteohistological evidence for terrestrial adaptation and an extended growth period in mekosuchine crocodylians and its potential role in their extinction”, is out now in The Anatomical Record!
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Our new Zulip community workspace is live! This is a place to connect with other palaeontologists and discover/share: 👩‍💻 Upcoming conferences & workshops 💼 Job opportunities 📄 Publications 💰 Grants & funding prospects 📚 Resources (e.g. books & websites) Join here: palaeoverse.org/zulip/join-z...
A flyer advertising the new Palaeoverse Zulip workspace: Join our new community workspace on Zulip! A place to connect with fellow palaeontologists, share the latest news, and discover new research, opportunities, events, and more! 

Upcoming conferences and workshops.
Job opportunities.
New publications.
Grants and funding opportunities.
Resources such as books, talks, and course materials.

https://palaeoverse.org/zulip/join-zulip/
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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️30th July 2026, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next Thursday for a talk by Pablo Milla Carmona from IBIOMAR, CONICET on “Investigating evolution using theoretical morphospaces: a practical workflow with 'morphospace'”. Sign up here: palaeoverse.org/training/lec...
A flyer featuring a photograph of Pablo Milla Carmona advertising his talk entitled "Investigating evolution using theoretical morphospaces: a practical workflow with 'morphospace'", which will take place on Thursday 30th July at 15:00 UTC.
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
💻 Our new website is now live! 💻 Over the past few months, we've been working hard to create a hub of resources designed to support the palaeontological community. 🔗 Find out more and visit the new site here: palaeoverse.org
Our new website is live now! Visit: https://palaeoverse.org/.
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 We are very excited to share our next four talks in the Series 🥳 We are looking forward to hearing from Corinne Myers, Pablo Milla Carmona, @brpetrucci.bsky.social, and Emilia Jarochowska! Sign up now at bit.ly/palaeoverse-...
Palaeoverse Lecture Series

Last Thursday of every month at 15:00 UTC

June 25th –  Dr Cori Myers, University of New Mexico
PaleoENM: a quantitative tool to study paleoecology and macroevolution on a dynamic Earth

July 30th –  Dr Pablo Milla Carmona, University of Bristol
Investigating evolution using theoretical morphospaces: a practical workflow with 'morphospace'

Aug 27th –  Bruno do Rosario Petrucci, Iowa State University
Budding phylogenetic trees: inference with BEAST2 and post-processing with paleobuddy

Sept 24th –  Dr Emilia Jarochowska, Utrecht University
CarboKitten.jl – stratigraphic forward modeling of marine carbonate rocks and its applications in paleobiology
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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
Pedro Godoy @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
🚨 New croc paper alert! Another study led by Ana Laura Paiva (PhD student I co-supervise with Max Langer) is out today in Palaeontology! We revisit a classic question with new tools: how big were notosuchians, really? 🐊📏 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Art: @mirantakouvari.bsky.social
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Last week, several of our team got together @ucl.ac.uk to map out some exciting new ideas and plans to support the palaeontological community. We’ve got a lot in the works thanks to @softwaresaved.bsky.social’s Research Software Maintenance Fund. Stay tuned over the next few months to find out more.
Palaeoverse core team members photographed on the UCL campus
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Palaeoverse @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series - TODAY, 15:00UTC🚨 Joseph Flannery-Sutherland @joeflansan.bsky.social will be joining us with his talk: "Cleaning taxonomy, time, and their messy interactions with the fossilbrush R package". Sign up here if you haven't already: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...
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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
Pedro Godoy @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
🚨 Out today: our Editorial in @jvertpaleo.bsky.social on an important issue in science - the reproducibility crisis in phylogenetic analyses. In it, we analyze several years of editorial data to ask a simple question: are things improving? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
⏰ Abstract Submission Deadline: 16th April ⏰ Don’t miss the opportunity to present your work at the ProgPal 2026 conference! 🦖✨ 🔗 More info: palass.org/progressive-... 📌 Poster ⚡ Lightning Talk 🎤 Full Talk 🌟 Keynote Speaker #conference #ProgPal2026 #palaeontology
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Loved being part of this project, led by Marco Muscioni 🐊🌍🦷
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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
We'll be hosting a joint Crossing the Palaeontological–Ecological Gap (CPEG) meeting & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium @ucl.ac.uk in London in August 2027, which aims to bridge spatial and temporal gradients between palaeontology, ecology, and conservation: www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical...
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Our paper re-evaluating the notosuchian Eremosuchus elkoholicus is out now! This work formed a chapter of my PhD thesis, and sheds some light on the complex evolutionary history of sebecid crocodyliforms 🐊🌎 @es-ucl.bsky.social
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Lewis A. Jones (he/him) @lewisajones.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Interested in corals, dispersal, and diversification dynamics? 🪸 We're offering a PhD project on how the Tethys closure shaped global marine biodiversity — supervised by me, Bridget Wade, Nadia Santodomingo, & Francesca Bosellini. 🗓️ Apply by 17th December 2025 www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/how...
trees-dla.ac.uk
How did the closure of the Tethys Ocean impact global marine biodiversity? | TREES DLA
The closure of the Tethys Ocean during the Miocene represents one of the most profound reorganisations of Earth’s surface systems in the Cenozoic. Once a vast marine corridor linking the Indo-Pacific ...
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Had a really great time at @eavpalaeo.bsky.social in Kraków last week with all of team croc/sauropod from @es-ucl.bsky.social 🐊🦕 (as well as many old/new pals). Big thanks to everyone involved in organising! @macroecoevoale.bsky.social @devinhoffman.bsky.social @pdmannion.bsky.social
Researchers from UCL’s Vertebrate Palaeobiology Research Group presenting in their recent findings.
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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
New paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social led by Steve Poropat @curtinuniversity.bsky.social ‪in which we present the first ever direct evidence of sauropod dinosaur feeding, based on stomach contents of the Australian titanosaur Diamantinasaurus: www.cell.com/current-biol... @es-ucl.bsky.social
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Lewis A. Jones (he/him) @lewisajones.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship this year? Feel free to reach out! We've got micro🔬, invert 🪸, and vert palaeo🦕 @es-ucl.bsky.social! 📆 We are accepting Expressions of Interest until 9th June! marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu
Postdoctoral Fellowships
The information provided on this page is a summary of the main rules and requirements for Postdoctoral Fellowships (PFs) and who can apply for them.
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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
For a while, crocodile: crocodylomorph resilience to mass extinctions onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @datadryad.bsky.social
On the left: coloured box and whisker plots illustrating morphological diversity through time of extinct crocodylomorph skulls in dorsal view. Left vertical axis shows disparity (box and whisker plots coloured according to age: Late Triassic on the left in purple, to Palaeogene on the right in orange). Dashed line shows Procrustes variance (scale on right vertical axis).
On the right: photographs of a fossil crocodylomorph skull in dorsal (above) and lateral (below) view, with dots and lines indicating the position of landmarks and linear measurements used in this study. Red dots indicate landmarks; black dots are semilandmarks. The skull shown as an example is of Mariliasuchus amarali (MZSP PV 000050). There is a 2 cm scale bar shown on the lower left of the images.
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Christopher Dean @princessquatris.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
🚨 I'm super happy to announce that our new paper is finally out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🚨 We used the ecological approach of occupancy modelling to investigate the structure of the dinosaur fossil record prior to the K/Pg mass extinction! www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
The structure of the end-Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record in North America
Dean et al. examine the fossil record of North American dinosaurs prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Estimates of detection probability from occupancy models decrease prior to the extinction...
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Our new paper out today describes a sebecoidean crocodylomorph from the Early Palaeocene of Patagonia, and provides support for the survival of a large-bodied terrestrial vertebrate lineage across the K-Pg. @pdmannion.bsky.social @es-ucl.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Tewkensuchus salamanquensis skull elementsPalaeontologists retrieving the fossil from the ground
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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Our new paper @royalsociety.org describing a new notosuchian crocodyliform from the early Paleocene of Argentina that we interpret as evidence for survival of a large-bodied terrestrial lineage across the K–Pg mass extinction (w/@piginatutu.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @es-ucl.bsky.social
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Guilherme Nunes @guilhernunes.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
sunflower + alligator prints: www.inprnt.com/gallery/guil...
painting of alligators on a river next to a sunflower field
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Reposted by Dr Cecily Nicholl
Daniel Martins dos Santos 🐊 @paleodaniel.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
🚨Croc paper alert! Please welcome Thilastikosuchus scutorectangularis 🐊, the oldest notosuchian from South America and the first crocodyliform from the Sanfranciscana Basin, Brazil! Happy to be part of this team. Huge thanks to Joyce for being invited to collaborate! #paleontology
tandfonline.com
Anatomical description and systematics of a new notosuchian (Mesoeucrocodylia; Crocodyliformes) from the Quiricó Formation, Lower Cretaceous, Sanfranciscana Basin, Brazil
Notosuchians comprise a clade of mostly terrestrial crocodyliforms generally found in Cretaceous Gondwanan deposits. They evolved into many forms and some species show convergences with mammalian f...
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Dr Cecily Nicholl @piginatutu.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
My first post on here, so I’d like to share some cool things that have happened recently: 1) Last week I successfully defended my PhD thesis, and am a (pending) croc doc 🐊 2) I now share my name with a caterpillar cake 3) I learnt the importance of never being photographed with a whiteboard
PhD thesis cover: The Evolutionary History of Notosuchian Crocodylomorphs(Pending) Dr Nicholl with Cecily the caterpillar cake
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