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Stephan Spiekman

@stephanspiekman.bsky.social
394 followers 317 following 56 posts

Postdoctoral Researcher @smnstuttgart.bsky.social. Vertebrate palaeontologist studying Triassic reptile evolution.

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Reposted by Stephan Spiekman
Serjoscha Evers @sirjoscha.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
1/4 🐢 What should fossil turtle systematics look like ten years from now? Walter Joyce & I offer our personal answer in a new review paper: "Transforming Turtle Systematics: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Path Ahead" Out now in @journalsystpal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Figure 1 from our paper, highlighting turtle ecology across phylogeny
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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Here is a link to a wonderful thread by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social about this amazing paper! Thank you so much for entrusting me with reconstructing this amazing animal bsky.app/profile/step...
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Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart @smnstuttgart.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Spectacular discovery: Researchers, including Dr. @stephanspiekman.bsky.social (Natural History Museum Stuttgart & @unihohenheim.bsky.social) have, for the first time, identified parts of the digestive system in a 245-million-year-old marine reptile from China. Press release: t1p.de/7e2wr
Fossilized marine reptile skeleton in rock with green label "A LOOK INSIDE A MARINE REPTILE."
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Excited to share our new paper in Science Advances! Led by Dr Wei Wang at #IVPP in Beijing, it presents a complete skeleton of #Austronaga, the most marine of all archosauromorphs. To boot, this fossil preserves the oldest complete digestive tract of any reptile! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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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.A Lego kit of a Triceratops skull
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Tiago Simões @trsimoes.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Proud to share our latest paper in out in Nature today on the origin of #snakes. We present Tametara mirim, an articulated 3D preserved stem snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Tametara helped us re-tell the story of snake origins in a novel way... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes - Nature
A well-preserved fossil snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil shows early ecological and brain shape disparity in the group.
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Just in time for the weekend: this new skull fills a big gap in the formation of the bulldog-like🐶 rhynchosaur skull, which we also use as an excuse to review all of rhynchosaur skull evolution! Another Triassic weirdo off my bucket list✅ @smnstuttgart.bsky.social @unihohenheim.bsky.social @dfg.de
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...
A pair of Eunotosaurus by Gabriel Ugueto: a sense of scale is provided by Glossopterus leaves in the fore-and-background and by a prosbolid hemipteran insect Phylogeny of major reptile groups, showing turtles (Pantestudines) as early archosauromorphs and the putative stem-turtle Eunotosaurus as a millerettid stem reptile
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Delighted to see this published Stephan! The second in our series of short reviews on the systematics of major groups. (Short by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social standards, you understand). Take a look at this Bluesky... you'll want to cite it!
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
New review paper with Martín Ezcurra just published in @journalsystpal.bsky.social as part of a special issue! Modern reptiles comprise archosaurs 🐊🦉, lepidosaurs🦎🐍, and turtles🐢, but their origins is murky. Where do turtles fit in, really? And most marine reptiles? Choristoderes? Drepanosaurs? ->
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
We @journalsystpal.bsky.social commissioned a series of short review articles on the systematics of major fossil groups from leading experts, and asked them to speculate on where their field is going. The first, by Otega-Hernandez, is out now: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....
tandfonline.com
A decade after Deuteropoda – insights into the systematics, evolution and dynamics of Cambrian euarthropods
The systematics and evolution of Cambrian euarthropods have undergone a major transformation in recent years owing to the continued discovery of new species from sites with exceptional preservation...
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
I'm really thrilled to see the "Cromhall Croc" finally getting the attention it deserves! Please welcome Galahadosuchus jonesi, named after Ewan's school science teacher, who inspired his love of the natural world ♥️ anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
A second species of non‐crocodyliform crocodylomorph from the Late Triassic fissure deposits of southwestern UK: Implications for locomotory ecological diversity in Saltoposuchidae
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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Meet Galahadosuchus jonesi, a new crocodylomorph from the Late Triassic of the UK, described by @es-ucl.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social PhD student Ewan Bodenham (with @stephanspiekman.bsky.social, @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & Paul Upchurch): anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Here's Galahadosuchus, a new saltoposuchid from Gloucestershire that I was brought on to illustrate. Congrats to Ewan Bodenham, Stephan Spiekman (@stephanspiekman.bsky.social), Susie Maidment (@tweetisaurus.bsky.social), Paul Upchurch, and Phil Mannion (@pdmannion.bsky.social) on the publication!
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Yesterday, @tweetisaurus.bsky.social visited us @smnstuttgart.bsky.social to talk about her amazing work on Spicomellus, which had everything that makes palaeo great: unexpected discoveries, fieldwork, prep work, bizarre anatomy, CT scanning, you name it
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Hello from Stuttgart! Never been to the SMNS before but it's a lovely museum with amazing collections. Right now they have a temporary exhibit on Triassic life, featuring Mirasaura. @stephanspiekman.bsky.social showed me round.. Amazing fossils!
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
Skull of Scyllacerta, reconstructed based on scans of four nearly complete skulls.
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Journal of Systematic Palaeontology @journalsystpal.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Meet our brilliant team of Associate Editors! 𝐃𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐤𝐦𝐚𝐧 (Museum of Natural History Stuttgart) is a specialist in Triassic reptile evolution, using comparative anatomy, functional morphology, histology and phylogeny. Read more: buff.ly/UYmwXjr @stephanspiekman.bsky.social #Paleosky
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A hidden diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous Europe - Nature
New results indicate that rhabdodontids and the previously described Ajkaceratops are actually distinctive European ceratopsians, a group better known from Asia and North America.
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Journal of Systematic Palaeontology @journalsystpal.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
New paper! Buffa 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭. (2025) redescribe the anatomy of the enigmatic stem-reptile 𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙮𝙧𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨 from the Permian of South Africa and the origin of Neodiapsida 🦎 Phylogenetic analysis of the relationships of Permian reptiles. Read the study here: buff.ly/62lJG0W #FossilFriday #PaleoSky
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
On the off-chance that you are one of the three people left in the world who hasn't heard me talking about stegosaurs, you can catch me here, on The Ancients podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=I9Vk...
youtube.com
Inside The Bizarre Biology Of The Stegosaurs
YouTube video by The Ancients
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Dr Valentina Rossi @she-paleo.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
🐸 NEW PAPER OUT! This time it’s all about FROGS and their melanosomes! Falk et al., 2025, iScience: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.114220 #palaeontology #frogs #deeptime
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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
You wait ages for a paper, and two come along (almost) at once! This is the first publication from the project we're currently working on, where we're investigating the relationship between different regions of the avian head. 1/n royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Avian cranial evolution is influenced by shape interactions between hard and soft tissue traits
Abstract. Changes in the structure and relative size of the brain are thought to be key transformations in the evolution of birds, reflecting innovations a
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Just a quick heads up for those who intended to use the free scale bars handed out at this year's SVP by #PaleoTools: don't...
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
What cynic would ever say such a thing? 👀
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Buffa et al.’s paper on the enigmatic Permian reptile 🦎 Galesphyrus and the origin of Neodiapsida is out in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology! Read the thread 👇 for some important takeaways from our study @valentinbuffa.bsky.social #Paleontology #Reptile #Permian doi.org/10.1080/1477...
The holotype of Galesphyrus, an articulated skeleton of a small stem reptile preserved as a mold. It is beautifully preserved, but decided to lose it’s skull prior to discovery A diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of early reptiles found in this study. Importantly, this study places Galesphyrus as sister to Millerettidae + Neodiapsida, reconciling postcrania and cranial data for support of Parapleurota!
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The Anatomical Record @anatrecord.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
🦎✨ New research delivers the 1st full 3D anatomical atlases of the veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus)! Open-access atlases + lesson plans offer powerful new tools for studying reptile evolution and teaching comparative anatomy. Leavey et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Jordan Bestwick @jordanbestwick1.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure Please show your support by signing the below! c.org/KtYyZB8dHk
c.org
Save Geology at the University of Leicester
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
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Gabriela Sobral @sobralg.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
We have a proper picture! Thanks @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and the rest that doesn’t have a BlueSky handle
Four people hugging in a pub, three man and a woman, all dressed up and smiling
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Spiekman and Ezcurra doing totally normal things in my office... @stephanspiekman.bsky.social
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
‼️‼️Triassic Life just opened @smnstuttgart.bsky.social‼️‼️ For all #Triassic fans, lovers of strange reptiles and the Dawn of the Modern World, this is an absolute MUST! It also couldn't be more timely with our recent publication @nature.com of the wonder reptile #Mirasaura, which is now on display!
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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 14/08/2024
Placodonts are amazing! Exhibit A: Cyamodus orientalis. And no, this is NOT a turtle. This is an illustration for my book (in preparation) You can see this one and another Placodont I reconstructed for my book in a new post exclusive for my patrons Patreon.com/serpenillus 🐡 🎨 🧪 #paleontology 🐍
Reconstruction of Cyamodus orientalis on a blank background
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Maija Karala @maijakarala.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
The Triassic was a time of weird reptiles of every description. This is one of the more recent finds: Mirasaura from France. It's one of the drepanosaurs, an odd group of arboreal reptiles with superficially bird-like heads and, in some cases, equally superficially feather-like appendages.
A slightly cartoony illustration of a Mirasaura sitting on a mossy tree branch. The lizard-like animal has a long snout resembling a bird's beak, large eyes and a massive crest on its' back somewhat resembling a birds' wing feathers, as if someone stuck an entire wader's wing into his back. The animal has large eyes and it looking behnd him at a passing dragonfly.
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
PhD position available at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin on avialan ontogeny (birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives)! jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/jobposting/e...
jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin
42/2025 Research Associate with the goal of a doctorate (f/m/d)
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Serjoscha Evers @sirjoscha.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
News @ Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken (UMO) in Bayreuth: new ichthyosaur, Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis, named today after UMO's prime excavation site, the Jurassic clay pit Mistelgau. @olorotitan.bsky.social beautifully reconstructed the to-be fossil on a belemnite battleground typical for the locality.
Freshly deceased Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis on a Jurassic sea floor covered in Belemnite rostra (a "belemnite battleground"). Artwork by Andrey Atuchin.
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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Check out the provisional programme for #SVP2025 #2025SVP - the Triassic symposium was so popular they are running it for the entire day! vertpaleo.org/wp-content/u...
vertpaleo.org
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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!
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Henry Gee 亨利·纪 @endofthepier.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Meet Spiny Norman, the earliest known and definitely the most outrageously spiky ankylosaur ever discovered, as presented by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @richardjbutler.bsky.social in @nature.com. Q: how did it mate? A: carefully. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur - Nature
The ankylosaurian dinosaur Spicomellus afer possessed a tail weapon and uniquely elaborate dermal armour.
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Chris Stringer @chrisbstringer.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Unusual fossil skin appendage is not a feather. Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Unusual fossil skin appendage is not a feather
Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers.
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Stephan Spiekman @stephanspiekman.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
As the icing on a very special cake, our work forms the cover of Nature @nature.com this week, in large part thanks to the amazing reconstruction by @serpenillus.bsky.social!
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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
I’m so excited and proud to have my illustration of Mirasaura in the cover of NATURE! Just wow! Especially happy to do that with such an amazing species and such wonderful research! #paleoart #art
Cover of the latest issue of Nature, showing my illustration of Mirasaura
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Dr Orla Bath Enright @orlabe.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Out today, our Nature cover debut! @stephanspiekman.bsky.social @she-paleo.bsky.social @nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com
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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 24/07/2025
A paper in Nature describes a Triassic reptile with a crest of appendages on its back, which are neither feathers nor skin. The findings demonstrate that feathers or hair-like protrusions are not unique to birds and mammals. go.nature.com/4nZCySR #Paleosky 🧪
Reconstruction and illustration of Mirasaura in its natural forested environment, hunting insects. Credit: Gabriel Ugueto
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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
BIG Congratulations to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and colleagues for a once in a lifetime publication and thank sooo very much for confiding in me to illustrate this magnificent animal. Here is the link to the Nature paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-…
Illustration of Mirasaura on a blank background
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 23/07/2025
Here's a newly uncovered fossil that's an evolutionary puzzle. Its plume is not made of feathers. But it's feather-ish. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/40UUlAP
A 247-million-year-old reptile with a bizarre feather-like crest. Art by Tobias Wilhelm/State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart
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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
What a spectacular new specimen - huge congratulations to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social on an excellent paper with great accompanying art!
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Natural History Museum, London @nhm-london.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
What has a bird-like skull, a lizard-like body and a clawed tail? It's a drepanosaur! New research has revealed another odd thing about these bizarre Triassic reptiles: a feather-like structure that's nothing to do with birds! Find out all about it for #FossilFriday 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
nhm.ac.uk
Bizarre new fossil reptile had crest unlike anything seen before | Natural History Museum
Mirasaura grauvogeli is changing our understanding of reptile evolution.
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Reinhold Leinfelder @leinre.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Sie und Ihr Team, lb. Herr Spiekmann. Die fesche Mirasaura hat es dann gestern ja sogar in die 20:15-Tagesschau geschafft, heute in die Süddeutsche www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/miras...
sueddeutsche.de
Mirasaura grauvogeli: Fossil verändert Verständnis von Reptilien und Federn
Ein 247 Millionen Jahre altes Fossil aus Frankreich zeigt: Reptilienhaut kann mehr als gedacht - nämlich auch Federn bilden, die keine sind.
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Reinhold Leinfelder @leinre.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
The feature of the Smithsonian on Mirasaura is here www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-...
smithsonianmag.com
This Surprising Ancient Reptile Had a Colorful, Corrugated Sail on Its Back. New Research Suggests It Was Used to Communicate
A 247-million-year-old fossil from a German natural history museum reveals the secrets of Mirasaura
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Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart @smnstuttgart.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Check out @stephanspiekman.bsky.social's thread to learn more about #Mirasaura!
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