Will probably be back next week or the week after with more deets on where those authors are/were based at the time of publication (country-level) once I come up with schemes for how to count/measure/weight that.
Reminder that you can find the code + data here: github.com/bryanmgee/ne...
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The last thing I have data for, which is maybe of greatest interest to some, is WHO is publishing these papers. Still figuring out how to graph this, but the top hitters for Nature & Science only:
-Zhe-Xi Luo: 16
-Jin Meng: 15
-Xu Xing: 14
-Min Zhu: 11
-Qiang Ji: 9
(data on GitHub)
Chloropleth map showing the relatively frequency of new holotypes published in Nature or Science, with China being a giant hotspot. Australia, Canada, the U.S., and some other western European countries also show up a fair bit.
Likewise, Palaeontology sees more holotypes from the UK, western Europe, and other parts of the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia). But China remains dominant in being the source of new species.
Binary map showing whether at least one holotype published in PNAS/Current Bio was found in a given country. Most of the Americas and Europe are well-represented, while Africa is largely unrepresented.
Chloropleth map showing the relatively frequency of new holotypes published in Nature or Science, with China being a giant hotspot and almost all other countries being nearly indiscernible from zero. The United States and Myanmar are also discernible.
PNAS/Current Bio sees much higher representation from the U.S. (probably because PNAS is a U.S.-skewed publication). If you squint hard enough, Myanmar is also higher up there - Current Bio has published a lot of Cretaceous amber material (though not recently).
Binary map showing whether at least one holotype published in Nature/Science was found in a given country. Most of the Americas and Europe are well-represented, while Africa is less well represented.
Chloropleth map showing the relatively frequency of new holotypes published in Nature or Science, with China being a giant hotspot and almost all other countries being nearly indiscernible from zero.
The maps for where holotypes are from are also interesting. Nature and Science show the same trend in being dominated by new species from China.
Bar graph comparing frequency of clades for which new species were described in Palaeontology since 2010. Invertebrates of various types (molluscs, insects, ostracods, etc.) dominate this journal, followed by different types of fishes and mystery animals outside of Metazoa.
Bar graph comparing frequency of geologic time bins from which new species were described in Palaeontology between 2010 and 2026. The Cretaceous is overwhelmingly the most common, followed by the Jurassic, Cambrian, and Devonian.
Palaeontology (@thepalass.bsky.social) is the best I have atm for 'typical' paleo in which naming of inverts outpaces that of verts - not uncommon to see single papers naming 5+ new species of inverts, which almost never happens for verts. Binned inverts out more for @daveyfwright.bsky.social
Bar graph comparing frequency of clades for which new species were described in PNAS or Current Biology between 2000 (PNAS) or 2006 (CB) and 2026. Insects, misc. arthropods, and plants are far more common in than Nature/Science.
Bar graph comparing frequency of geologic time bins from which new species were described in PNAS or Current Biology between 2000 (PNAS) or 2006 (CB) and 2026. The Cretaceous is overwhelmingly the most common, followed by the Eocene, Jurassic, and Triassic.
Quite interesting to compare relative ranks among clades to which new species belong between Nature/Science and what could be considered the 'next tier down' in journals like PNAS and Current Bio.
🐝📈
🌱📈
🦖📉
🐟📉
Bar graph comparing frequency of clades for which new species were described in Nature or Science between 1995 and 2026. Primates, non-therian mammaliaforms, theropod dinosaurs, assorted fish, and amphibians are the most common.
Bar graph comparing frequency of geologic time bins from which new species were described in Nature or Science between 1995 and 2026. The Cretaceous and Jurassic are the most common, followed by the Cambrian and Eocene.
I have cleaned up the graphs a bit after some internet rando told me my five-minute rush-job matplotlib was ugly 😢
Clade- and time-based charts now have standardized colour schemes and the clades are binned out more. The following data are Nature/Science (1995-present, including this week's new🐟)
👋 Back for #FossilFriday with more data on where/what new species get published!
Updated data and scripts: github.com/bryanmgee/ne...
Nature/Science: ⬆️in coverage through 1995
PNAS: 🆕, new species through 2000
Current Bio: 🆕, new species through 2006
Palaeontology: 🆕, new species through 2010
🧵👇
Ah Palaeontology is a good one to check! Definitely a shift away from descriptive work in my experience (less recent descriptions to cite), will add to list
Yep, the next step, which i mostly have scripted just not pushed on GitHub, is to pull information on authors and institutions from a bibliographic API - there are definitely some heavy hitters who are on 5+ articles in this dataset
The molluscs were modestly represented IIRC, I might split them out in the next iteration - it was a hassle trying to identify all the conditional labels to make some that would make sense and not be too vague
Anyway, this is a fun per project I'm just noodling on in my spare time, but if anyone else is interested and wants to contribute, the GitHub is there for forking or you can DM me!
github.com/bryanmgee/ne...
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Global map using pink to indicate whether at least one holotype of a new species published in JVP was found in a country. The global north and western countries are well-represented, with broader coverage in some areas but still underrepresentation in Africa
Global chloropleth map showing that the U.S. is overwhelmingly where holotypes published in JVP come from, although Argentina and China show up well.
Chloropleth map more readable as distribution shifts more to U.S. (JVP is a American-society-based pub).
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in JVP between 2020 and 2026 based on manually categorized group. Placental mammals and actinopterygian fish are at the top, followed by therapsids, miscellaneous fish, and birds.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in JVP between 2020 and 2026 based on the time bin. The Cretaceous is the most common, but several Cenozic bins are also near the top, like the Miocene and the Eocene
You're more likely to see new fish 🐟 and pseudosuchians 🐊 in JVP and wayyy more likely to see Cenozoic species.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in JVP between 2020 and 2026 based on whether the species is an dinosaur (about 1 in 9 are).
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in JVP between 2020 and 2026 based on whether the species is a mammaliaforms (about 1 in 3 are).
For comparison, I also got data from JVP (I wanted J Paleo but their date filter is borked), though it's only through 2020 because there are so many more papers. The mammal "advantage" (really just skew in this case) persists.
Global map using pink to indicate whether at least one holotype of a new species published in Nature or Science was found in a country. The global north and western countries are well-represented
Global chloropleth map showing that China is overwhelmingly where holotypes published in Nature and Science come from
And the vast majority of new species in fancy journals are from China; the skew is so strong it completely blows out the chloropleth map.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on manually categorized group. Placental mammals and non-therian mammaliaforms are at the top, followed by invertebrates and then non-avian saurischian dinosaurs and then birds.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on the time bin. The three Mesozoic bins are the most common, followed by the Cambrian and the Silurian.
Here it is in another form. These groupings are mine, are highly asymmetrical, will probably be tweaked, and were done to try and make this more comprehensible. The Mesozoic is also the most common time bin.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on whether the species is an dinosaur (about 1 in 6 are).
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on whether the species is a mammaliaform (more than 1 in 3 are).
People may assume dinosaurs benefit the most from being charismatic, but it's actually new mammaliaforms that have the highest representation.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on whether the species is a vertebrate (about 4 in 5 are).
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on whether the species is a tetrapod (about 3 in 5 are).
Predictably, there's a skew towards vertebrates and tetrapods specifically.
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026 based on whether the species is an animal (almost all are).
Bad news if you don't work on animal fossil specifically. It does happen once in a blue moon though!
www.nature.com/articles/nat...
Bar plot of new species named from fossils and published in Nature or Science between 2010 and 2026. Nature has a lot more.
Firstly, Nature publishes way more of these naming papers than Science.
This is just a pet project, so I won't belabor the methods. It's all in the README on GitHub with my code and data:
github.com/bryanmgee/ne...
In short, I searched 'sp. nov. fossil' in Nature and Science's websites, 2010 through 2026 inclusive, and pulled data. Then the script magic happens ✨️
Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data!
🧵👇
#FossilFriday
#CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated
Very sad to hear about the passing of Hans Sues. I was always impressed with Hans' breadth across Tetrapoda and his enthusiasm, but he was just a really nice guy above anything else. He was very patient and kind to me as a nervous grad student when handling my first MS, which I have never forgotten.
Real ones know
"Show me the best"/"Perfection" meme with Michael Fassbender showing three sail-backed tetrapods, the new Spinosaurus mirabilis (art by Dani Navarro), Dimetrodon (art by Danielle Dufault), and Platyhystrix (art by u/SaurArch on Pinterest), from top to bottom. Corresponding text is "show me the best sail-backed tetrapod" (Spinosaurus), "I said the best sail-backed tetrapod" (Dimetrodon), and "perfection" (Platyhystrix)
Looks like it's that time of the year to pull this out again (with updated speen art)
#FossilFriday #TemnospondylsDidItBetter
Screenshot of the author list from Sereno et al. in Science, describing a new species of Spinosaurus. The list of more than two dozen authors includes Nathan Myhrvold, who has been found to have been well-connected to Jeffrey Epstein
Guess we're about to find out how many people checked the author list before fanboying over an overrated dinosaur
I think this is one of the hard parts of society investigations in a small field. Even if the ethics person doesn't let personal connections interfere, the mere perception of a potential impropriety, against a backdrop of a lack of transparency, can undermine trust in "the process"
Explicit conflict of interest policies
bsky.app/profile/kosk...
