Myfanwy, the Holyhead Mammoth, is in the news (again)! The dating results are back and they’re quite exciting 🦣
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
04.03.2026 21:41
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Myfanwy, the Holyhead Mammoth, is in the news (again)! The dating results are back and they’re quite exciting 🦣
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Interested in maximising data from fragmented bone? Of course you are. Join our free online workshop. Registration closes March 4th. 🦣🧪🏺
Register now for our free online workshop hosted by the #COEXIST project and @archaeoprotein.bsky.social: Maximising data from #Palaeolithic bone. Exciting program on chronology, diet, taphonomy and method advancement:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... 🦣🧪🏺
Neotaphonomic characteristics of vertebrate site formation in underwater caves https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.13.705854v1
With nice summary by @jamesashway.bsky.social here: www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
For #fossilfriday, a new paper I was lucky enough to be invited to help with was published this week. Using dental microwear from fossil wolves to understand ecological resilience in modern wolves! Check it out: doi.org/10.1111/ele.... 🐺
Come and work with our colleagues @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - three new lectureship posts around School strategic priorities - including 'Evolutionary Biology and understanding the evolution of life'
All 25 specimens from the @nhm-london.bsky.social fossil mammal collection scanned for this project are publicly available on MorphoSource: www.morphosource.org/projects/000.... Thanks to National Lottery Heritage Fund support @lotterygoodcauses.bsky.social
A 3D-printed replica in brown plastic of a fossil mandible of Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis. It shows two mandibular rami with rows of molar teeth in. The original is in the Natural History Museum, London.
Peter Stibbons holding a 3D-printed replica in brown plastic of a fossil mandible of Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis. It shows two mandibular rami with rows of molar teeth in. The original is in the Natural History Museum, London. Peter is driving forward a project to digitise fossil collections relating to the Victorian collectors Alfred Savin and Anna Gurney - see https://www.cromer-savin.co.uk/.
Members of the Norfolk Museums team and fossil collectors discussing the 3D-printed rhinoceros jaw, seated around a table at Cromer Museum. The jaw is made of brown plastic.
Awesome 3D printing brings a fossil Stephanorhinus jaw from the West Runton Freshwater Bed out of @nhm.org stores - thanks to Peter Stibbons and Cromer Savin Project team www.cromer-savin.co.uk, and special thanks to @lotterygoodcauses.bsky.social for funding.
#Norfolk #Pleistocene #Geology
First Known Cranium of Cuvieronius (Proboscidea: Gomphotheriidae) from North America www.mdpi.com/3711230
A stack of white plastic tubs. One is open, showing it’s full of sand and mud.
While this box might not look that interesting, it pays to take a closer look.
It contains earth collected during excavations, and we’ve got enough to fill around 28 hot tubs!
Sorting through it reveals tiny fossils that tell us about the mammals living millions of years ago.
Skull of the ancient mammal Toxodon, seen from the side.
This skull, meanwhile, has had many celebrity admirers over the years.
It’s from Toxodon, an ancient mammal that looked a bit like a hippo and a rhino combined.
The fossil was first collected by Charles Darwin and then studied by famous scientists such as Richard Owen, our founder.
A curved hippo tooth with a label stating that it was found in Trafalgar Square.
This hippo tooth comes from somewhere unexpected – the centre of London!
This 125,000-year-old canine was discovered during digging in Trafalgar Square, and is a reminder of a time when Britain was much warmer than it is today.
It's also one of our fossil mammal curator’s favourite specimens!
If you’ve ever wondered what curators get up to, wonder no more! I was joined by @jamesashway.bsky.social who found out about the latest behind-the-scenes goings-on in the NHM fossil mammal collection!
Woolly mammoth skull with two very long, curved tusks, housed in a huge crate built specially to support it.
Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the museum?
You’re invited for a peek into the fossil mammals collection to see just some of the amazing animals we look after ⬇️
Our work applying mesowear angles to diet in xenungulates and pyrotheres is out now: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Palaeoart by Carlos Espinosa
see 3D plot here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwVwTPgJZXmN0_W6QjQ4TUvIu4526a03/view?usp=drive_link
Ever-growing teeth ≠ grass diet! New study on pachyrukhine notoungulates, rodent-like fossil mammals from Argentina, shows they were mainly fruit & seed eaters! #Paleontology #fossils
@societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @paleosoc.bsky.social @oupaleobiology.bsky.social
10.1016/j.palaeo.2026.113585
A large tree partially chewed by beavers, with a load of woodchips below
A freshly chewed tree alongside a beavers canal
A large fallen tree and stump, with beaver bite-marks and the tell-tale conical shape on either side
A beaver lodge (a huge pile of logs and sticks) on a bank under a tree, with reeds behind
So cool to see #beavers making themselves very much at home in an urban nature reserve in West London. These epic #rodents were extinct in Britain 400 years ago, and know they're back in our cities. 🦫🌃 #rewilding #UrbanWildlife
rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🚨new article alert 🚨 I’ve been sorting through historical documents on the development of the Out of Africa theory with @chrisbstringer.bsky.social - this is the fascinating BBC radio transcript about the 1987 Human Revolution conference #AcademicSky
Skeleton of a mastodon in a museum
For #FossilFriday: skeleton of an American mastodon, Mammut americanum, on display at the American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org in New York City, NY, US. This is the Warren Mastodon, discovered in 1845 in Newburgh, New York - the first complete mastodon skeleton ever found in the US. 🧪
Slow to publicise this but our paper about bioerosive traces in a Late Miocene Bolivian glyptodontid is out, featuring fantastic art by @literallymiguel.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Richard Forrest (RIP Jan 2026), with Mike Taylor behind, September 2017.
A group of palaeontologists following a Scottish, post-SVPCA fieldtrip of (I think) 2007. Richard Forrest (RIP Jan 2026) is at centre holding a geological hammer aloft.
Richard Forrest (RIP Jan 2026), with Bob Nicholls, at SVPCA Oxford, September 2012.
Richard Forrest (RIP Jan 2026) at right, with Darren (left) and Neil Gostling (centre) during July 2025.
Via Sally Hollingworth and Sue Forrest comes the unexpected news that Richard passed this morning. This is a shock and a major loss. Richard is a notable person in the Mesozoic research community, known for his work on marine reptiles and his role in organising conferences and meetings. Very sad.
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...
Still time to submit an abstract for our free online workshop as part of COEXIST🧪🦣🏺
@historicalbiology.bsky.social - exciting new era has begun! Our first big step to becoming an Open Science & FAIR Journal. If anyone has any questions please do contact our Data Editor @brooke-long-fox.bsky.social
Snowy cave bear sculptures on the outer staircase to the Sedgwick Museum.
The thermostat's reading Pleistocene at the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social.
Aberystwyth University seeks a Lecturer in Zoology for the Department of Life Sciences. The role includes research, teaching, and module development. Salary: £42,254.39 - £46,048.78. Apply by 15/01/2026. More info: https://jobs.aber.ac.uk/en/vacancy/lecturer-in-zoology-598845.html #job
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...
A great summary on the dire situation for Geology/Palaeontology at @uniofleicester.bsky.social by Jan Zalasiewicz. Please sign and share the petition: www.change.org/p/save-geolo...
Curatorial job with significant geological and palaeontological collections at Warwick Museums.
www.wmjobs.co.uk/job/250490/c...