Gemma Benevento

While fossils of baby enantiornithines, a group of abundant and diverse early-branching birds, are already well-known, our Alaskan fossils are the first Mesozoic remains of baby euornithines, the clade that includes modern birds and their closest Cretaceous relatives!

Birds were nesting in the Arctic during age of dinosaurs, scientists discover Minuscule fossils from 73m years ago are oldest evidence yet for birds nesting in polar regions

What are those tiny fossils?

They're birds. That just hatched. That lived in the Arctic. 73 million years ago.

And thus: polar bird nesting colonies are not new, but a long-term norm of Earth history.

My take @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Hi guys. On world bee day today, don't forget that honey bees are actually doing ok! It's solitary and subsocial native bees like mason bees and bumblebees that need our help.
I'll post some resources in this thread on how you could help them, even if you don't have a yard to plant native flowers!

Happy Birthday, Mary Anning!

This 195-million-year-old marine reptile was discovered in Lyme Regis at some time before 1836 by the British palaeontologist Mary Anning (1799–1847).

Bone microstructure supports a Mesozoic origin for a semiaquatic burrowing lifestyle in monotremes (Mammalia) | PNAS The platypus and four echidna species are the only living egg-laying mammals and the sole extant representatives of Order Monotremata. The platypus...

Early Cretaceous fossil of a humerus from a monotreme indicates semiaquatic burrowing lifestyle as in platypus (and echidna):
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Thanks @pro-pink.bsky.social :)
Congrats again on your nice paper!
Here is a short-term OA link to the dispatch article: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kzR93QW8S...

Original paper by Pinkert & colleagues, which shows how burrowing may have facilitated survival in some of the worlds harshest and most changeable environments, in turn contributing to mammal biogeographic patterns: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @pro-pink.bsky.social @consecol.bsky.social

Quentin_Martinez Post-doc researcher and Wildlife photographer

Thanks to @pro-pink.bsky.social for the use of the phylogeny figure from the original paper, @quentinwildlife.bsky.social (quentinmartinez.fr) for the use of some beautiful burrowing mammal images, and to @currentbiology.bsky.social and editor @florianmade.bsky.social for the opportunity.

Happy to have had the opportunity to write a short article discussing the findings of an exciting recent paper on the diversification of burrowing behaviour in mammals by Pinkert et al. authors.elsevier.com/a/1kzR93QW8S... (Full access via link until 10.06.25)