A new study by Andrii Rozhok, Niles Eldredge, and James DeGregori which presents a novel population genetic mechanism of evolution—the directional selection (of deviating forms) also selects, as a dynamic spandrel, higher mutation rate forms!
🧪 #Paleobio #EvoBio
doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

'Phylogenetic jungle' of early ecomorphologically diverse actinopretygians:
"Early actinopterygians are a paraphyletic assemblage of ~600 extinct species divided between ~22 named clades and the “palaeoniscoids,” a..wastebasket"
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

"Vrba'ian" approach in understanding evolution connecting morphology, phylogeny, and the development 👇
"the earliest...evidence of the African buffalo lineage...conserved allometry and heterochrony in the evolutionary history of Syncerus"
sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/defaul...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

'Tug of war' in major bryozoan clades, and the environment-dependence of their dominance:
"...lower average temperatures and greater seasonality could give cyclostome bryozoans with relatively slower metabolism an edge in higher latitudes."
academic.oup.com/evolinnean/a...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

This really cheared my Friday: Paleoartists you are supported even by the pope 👇
#Paleobio

The temporal inertia, legacy and 'memory' causing regional-scale extinction in the Ordovician:
"broad accumulations of linguliformean shells and phosphatic hardground clasts...released phosphorous nutrients into the overlying water."
www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

Loooong boi.
Tanystropheus at Urweltmuseum Oberfranken (Bayreuth).
#paleontology #paleobio #fossils #Triassic #Paläontologie

If we call a modern species poor deeply diverging lineage or "depauperon" (as it is dubbed in the article) the "basal" lineage, then we should admit that the hominids including humans are the "basal" stock for Old World monkey. Right? 😉
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
🧪 #Paleobio #EvoBio

Updated Fossilworks
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Interesting article on the geophysical and geodynamic constraints of the Early Earth in the Hadean on the origins and persistence of the RNA organisms:
"...frequent global sterilization events persisted up until about 4.4 Ga..."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Looks liek a promissing general approach for the choice of characters (in this application -- the genomic ones). Complexity approach on improving the phylogenetic inference with highlighting highly heterogenous regions of the genome.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧪 #EvoBio #Paleobio

Just a reminder, that birds had 1.6 times more history before the K-Pg impact than the duration of the Cenozoic Era.
My bet would be that we are severely underestimating Mesozoic diversity of birds (stem or crown).
www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....
🧪⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Paleobio

Today I've learned that Douglas Erwin is (classical) palaeontology doomer. Is it that bad in US palaeontology?
journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/artic...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Paleobio

The fossil record not only constrains the evolution in the space-time. But it also gives the insights on the physical properties of the world at macro scale. Think about this find of Miocene capybaras in Atacama, which points to recency of the desert.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧪⚒️ #Paleobio

Thank you for sharing this. Apparently the 3rd Edition of the Principles of Paleontology is freely downloadable.
🧪⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Paleobio

The "Principles of Paleontology, 3rd Edition" is absolutely legendary textbook--as its Sta./Raup predecessors. This book helped me to bootstrap myself into paleobiology. It is now 21 years old now. Science of paleontology needs new hard conceptual paleontology textbook
🧪⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Paleobio

"Measurements of three T. rex teeth from the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation yield a temperature of 36.3 ± 2.5°C (1 SE), comparable to modern endotherms."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

"We find three macroevolutionary transitions in mammal assemblages... regional Asianmid-Eocene aridification and...global events—the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (...warming 56Ma) and the Eocene-Oligocene Transition (prolonged cooling 34Ma)."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

In Lithuanian the similarly prominent (and now completely extinct) animal, which served as the source of place names is the Auroch (Bos primigenius) or "Tauras" in Lithuanian.
Tauragė, Tauragnas, Tauro kalnas, Taurapilis, Taurupys etc. Also Kaunas has the Auroch in the coat of arms.
🧪 #Paleobio

Interesting and openly accessible book on the alternative radiation of intelligent tetrapods and their brains: AKA birds or avian dinosaurs.
Apparently there is everything -- the phylogeny as well as scaling.
direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
🧪 #EvoBio #Paleobio