Like many things, National Fossil Day went virtual this year! The Harvard Museum of Natural History put together a wonderful, interactive public outreach event - with all talks avaialbe via YouTube: https://hmnh.harvard.edu/event/national-fossil-day-0. The MCZ's Vertebrate and Invertebrate Paleontology Collections participated and everyone did amazing!

A big shout you to Pierce Lab postdocs Katrina Jones and Meg Whitney who talked...

Did adaptive radiations (sensu Simpson) shape reptile evolution???? Using a total-evidence dating approach, Postdoc fellow Tiago Simões uncovers a complex evolutionary scenario in which different parts of the diapsid and lepidosaur tree of life are often better explained by alternative megaevolutionary models - contradicting decades old dogma. The findings further suggest that phenotypic novelties...

Happy that this paper is out! Exhaustive EMG study documents forelimb, hindlimb, and epaxial muscle activity during walking in the fire salamander, Salamandra salamandra. The data for this paper were collected by Stephanie while she was at the RVC and the project was funded by the  Natural Environment Research Council, UK.

Pierce, S. E., Lamas, L. P., Pelligand, L., Schilling, N., & Hutchinson, J. R. (2020)....

Spinosaurus has a giant tail fin! And, it used it to swim! Long awaited paper published today in Nature describes new fossil material that shows the tail of the large-bodied theropod Spinosaurus was dorsoventrally expanded into a paddle-like appendage. Working in collaboration with Nizar Ibrahim - spinosaur extraordinaire - Stephanie and MCZ colleague George Lauder use biorobotics to show that the tail of Spinosaurus could produce forward thrust more similar to modern aquatic tetrapods (e.g. crocodiles and salamanders) than other dinosaurs....