β’ Evolution is a ladder constantly leading to the higher levels of progress!
β’ No, evolution is a tree where all branches are equal!
β’ While actual evolution... π
π§ͺ βοΈ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio #Macroecology
Thrilled to finally share our new paper on giant scorpions from the Early Devonian!
Behold Praearcturus gigas!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/S54Y6Y...
The paper was published in a special issue of the journal Bulletin of Geosciences, and is freely available here: www.geology.cz/bulletin/ful...
www.geology.cz
My childhood dream comes true! I finally visited the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs π¦ (@cpdinosaurs.bsky.social) for the first time after seeing them in my first dinosaur book I got for Christmas back in 1992. I wish they would be available as figure replicas π
Andrej Spiridonov
Lukas Laibl
My friend Radek LabuΕ₯a discovered a fossil of another Soomaspis on a spoil heap from metro construction at PankrΓ‘c (Prague). This specimen differed from the South African species, so we described it as a new species - Soomaspis labutai, named in his honor.
Soomaspis splendida was small Late Ordovician Naraoid that was described by Fortey and Theron in 1995 from the South African Soom Shale. For a long time, it was considered a South African endemic...until now.
So you've heard about trilobites, but do you know Naraoids? These trilobite cousins shared similar bodies but differed in details. Most importantly, they lacked hard exoskeleton and had only soft cuticle. That's why they are known only from sites with exceptional preservation, such as Burgess Shale.
This discovery has two important implications. First, the genus Soomaspis inhabited wast coastal regions along a large part of Gondwana - it was not South African endemic. Present-day South Africa and Prague were located on opposite ends of this supercontinent.
Lukas Laibl
Dr Richie Howard
Second, Soomaspis labutai lived about 448-445 million years ago, before the Late Ordovician glaciation and mass extinction. In contrast, Soomaspis splendida lived after this event, about 443 million years ago. The genus Soomaspis thus belongs to the rare survivors of this global catastrophe.
Just doing some research on trilobites =(:[[[[} at @nhm-london.bsky.social and here are some cool fossils from NHM collections:
Trilobite Xystridura from Cambrian of π¦πΊ
Skull of Permian amphibian Diplocaulus from πΊπ²
Stegosaurus Sophie from Jurassic of πΊπ²
...and a cool bronze replica of Diplodocus π¦
Lukas Laibl
Lukas Laibl
Lukas Laibl
Lukas Laibl
Lukas Laibl
Lukas Laibl
Happy to share my new article on how morphological diversification proceeds during evolutionary radiations: "The diffused evolutionary dynamics of morphological novelty" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 𧡠1/12
Rates of evolution are fundamental to understand the processes that shaped the history
of life. The predominant view holds that high rates of pheno...
