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Everything you wanted to know about turtle skull morphology and it's relationship to ecology and function! Including loads of extant species and fossils. In fact, possibly more than you wanted to know. But that's how we roll...

Are you analysing measurements? Disparity? Models of trait evolution? Rate variation? Ecomorphology? Numerical taxonomy? Morphospaces? Etc Please log-transform your measurements! (Or end up over-weighting small proportional differences among large-sized animals). ...please...

Today the UK pound is worth one US dollar. When I was a student, the UK pound was worth two US dollars. bbc.co.uk/news/live/busi…

Check out these rocks. I shall miss them.

Things you probably didn't know about the semicircular canals of turtles: (1) Turtles have large semicircular canals, proportionally similar to birds. (2) Turtle canal shapes have much to do with skull aspect ratio, and nothing to do with locomotion. nature.com/articles/s4146…

Do you want the details of Jeholornis skull anatomy? Wait no longer (and thank Hu Han!): academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/adv…. Also thank Yezi for this amazing cartoon that really brings the Mesozoic world to life! One for the parents of young children (opinions about bed-times and fruit)

Do you want high resolution scans and 3D models of bird skeletons? Get them MorphoSource! TEMPO birds: morphosource.org/projects/00000… Our paper: nature.com/articles/s4158… For segmenting bones from scans: Lizzy Griffiths, Andrew Orkney, Steph Wright, Andrzej Wolniewicz, Alex Bjarnason

Do you want super-high res synchrotron scans and 3D models of every* bone of the early near-lizard Bellairsia gracilis? (I mean, who wouldn't). Get them MorphoSource free today! morphosource.org/projects/00000… This is our paper: nature.com/articles/s4158….

Today in nature we published a spectacular near-complete stem squamate skeleton from Middle #Jurassic of #Scotland! 😍 Bellairsia gracilis is the most complete fossil lizard of this age in the world, & helps us understand the origins of the group. [1/8] nature.com/articles/s4158…

Funny story... Paper here: rdcu.be/cYkmZ

Here's an accessible account of the new fossil lizard! ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-2…

Thanks Arnau for writing an excellent summary of our new lizard discovery!

This week's #FossilFriday is our tiny wee lizard from #Skye, Bellairsia gracilis. The skull is amazing - only the tip of the snout is missing, worn away by the hungry sea. You can download meshes and CT data for this specimen from MorphoSource via: morphosource.org/projects/00000…