🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

Congrats to Christian Voiculescu-Holvad *and* Georgina Scott who passed their MPhil vivas yesterday! Christian's on Danish mosasaurs and Georgina's on early ducks. Proud of them both and excited to see their careers progress from here! Big thanks to examiners Aaron LeBlanc and Daniel Ksepka!!

A new article I co-authored is out! Along with Marcel van Tuinen and Field Palaeobiology Research Group, we succinctly summarize current knowledge on the origins and diversification of birds. This will be an entry in the 2nd ed. of Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology (2025). sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Tired of flattened early bird fossils? Today is your lucky day. Very happy to finally welcome 'Navaornis hestiae' to the world! It allowed us to see for the first time a (near)complete enantiornithine brain. Today in nature: nature.com/articles/s4158… #spinningskull

Huge congrats to @gnavalon—it’s brilliant to see our new 80-million-year-old bird on the cover of @nature! Navaornis hestiae provides the clearest insight yet into how and when the distinctive brains of modern birds evolved. Paper open access: nature.com/articles/s4158…

If you want to build your own Navaornis hestiae, now you can: morphosource.org/projects/00060… All 3D models and original microCT stack open for unrestricted download (apologies this wasn't the case the past 3 days) #OpenAccess

If you're interested in a career working with important zoological collections, the Museum of Zoology, Cambridge is hiring an assistant conservator! jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/46400/. Bonus points if you can tell me where (and when!) this drawer of birds comes from...

Arrived in Ecuador today & was greeted by hummingbirds, including this Sparkling Violetear. How apropos that our study on hummingbird bill bending was published today! Led by Alejandro Rico-Guevara, this project began when I started my PhD... >14 years gestation! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Upper bill bending as an adaptation for nectar feeding in hummingbirds: ow.ly/wLGs50UhpaH Alejandro Rico-Guevara Field Palaeobiology Research Group #JRSocInterface #biomechanics

Barn owls are remarkable birds, with some of the most amazing hearing capabilities of any animal. Our first paper of the year, led by John Peacock, investigates barn owl hearing physiology: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jm….

If you want to know what's going in the field of Mesozoic ornithology we published today a review in #BiologyLetters Royal Society Publishing focused on four anatomical systems! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… This is part of the nice special issue edited by @Tweetisaurus and NHMdinolab

If you need a summary of recent advances in the field of bird paleontology, my labmates at Field Palaeobiology Research Group have a new paper out reviewing the origins of the avian brain, palate, wing skeleton, and air-filled bones! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… #birds #dinosaurs

There have been lots of advances in palaeornithology over the last few years. In this invited review (thanks @Tweetisaurus and NHMdinolab) we discuss recent discoveries bearing on the origin of the bird brain, shoulder, palate, and air-filled skeleton. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Delighted to share this *epic* exploration of extant bird comparative morphology—the centrepiece of Alberta Claw's PhD thesis. Among the most detailed investigations of phylogenetic signal in the avian skeleton—check out the preprint here: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…. Bravo, Albert!

Embryonic development provides mechanistic insight into the evolution of form, so enabling comparable points in development to be compared among species is crucial. Congrats to Bassel Arnaout 🇨🇦 🐣🐊🦖🐔 on publishing this new cross-species staging table for waterfowl! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jm…

'Dino Birds' airs on NOVA | PBS in N. America tomorrow (9pm). Follow research from our lab and colleagues revealing the origin of birds. Hope you enjoy it! pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vide… Steve Brusatte Jingmai O'Connor Anusuya CHINSAMY-T Daniel Ksepka Lizzy Steell Guillermo Navalón Juan Benito

Fun filming with you, Bill!

Congrats to PhD student Grace Burton! Learn how soft tissue volumes affect estimates of pneumaticity in archosaurs, open access: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.10…. Thanks for Emma R Schachner PhD for the invitation to contribute to this special issue! Plus a Calgarian Swainson's Hawk on the cover!

Congratulations, Lizzy!

Now available for preorder, Mike Brooke's 'No Island Too Far' describes his career pursuing the secrets of seabird biology at the ends of the earth. Mike is my predecessor as Strickland Curator at Museum of Zoology, Cambridge and the book is sure to be fascinating! pelagicpublishing.com/products/no-is…

Exciting news at Cambridge! We are launching the Darwin-Hamied Centre to promote research at the intersection of biodiversity and economics christs.cam.ac.uk/news/darwin-ha…. We are advertising two 5-year Senior Research Fellowships—application deadline 22nd June! christs.cam.ac.uk/vacancies-chri…