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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 5d

🤣 💛💜💛💜 I stan for purple-yellow heatmaps

Reposted by Hank Woolley

Tiago Simões @trsimoes.bsky.social · 10d

Our latest paper, now how to conciliate apparently discrepant evolutionary rate patterns in squamates, but which may well apply to any study system with Stephanie Pierce and
@7brumas.bsky.social
#macroevolution

academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Evolutionary rate incongruences in squamates reveal contrasting patterns of evolutionary novelties and innovation

Abstract. Understanding the rate of phenotypic evolution can reveal fundamental aspects of organismal evolutionary trajectories. Hence, several studies hav

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County @nhm.org · 11d

🐍🦎 We're all familiar with snakes, but have you heard of legless lizards?

Join Collections Manager Nefti Camacho behind the scenes in the Museum's Herpetology Collection and learn the similarities and differences between the two species!

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

Natural History Museum of Utah @nhmu.bsky.social · 11d

Do you need a good paleo podcast to start your weekend? 🤔

In this interview with Science Moab, NHMU's Randy Irmis, Curator of Paleontology, discusses his research on the Chinle Formation located in southern Utah.

Listen here! ➡️ sciencemoab.org/utahs-chinle...

Utah’s Chinle Formation: Understanding Life in the Triassic

[vc_row full_width=stretch_row css=.vc_custom_1617652492747{background-color: #23b7e0 !important;}][vc_column width=1/2][vc_single_image image=5232 img_size=600 x 600 alignment=center css=][/vc_column...

sciencemoab.org

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 12d

🙌🙌

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County @nhm.org · 12d

From the Press Room | For the more than 242 million years that lizards and snakes appear in the fossil record, they show up as mostly pieces of lizard jaws and snake vertebrae. Exactly why these parts survive as fossils has been a mystery—until now: go.nhm.org/megafilters

Woolley and colleagues examine in detail the relationship between inferred environments in which a fossil squamate species was buried and the completeness of its remains. Environmental and geological processes play a strong role in how complete the fossil record can be. You’ll notice that mosasaurs are almost exclusively found in marine settings and are more complete on average than other groups. Snakes, on the other hand, are found nearly everywhere, but are highly incomplete. Chart courtesy of Hank Woolley.

Reposted by Hank Woolley

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 14d

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Squamate fauna from the Denver Basin shows major ecosystem disruption across K/Pg boundary | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

The Cretaceous/Palaeogene (K/Pg) boundary marks the most recent and the second-most severe mass extinction in Earth’s history. Marine K/Pg boundary sections that preserve uninterrupted sedimentation are abundant, and thus the global marine response to ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 13d

nhmlac.org/press/mosasa...

From Mosasaurs to Snakes and Lizards, “Megafilters” Shape Reptile Fossil Collections

The environment and the durability of their bones are the drivers behind which reptiles—and which parts of reptiles—end up shaping museum collections and our understanding of the fossil record.

nhmlac.org

Reposted by Hank Woolley

Science X / Phys.org @sciencex.bsky.social · 14d

Physical traits, habitat, and geological processes are primary factors influencing the completeness of lizard, snake, and mosasaur fossils, shaping our understanding of reptile evolution. doi.org/g94m65

From mosasaurs to snakes and lizards, 'megafilters' shape reptile fossil collections

For the more than 242 million years that lizards and snakes appear in the fossil record, they show up mostly as pieces of lizard jaws and snake vertebrae.

phys.org

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

This was an incredibly rewarding project to work on and I hope y’all enjoy reading more about the fossil record of one of the coolest group of animals to walk, climb, glide, slither, and swim the planet! @paleosoc.bsky.social @nhm.org

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

All these patterns suggest that the squamate fossil record is subject to two taphonomic “megafilters”: 1) anatomy of the animal and 2) affinities to specific environments that preserve/destroy fossil information during deposition. Sampling biases appear to play a secondary role.

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

We also found some interesting patterns related to “proximal” vs “distal” depositional environments: proximal deposits (alluvial fans, volcaniclastics, aeolian dunes, lakes) tend to preserve more complete squamate fossils than distal deposits (e.g. river deltas)

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

The aeolian sandstone results were so anomalous we wrote a whole other paper about it last year: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Quantifying the effects of exceptional fossil preservation on the global availability of phylogenetic data in deep time

Fossil deposits with exceptional preservation (“lagerstätten”) provide important details not typically preserved in the fossil record, such that they hold an outsized influence on our understanding of...

journals.plos.org

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

So in sum, squamate body size and anatomy most likely play a primary role in the information preserved in their fossil records. What are some other factors? Turns out, rocks are a factor too. Specific lithologies preserve more and less complete squamate fossils. Finer-grained material=more complete.

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

What’s truly fascinating here is the difference between amphisbaenians and snakes: two squamate groups with generally similar body plans, but because amphisbaenian skulls have been fused and modified into basically a shovel with teeth, their record is more complete than snakes (delicate skulls)

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

Higher completeness for mosasaurs makes sense because they are generally big animals; higher volume of bone and easier to spy on rock outcrop. Bigger lizards (varanoids, monstersaurs) and those whose fossil records are exclusively found in lagerstätten (geckos) also have higher completeness…

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

So what gives? Well, one factor leading to this pattern might have to do with body plan. Lizards (purple), snakes (orange), mosasaurs (green), and amphisbaenians (aqua) all have fossil records that preserve significantly different distributions of scoreable phylogenetic characters.

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

There is no discernible relationship between our measured proxies of sampling effort and fossil squamate completeness through time. Same can be said for the relationship between the number of specimens assigned to a species and the species completeness…

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

There are some really interesting patterns at play here when examined from multiple angles. Through time, we see that squamate diversity is tied tightly to established proxies of sampling effort, which include the number of squamate-bearing formations and localities. Completeness tho? V different…

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

What we found: if you’re looking for a global record of exquisitely preserved fossils with a high percentage of scoreable phylogenetic characters, this ain’t the fossil record for you. Most fossil squamates preserve under 25% of total phylogenetic characters. BUT…

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

Using data collected from a massive literature review of nearly 500 papers, alongside some initial @paleodb.bsky.social data, we measured the total amount of phylogenetic characters that could be scored for each of the roughly 800 published fossil squamate species.

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Hank Woolley @paleo-hank.bsky.social · 14d

It’s finally out! Extremely pleased to share the last chapter of my dissertation to be published! In this study, we take a deep dive into the 242 million-year squamate 🦎🐍 fossil record to quantify factors that lead to the mostly fragmentary specimens in collections today: doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core

Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record

urldefense.com

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

Corrie Moreau @corriemoreau.bsky.social · 18d

UPDATE: The 2025-2026 list of faculty and postdoc positions in ecology and evolutionary biology is out! Be sure to check out this active and helpful community run resources! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

ecoevojobs.net 2025-26

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

William B. Ludt, PhD @planet-of-fishes.bsky.social · 23d

Attention students: the deadline for our fall collections study award coming up soon! Use the funds to come out and use our LACM specimens for your research.

Megan Barkdull @meganbarkdull.bsky.social · 23d

Are you an undergraduate or graduate student whose research would benefit from visiting a collection at the @nhm.org? Apply now for our Collections Study Award! Deadline is Oct. 1; learn more at nhm.org/student-coll...

Flyer for the award. Has images of three students interacting with collections materials; text reads:

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Student Collections Study Award
October 1st, 2025 Application Deadline
Application and Details:
https://nhm.org/student-collections-study-award

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 23d

Dinosaurs as ecosystem engineers!

Weaver, L.N., Tobin, T.S., Sprain, C.J. et al. Dinosaur extinction can explain continental facies shifts at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Commun Earth Environ 6, 712 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s432...

Dinosaur extinction can explain continental facies shifts at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary - Communications Earth & Environment

Dinosaurs promoted open habitats in the Late Cretaceous, and their extinction could have led to a radical reorganization of the landscape and ecosystem structure at the beginning of the Paleogene, acc...

doi.org

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Reposted by Hank Woolley

Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 26d

Diverging trends in erythrocyte size elucidate cardiovascular evolution in stem #dinosaurs and #crocodilians #ProcB #Palaeobiology #Evolution royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

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