Javier Castro Terol

Let's go!

There were many tiny birds (so dinos) at the Cretaceous.

Micro-CT reconstruction reveals new information about the phylogenetic position and locomotion of the Early Cretaceous bird #Iberomesornis romerali by Castro-Terol et al www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#Dinosaurios (#Aves) del #Cretácico Inferior de #Cuenca

Fossilized partial skeleton of a small bird-like dinosaur, lacking the skull.

New information on the anatomy of Iberomesornis: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🪶🧪 (📷Castro-Terol et al.)

Black-and-white illustration of birds that convergently evolved wing-propelled diving (penguins, petrels, and auks).

Review of wing-propelled diving in birds: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🪶🧪 (📷Storer)

Javier Castro-Terol, Alejandro Pérez-Ramos, Jingmai K. O’Connor, José Luis Sanz & F. J. Serrano (2025)
Micro-CT reconstruction reveals new information about the phylogenetic position and locomotion of the Early Cretaceous bird Iberomesornis romerali
Geobios
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Today's stop and the rest of the week is Karlsruhe. Busy with such a quantity of fossils!

The hoopoe-like bird Messelirrisor from Darmstadt NH Museum under the camera.

Messel here we go! 🦉

🦅✨ Yesterday at #26CEO, F. J. Serrano delivered a fascinating closing talk on the evolution of powered flight in birds. 🔍 How did flight shape avian diversification and help modern birds survive mass extinctions? 🧐 Exciting insights! #FlapEvolProject #Paleontology

🚀 #FlapEvolProject debuta en #26CEO con aportaciones de Costa-Pérez y un servidor, explorando la evolución del sinsacro en las aves 🦴🦢 y la disparidad morfológica del húmero en Enantiornithes. 🔍✨ Mañana, más sobre la evolución del vuelo con la conferencia de clausura de F. J. Serrano. 🦅🎤

¡¡CONCURSO !!

¿Quieres ganar el libro “Aves de Europa”, de Lynx Ediciones?

Participar en el sorteo es muy fácil:
- Dinos qué especie de pájaro europeo te gustaría más poder observar
- Sigue las cuentas @elherrerillo.bsky.social y @lynxnaturebooks.bsky.social
- Haz retuit

Treparriscos

Dino Birds Fossils reveal how birds survived the killer asteroid and became today’s only living dinosaurs.

'Dino Birds' airs on @pbs.org in N. America tomorrow (9pm, 5th Feb.). Follow research from our lab and colleagues around the world revealing the origin of birds. Hope you enjoy it!

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vi...

@stevebrusatte.bsky.social @gnavalon.bsky.social @ksepkalab.bsky.social

PostDoc position in evolutionary genomics available with Dan MacQueen at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, part of our BBSRC sLoLa on rediploidisation following whole genome duplication

Two bird skeletons. They are large, standing fairly upright, and have noticeably small wings.

Something for (sub) #FossilFriday!

Saw a beautiful pair of solitaire skeletons at the Hunterian. These birds were basically the island of Rodrigues' equivalent of a dodo.

Also large, also flightless, also driven to extinction by European colonists 🦤🧪🦉

Salir de la facultad un viernes por la tarde es como atravesar las Quebradas de los Túmulos. No queda nadie... vivo.

An UNLAB cohort is all smiles holding a wildlife find in the palm of two hands.

#NHMLAC is currently accepting applications for the next cohort of #UNLAB postbaccalaureate researchers! Apply to spend a year working with a curator on a biodiversity research project in L.A.—view program details, eligibility requirements, and more: nhm.org/how-apply-un...

Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of birds to their close extinct relatives. Color-coded pie charts indicate the points at which modern "avian" features evolved.

If you need a summary of recent advances in the field of bird paleontology, my labmates at @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social have a new paper out reviewing the origins of the avian brain, palate, wing skeleton, and air-filled bones! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🪶🧪 (📷Field et al.)

Good to know. Thanks.

Why does the fact of being an ecology journal make that more blatant?

A lab with skeletal material

A woman with an ammonite on a beach

A woman looking at a T. rex skull in a museum

A man preparing a fossil reptile

So, you want to be a palaeontologist and study prehistoric life, but don't know where to start?

Maybe you worry you're not good enough? That you can't do field work? Or you can't afford it?

Let me take you through different options for making it in the field 👇(🧵)

IV Edición 'Koprolitos de Oro': elegimos los mejores #cómics, #películas y #videojuegos con referencias paleontológicas que nos ha dejado 2024:

▶️ koprolitos.blogspot.com/2024/12/iv-e...

Para ello, necesitamos vuestra ayuda. Vota a tus favoritos aquí: forms.gle/v1jh1rexqLHm...

Sharks eating dinosaurs! At the charming National Museum in Prague.
Totally morbid paleoart. But based on one of the few Czech dinosaur fossils, an ornithopod bone crisscrossed with the razor blade bites of sharks.

Check out the mesmerizing moment - a crocodile embryo hatching from its egg! 🥚🐊

Our new research in @natureportfolio.bsky.social reveals how compressive forces, rather than gene interactions, sculpt their intricate head scales - learn more here ⬇️
www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

This is the face of a shark! I've stained the mineralised tissues to show that their teeth and scales are both made of the same enamel-like material 🦈 🦷 🧪

A rendition of a Great Auk in a realistic but also rough, painterly style against a textured beige background. Next to it is a replica of a minimalistic cave painting showing the same animal, along with a hand print motif and text saying: "Pinguinus impennis, Grotte Cosquer, France, around 17 thousand years before present"

After the Moa, another bird for this mammal-heavy series. Which makes me wonder if we have any paleolithic depictions of now extinct reptiles...

#paleoart #SciArt #artbyjulio

No hay nada como una vigorosa brisa de aire gélido por la mañana.

Also very interesting that incipient heterodont dentition.

Variation in whale (Cetacea) inner ear anatomy reveals the early evolution of “specialized” high‐frequency hearing sensitivity Our findings support sensitivity to low-frequency sound in the archaeocete Zygorhiza kochii and an early toothed mysticete cf. Aetiocetus. Narrow-band high-frequency hearing was present in Oligocene ...

I have a new paper out on the evolution of hearing in toothed whales! It looks like a narrow range of high-frequency auditory sensitivity in some living dolphins and porpoises may be an ancestral physiology rather than novel specializations in select groups.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

9/ Today, let’s take a moment to admire the evolutionary journey of the cheetah—a species that epitomizes the delicate interplay between structure, function, and survival. Truly a marvel of nature. #InternationalCheetahDay