Pedro Godoy

📢 Including fossil tips in your phylogeny can double your continuous trait model fitting accuracy!

Updated preprint out now on @ecoevorxiv.bsky.social.

🔗 doi.org/10.32942/X27...

with @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social @macroecoevoale.bsky.social and @bethanyjallen.bsky.social

For the pdf, access our lab's website:
www.macropaleolab.com/publications

New paper out in Historical Biology! 🐊 Led by Giovanne Cidade, we present phylogenetic definitions for several clade names within Caimaninae. Some new clade names were also proposed and defined, including Purussauria and Caimanini.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Vcs lembram desse bichão da foto? Encontrado em 2021?
Ele ganhou nome: Dasosaurus tocantinensis!
Mais um dinossauro brasileiro 🇧🇷 pra lista
Veja o artigo: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks to all coauthors (including @alinemghilardi.bsky.social, @titoaureliano.bsky.social, @gsferreira.bsky.social, Max Langer, Elver and many more!) and funding agencies (@agenciafapesp.bsky.social, @cnpq-oficial.bsky.social)!
Get the pdf here:
www.macropaleolab.com/_files/ugd/8...

Phylogenetic analyses recover a close relationship with Garumbatitan morellensis (Barremian, Spain). Quantitative biogeography suggests dispersal to South America via northern Africa during the Valanginian–Aptian.

Led by Elver Mayer, the study describes the morphology and uses bone histology to show that the individual was an adult at the time of death.

🦕 New paper out! Dasosaurus tocantinensis, a new Early Cretaceous titanosauriform from Brazil (Grajaú Basin), is now published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FURND...

Check our website for more information!

www.macropaleolab.com

Two new members at the MacroPaleo Lab! Leonardo Aldrin (left) will work on an MSc project on Purussaurus brasiliensis, describing new and known material. Fernanda Serpa (right), an undergrad in Chemistry, is launching a new geochemistry line in the lab.

Paleoart I did a while ago for a paper:

"The role of climate on the emergence of giant caimanines (Crocodylia, Alligatoroidea) from the Miocene western Amazonian region"
doi.org/10.1016/j.pa...

Paleotemperatures through the Phanerozoic and the variation of measurement densities through time.

I'm glad to share our new study on the nature of distributions of gaps in empirical geochronologies of geological section as a function of time scale. Measurements of proxies are highly uneven if measured through time.
1/5
 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🧪 #Geology ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction - Nature The Huayuan biota exhibits extraordinary biodiversity, illuminating the impact of the Phanerozoic mass extinction around 513 million years ago and offering critical insights into the transformation of...

Zeng, H., Liu, Q., Zhao, F. et al. A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction. Nature (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Formation, preservation & interpretation of dinosaur tracks onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper is out 🔓!
We reconstructed the 145-myr diversity of sharks & rays using deep learning, unveiling hidden patterns:
- modern diversity levels by the Cretaceous 📈
- small decline in the K/Pg 🤏
- a peak in the Eocene 🌄
- a long-term decline towards the present �
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Revealing the hidden patterns of shark and ray diversity over the past 145 million years Gardiner et al. reconstruct the diversity of sharks and rays across the past 145 million years using deep learning and an extensive dataset. Their results unveil previously hidden patterns, including ...

Our new paper is online! We found that 1) today's shark & ray diversity was already reached ~100Ma; 2) that the K/Pg extinction was not catastrophic; 3) that the max diversity was reached ~50Ma; and 4) that today's diversity is depleted compared to the past.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

New paper out today! "Fossil otolith assemblages reveal millennial-scale changes in reef fish biomass and trophic structure across the Isthmus of Panama"

🔓https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0419

We used fossil fish otoliths to reconstruct community structure and energetics over millennia.

This year, why not publish your research with a Society Journal?

The Linnean Society is committed to publishing high-quality and groundbreaking scientific research across the four themes of botany, zoology, biology and evolution, striving to make these accessible & engaging to a global audience.

These roles are now live! 🚨

Come join the @palaeoverse.bsky.social team at @es-ucl.bsky.social.

Research Software Engineer: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Community Engagement Coordinator: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Closing date: 18-Jan-2026

Our job adverts are now live! 🤩
We are hiring a Research Software Engineer and a Community Engagement Coordinator to support @palaeoverse.bsky.social over the next two years, based at UCL.
Apply by January 18th 2026, ideally to start in March 2026 🗓️
More info and links below 👇

Very excited to share with you all what's next for @palaeoverse.bsky.social in the New Year!

Very proud of the work that the @palaeoverse.bsky.social team has done up until now and very excited for what's to come over the next few years! Watch this space!

#rstats #palaeontology #paleontology

We are excited to have been awarded a Large Grant by @softwaresaved.bsky.social! 🥳
This will help us future-proof our R packages and tools, and provide more training and mentoring for computational palaeontologists.
Coming soon: job ads for two new team members! 👀
www.software.ac.uk/ssi-awards-f...

We'll be hosting a joint Crossing the Palaeontological–Ecological Gap (CPEG) meeting & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium @ucl.ac.uk in London in August 2027, which aims to bridge spatial and temporal gradients between palaeontology, ecology, and conservation: www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical...

Really proud of the excellent final course presentations by our lab's undergrad students! From marine turtles to snakes of all kinds, their projects were super interesting (and the slides were amazing!). Huge congrats Jorge, Gabriela and Sofia!

Ten simple rules to follow when cleaning occurrence data in palaeobiology Large datasets of fossil occurrences, often downloaded from online community-maintained databases, are a vital resource for understanding broad-scale evolutionary patterns, such as how biodiversity h...

Happy #FossilFriday! Interested in fossil data handling & building analysis-ready databases? New paper out today in Palaeontology @thepalass.bsky.social with @palaeoverse.bsky.social team led by @lewisajones.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Hope it helps! 💻📊📈🦐🦪🦣🐚🪸🦕🦖🐋🐊🐟🦑🐢🐍🦎🐦‍⬛🦂

Image of a flowchart titled "10 simple rules to follow when cleaning occurrence data in palaeobiology." Major steps include project setup, data exploration and cleaning, and reporting and archiving. Each step is visually linked with icons and text in blue, pink, and green circles. The rules include: (1) choose the right data for your question; (2) keep raw data raw; (3) document your workflow; (4) explore your data; (5) identify and handle incomplete data records; (6) identify and handle outliers; (7) identify and handle inconsistencies; (8) identify and handle duplicates; (9) report your data and cleaning efforts; and (10) Deposit your data and workflow.

We provide guidance on cleaning fossil occurrence data in preparation for palaeobiological analyses, covering project setup, data exploration and cleaning, and finalising and reporting work. To accompany the article, we've made available a vignette, with worked examples:

tenrules.palaeoverse.org

Ten simple rules to follow when cleaning occurrence data in palaeobiology Large datasets of fossil occurrences, often downloaded from online community-maintained databases, are a vital resource for understanding broad-scale evolutionary patterns, such as how biodiversity h...

Just in time for #FossilFriday! Our paper is out today in Palaeontology @thepalass.bsky.social

Ten simple rules to follow when cleaning occurrence data in palaeobiology 🧹🦕

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

Another great @palaeoverse.bsky.social team effort to offer a community resource!

This red squirrel’s hands display tiny nail-bearing thumbs, alongside large claw-bearing digits.

New findings in Science suggest that rodents owe much of their evolutionary success to their thumb-nail (the first digit, D1), an adaptation that gave them dexterous hands for cracking seeds and nuts.

Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/46caVho

Huge thanks to @palaeopercs.bsky.social for inviting and hosting me! If you missed my talk on Tuesday, you can now catch up via their YouTube channel 👇
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x19X...