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…

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

Here's an accessible account of the new fossil lizard!

ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-2…

It's time to start considering the Kilmaluag Formation of Skye as a Lagerstätte - truly is one of the most exceptional sites worldwide for Mesozoic small vertebrates. Huge congrats to Mateusz Talanda vincent fernandez Dr Elsa Panciroli Susan Evans & BensonLabOxford on an amazing paper!

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

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….

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 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)

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…

Check out these rocks. I shall miss them.

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…

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...