New data indicates that there were more fishes in the Dolomites before the extinction & the shark Acrodus was the apex predator. All taxa extirpated, but a new reptile appeared in the community in post-extinction. New fossils are discovered nearly after 200 years of research of these deposits. So...

We think that, diagenesis during the fossilization could have caused the age discrepancy between the phosphatic fossil scales & the host rock. But, the mechanism is still unknown. So, be cautious when making age assignments to surface collections, and when applying U-Pb dating to fossil specimens ⚠️

We make a thin section to understand from which layer it originated. Sections revealed that the rock contains radiolaria. This is surprising as there are no radiolaria reported from the Changgsingian-Early Triassic in the Dolomites. Radiolarian record is rare in the E. Triassic, named as "chert gap"

We also found actinopterygian fish scales 🐟 at a Permian-Triassic boundary outcrop, in a scree deposit. The scales have ridges covered with ganoine layer. Under the UV light the ganoine layers glow in yelllow ✨

We found the actinopterygian fish 🐠Bobasatrania in the latest Permian and recovered single tooth elements🦷 from layers just below the extinction interval horizon. This indicates that Bobasatrania was present in the Dolomites community up until the main extinction interval 📉

Carlo Romano described the bony and cartilaginous fishes, including the shark Acrodus 🦈 in the latest Permian, before the extinction interval. This confirms that this genus is one of the few survivors 💪

@aswolniewicz.bsky.social described the first E. Triassic marine reptile from the Dolomites ⛰️ a putative saurosphargid (cf. Saurosphargidae), which is one of the earliest occurrence of Saurosphargidae in the fossil record globally, suggesting a potential origin of the group in the western Tethys 🦎

#FossilFriday 🐚 The Late Jurassic Portland Stone contains fossil molds of the shells that occupied the warm, sub-tropical seas over 140 million years ago! 🌊 ​Images are of the external walls of the Laidlaw Library at the @universityofleeds.bsky.social 🏛️

🦑 ​For #MolluskMonday, here are some Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) ammonites and bivalves from the Lower Calcareous Grit, found during the University of Leeds ESSI away day field trip to Cayton Bay, Scarborough. 🐚

New tattoo idea. Taxonomic tree of 35 thousand genera 😂

Some taxonomists name species after bands or book characters, but this is one that actually makes sense! Meet the shark genus Gollum 🦈 described by Compagno in 1973 and named by him as such because it "bears some resemblance in form and habits" to the character. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gollum_...

👂 Is this an ear? 👂 No, it is a Late Jurassic bivalve fossil. Those numbered, ear-like features are actually the teeth & sockets of the hinge, which ensure the valves align perfectly when shut. Anterior & posterior muscles functioned to pull the valves closed. zitteliana.pensoft.net/article/1699...

For the last #FossilFriday of the year, here is a fossil from the Early Triassic of Türkiye belonging to an extinct pleurotomariid genus 🐌, that we have not known that passed the Permian-Triassic boundary... 🐚

Two such examples are books to be published in the Fossilium Catalogus series, one on the Jurassic Gastropoda and Bivalvia by Gustav Haber, and the other on the Cretaceous Pleurotomariidae by Johannes Böhm. Gustav Haber could have only published 150 pages references, and part of the gastropods.

It is sad that how the World Wars set back the species discovery rate by 100 years. I also indirectly observe the wars' impact on the taxonomy of fossil gastropods in the number of publications from the 19th century to today. There were also books that were planned to be written and never published.

I had the honour to sit next to the author, Paul Taylor, a key influencer in my journey to becoming a paleontologist. @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social #FossilFriday

For this #FossilFriday, something special for me: one of the few books on fossils in Turkish when I was a kid. 13 yo me was turning the pages, reading word by word to learn about fossils, dreaming about being a paleontologist. Many years later, at a Palaeontological Association conference dinner...

Here are some fossil pleurotomariids, which have lived in Earth’s oceans for over 450 million years.This is a kind of snail you won’t find in your garden or on a seashore. You’d have to dive 400 meters to see a living one.If you could beachcomb in the Jurassic, you’d probably find one on the coast🐚

For this #FossilFriday the beautiful Gigantoconia princeps (Stoppani, 1860) with color preservation, from the Ladinian Esino Formation in Italy. ⚒️

Here is a tiny pectinid bivalve Leptochondria from the Early Triassic of Pakistan. It is just 6 mm, but fully grown adults can reach 20 mm. #MolluscMonday

For this #MolluscMonday here are the seashells of Wales: cockles (in Swansea), razor clams and mussels (in Rhossili).

#CPEGCPB25 in Zurich was a well-organized conference full of inspiring talks and posters. It started with a workshop on biodiversity inference using AI and ended with a collection visit at the Palaeontological Institute. I met wonderful people, had great discussions and can't wait for the next one!

Many know about the carrier shells, Xenophora, but did you know that an extinct gastropod group evolved the cementing habit in the Devonian, more then 358 million years ago... 🐚 Meet with the cementing Euomphalida #MolluscMonday @biodivlibrary.bsky.social www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/37510#p...

For the first #FossilFriday of the New Year, here is the late Jurassic (Tithonian) ammonite Titanites giganteus (J. Sowerby, 1818) from the Isle of Portland, which greets visitors at the entrance of the School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield. 🧪⚒️

#PalAss24 is over after interesting presentations, cool workshops & inspiring conversations. It was a special meeting for me, having given an invited talk at the first PalAss meeting in Germany, where my research journey began. Huge thanks to the organizers for an amazing event.

For this #FossilFriday, a snapshot of the sea floor in the Early Triassic, when life was recovering from the largest extinction in Earth’s history... ⚒️🧪

📈 The data collection also revealed that there is a correlation between larval shell size (and early whorl size) with the adult shell size. This has wide implications, that we discussed in detail in the article... You may check it for more findings and discussions...

🐌 In previous articles authored by me and A. Nützel, we suggested that the early ontogenetic shell is more conservative than the late ontogenetic shell. Cl values of early vs. late ontogenetic shells are significantly different, corroborating our opinion.

🐚 The characters related to slit and selenizone (the shell region formed by the closure of the slit) have higher Cl values than other three shell regions but the difference among regions is not significant.

📊 If Cl is high, it indicates less changes, hence more conservatism. The test failed to confirm Vermeij's assumption. The paleontologists who worked on pleurotomariids, including me, observed that characters related to shell slit are more conservative than other shell regions.