Matt Friedman
@friedmanlab
Vertebrate evolutionary biologist | Professor University of Michigan | Director & Curator UMMP | he/him/his
Missed out on #FossilFriday while checking out some cross bedding in the Cambrian Munising Fm. from a vantage point on Lake Superior.
New paper from @jakeberv.bsky.social harnesses a massive skeletal measurement dataset for passerines to show nested bursts in phenotypic evolution, many of which appear coincident with intervals of climate instability. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Safe travels, @hesham-sallam.bsky.social! Always great seeing you--looking forward to our next meeting.
For #FossilFriday, and in honor of Dr. Sanaa El-Sayed, a beautiful 62-million-year-old veliferid from Egypt alongside the living sailfin velifer (Velifer hypselopterus).
Please join us tomorrow morning at 10 AM eastern for @sanaaelsayed.bsky.social's dissertation defense seminar "Teleost fish evolution in the Cenozoic: New insights from Paleogene ichthyofaunas from the Eastern Desert of Egypt." Message or email me for Zoom passcode: umich.zoom.us/j/98521134857
Please join us for a public lecture on vertebrate paleontology in Egypt delivered by @hesham-sallam.bsky.social of Mansoura University! Attend in person (for those in Ann Arbor) or via Zoom webinar (umich.zoom.us/s/92615647424). Lecture begins at 7:30 PM Eastern.
Huge congrats to Lindsey DeHaan on receiving the Stoye Award for best student presentation in ichthyology at #JMIH26 in New Orleans! Lindsey presented work on macroevolutionary shifts in spiny eels, representing one of her dissertation chapters. 📸: @leicurtis.bsky.social
Away from Ann Arbor, so no UMMP collections for me. So here are some lovely Early Devonian echinoderms from the Hunsrück Slate of western Germany on display at PRI's Museum of the Earth.
They corroborate past inferences that the monotypic Lepidocybium is sister to all other trichiuroids, and that it renders the traditional Gempylidae paraphyletic. They propose the new family Lepidocybiidae to accommodate this lineage that's been doing its own thing since the Paleocene.
This paper includes great illustrations of extant scombrids (including Gasterochisma, which on some days of the week is my favorite fish). The value these kinds of images--and the illustrators who produce them--add to papers is huge. Art here by Julie Johnson.
Similar vibe further east, but with more topography and older rocks. Genesee Group in Treman State Park near Ithaca, NY. Learned undergrad geology on stuff like this.
Soooo . . . it turns out to be quite closely related to Anglaspis. See this analysis from Emma Randle, @evopalaeo.bsky.social, & @fossilrob.bsky.social. Open access study here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
The Silurian jawless fish Americaspis americana (UMMP VP 120281) for the 4th.
Coming to you live this #FossilFriday from the Cleveland Member of the Ohio Shale Formation.
No UMMP collections today, but I did see this Egyptian relief of a couple of speared Nile tilapia from ~650 BCE.
Traveling tomorrow, so will miss my usual collections day. So here's one from the vaults: a large tooth of the brontothere Megacerops.
Love the random things that you find in museum storerooms, like this model of a rookery.
🦀 see a crab, post a crab 🦀 Thursday is collections day, so enjoy this three-dimensionally preserved specimen of Avitelmessus grapsoideus from the Upper Cretaceous of Tennessee (UMMP IP 33406). Paper here: deepblue.lib.umich.edu/items/528e26...
Back from the field on this #FossilFriday to see the humbling news that a gorgeous little Carboniferous fish bears a new name: Unionichthys friedmani. Thanks to Struan Henderson and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social for this honor. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
A partial plethodid from the Upper Cretaceous Smoky Hill Member of the Niobrara Formation of Kansas for #FossilFriday
Another Thursday in the collection. Photogrammetry of this Coryphodon will produce a custom printed mount so the fossil can go on display.