Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · May 22

Scientists have analyzed ancient DNA and compared more than 400 fossils from 17 natural history museums to figure out how and why extinct sloths got so big.

Story: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/scie...

Study: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

There are six stubby bones with very similar shapes laid in a row of descending size with a very large one at one side and a very tiny one at the other

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Nina Rønsted @ninaronsted.bsky.social · May 2

We are hiring. The Natural History Museum Denmark seeks a Tenure-track Assistant Professor and Curator in Vertebrate Paleontology.

Duties are collection-based research, curation of collections, teaching and public engagement.

Deadline: 18 May 2025. View full job posting: bit.ly/3XPIQcg

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · May 2

Congrats! 👏👏👏 So proud of our graduating @ufl.edu students and grateful they did their grad work with our faculty!

Dr. Lazaro Viñola-López, advised by Jon Bloch, received his doctoral degree through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Dept of Biology

👉 www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/from-...

two people are standing outside wearing traditional university graduation robes, one in black and the other in dark blue

a person sits in front of a large cabinet pulling out shallow drawers full of small boxes of fossils

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Science Magazine @science.org · Mar 14

The early mammals that lived alongside the dinosaurs upwards of 150 million years ago were likely covered in dark and dusky greyish-brown fur, according to a quantitative reconstruction of Mesozoic mammal coloration in Science, hinting at their shrouded and nocturnal nature. scim.ag/41sKMZ9

Mesozoic mammaliaforms illuminate the origins of pelage coloration

Pelage coloration, which serves numerous functions, is crucial to the evolution of behavior, physiology, and habitat preferences of mammals. However, little is known about the coloration of Mesozoic m...

scim.ag

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Jason Anderson @jsanderso.bsky.social · Mar 14

Join our team teaching Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Calgary! We are hiring two positions to start in the Fall teaching in our new integrated curriculum.

Assistant or Associate Professor, Anatomy, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary - Calgary (City), Alberta (CA) job with University of Calgary - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine | 670361

The University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) is seeking two academic scholars for full-time positions in Anatomy.

jobs.sciencecareers.org

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Mar 12

A new study of the most complete skeleton of a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, Mixodectes pungens, has answered many questions about the enigmatic critter.
Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/a-62...

Study: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

an illustration of a fuzzy mammal clinging to the side of a tree in the forest with a similar looking animal in the distance on another tree. they both look somewhat like squirrels but with small ears and pointed faces, and are covered in reddish fur with white feet and undersides

scientific photo of a small mammal skeleton with a long tail laid out to show its body plan and flanked by insets of several views of specific long bones and the partial skull

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Bloch Lab @blochlab.bsky.social · Mar 11

Our new study published today on a remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes from the early Paleocene of New Mexico! @purgatoriidae.bsky.social @abqtom.bsky.social @crowelljw.bsky.social @marytsilcox.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction

www.nature.com

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Stephen Chester @purgatoriidae.bsky.social · Mar 11

Excited to share our new paper on the most complete mixodectid fossil ever discovered! Phylogenetic results support Mixodectes as most closely related to primatomorphans (primates and colugos) among mammals.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction

www.nature.com

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Craig Pittman @craigtimes.bsky.social · Mar 4

For our latest "Welcome to #Florida" podcast episode, we talked to Dr. Jonathan Bloch of UF about one of the most significant archaeological sites in the state -- which was originally found by a 5-year-old girl. Dig in! www.buzzsprout.com/1169570/epis...

Episode 245: The Montbrook Fossil Site - Welcome to Florida

Alcoholic, womanizing, Islamophobe U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also a climate denier. He has instructed the armed forces to ignore climate impacts and has demanded the Pentagon cut funding ...

www.buzzsprout.com

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Stephen Chester @purgatoriidae.bsky.social · Feb 26

Check out our children’s book on paleontology and life in the Eocene! This work stems from our NSF funded research on mammalian response to the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum in the Wind River and Bighorn basins of Wyoming.
digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/165/

A Day in the Badlands: A 52 Million-Year-Old Safari Adventure

with Amy Chew, Christopher Gilbert, Ross Secord, and Stephen Chester Illustrations by Jenn Paul • Book design by Aaron Sutherlen About the Badlands Fossils -- This story tells about the fossils of anc...

digitalcommons.unl.edu

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Feb 12

Fossil collectors in Florida have discovered an ancient sinkhole, now at the bottom of a river, which holds the remains of animals rarely seen in the state, including a type of giant armadillo, giant ground sloths, and an odd-looking tapir.

Full story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/unde...

Four people are standing around a table covered in small boxes with different types of what look like fossils while surrounded by shelves storing many more boxes and trays of fossils

an artfully arranged set of fossil teeth on a white background with a section of the front of a horse-like jaw ahead of two rows of very long molar teeth laid out like two wings

three different dark fossil teeth on a white surface, two of which are long and curved and one is shorter like a molar

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Feb 10

Fossils in space! 🚀 Friend of the Museum Rob Ferl, director of @ufastraeus.bsky.social, recently went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and took a few of our fossils with him—a snail, horse and early ancestor of modern primates. There's more:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/flor...

two older men are holding fossils and cards of some kind that are slightly blurry to read while standing for a portrait in a scientific fossil lab of some kind

two very tiny jaw fossils are set next to a certificate of flight and a badge for UF Space Plants Lab

a very rounded snail shell is sitting on a mirrored shelf with two certificates of flight and a badge for UF Space Plants Lab propped up behind it

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Feb 5

Welcome Glaucia Del-Rio, our new curator of ornithology! 👏👏👏 🦜🗺️ Along with her curator duties, she wants to establish a collection of cell cultures, both as a scientific resource and as insurance against extinction.

More about Glaucia + her work:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/glau...

a person holding a metal measuring tool sits in front of table covered in bird specimens and a wall of book shelves behind her

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Jan 14

Museum Resource 🦣 Florida Vertebrate Fossils
Florida has the richest fossil record of vertebrate animals of the eastern United States. Our paleontologists have highlighted a number of species & dig sites to tell the story of early Florida fossil exploration:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vert...

two fossil skulls of some kind of mammals with elongated snouts, large eye sockets, and thick molars shown side by side from below

a very heavy triangular shark tooth in dark grey with a crack as if it's a fossil

the outline of Florida and its counties with several down the center into Tampa colored in bright orange

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Jan 22

Museum Resource 🩻 Digital Imaging Gallery
Our Digital Imaging Division produces two- and three-dimensional data from museum collections. Many are available on Sketchfab & Morphosource. Explore some of the specimens our digitization team has been working on:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/digital-lab/...

a scan of a frog shown from the top with all of its tiny bones showing and some soft tissue in its abdomen in purple

four views of a thick lizard specimen with rows of angular scales on its body shown in golden and each view showing either bones, circulatory, nervous system or digestive oranges in bright colors

the skeleton and some scales of a large almond shaped fish are scanned in dark blue with some fin spines highlighted in rainbow of colors

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Jan 22

Welcome Vaughn Shirey, our newest curator of butterflies and moths! 🎉 👏👏👏🦋 Working in our McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, @vmshirey.bsky.social will help study and digitize our moth and butterfly collections.

About his career & research:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/vaug...

a person with a silver beard and glasses is holding a large blue toned print of a butterfly while standing in a corridor lined with many shallow wooden drawers in ceiling-high cabinets

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Bloch Lab @blochlab.bsky.social · Jan 16

ICYMI: we extended the deadline to January 23!

We are hiring a 2-year postdoc @floridamuseum.bsky.social to help study the impact of climate change on mammalian functional diversity across the PETM. Email Jon Bloch/Arthur Porto with any questions.

Apply here: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

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Arthur Porto @agporto.bsky.social · Dec 19

Hello bsky! We are hiring two Postdocs
@floridamuseum.bsky.social !
1) Paleo + AI (NSF-funded, with
@blochlab.bsky.social ): explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

2) AI for Biology (open-ended): explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

Deadline Jan 15th. Please, RT! See also www.biovisionlab.com

BioVision Lab

www.biovisionlab.com

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Caley Orr @caleyorr.bsky.social · Dec 18

Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History.
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience

Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource

www.nature.com

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Bloch Lab @blochlab.bsky.social · Dec 16

Job Alert: We are hiring a 2-year postdoc @floridamuseum.bsky.social to help study the impact of climate change on mammalian functional diversity across the PETM. Email Jon Bloch or Arthur Porto with any questions. @nsvitek.bsky.social

Apply here: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Dec 13

Congrats! 👏👏👏 We had several students graduating from the University of Florida today! We are so proud of their hard work and determination, and grateful they choose to do their graduate work with our faculty here at the Florida Museum.

a group of people are wearing a variety of formal university graduation caps and gowns

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Dec 10

Megan Ennes, our curator of museum education, has been named a research fellow by the National Academy of Sciences through the Gulf Research Program. The Early-Career Research Fellowships program supports emerging scientific leaders. More:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/nati...

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Dec 3

From the Field ✈️ Julian Narvaez presented current work at the North American Paleontological Convention and connected with peers, and continued outreach:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/from-...

🌱 Travel funding supports professional development of student researchers here at the Florida Museum.

New fossil angiosperm from the Eocene Green River Formation

The funds for the Summer of 2024 were requested for both travel to present at the North American Paleontological Convention (NAPC) current research carried out at FLMNH and to continue outreach at the...

www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu

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Florida Museum of Natural History @floridamuseum.bsky.social · Dec 4

From the field ✈️ Liz Hurtado participated in the SPATIAL Short Course 2024, with lectures, labs, group projects and activities to network with peers.
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/from-...

🐦‍⬛ Travel funding supports professional development of student researchers here at the Florida Museum.

a group of over a dozen people in outdoors clothing are posing together on a rocky crest with a lake and rocky mountain behind them against a clear blue sky

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