Greg Funston
funstonpaleo.bsky.social
Greg Funston
@funstonpaleo.bsky.social
Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Davis. #Paleontology Research on dinosaurs, mammals, and life history. Avid photographer and cook. Learn more about my work at www.gregfunston.com

He/him
Reposted by Greg Funston
An Edinburgh family photo at the @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social meeting.

Soon after we lost my PhD advisor Mark Norell, it was special to be surrounded by the students and postdocs I’ve supervised!
November 16, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Greg Funston
I’m thrilled to present the latest work from my PhD!

David Evans and I evaluated feeding mechanics in two hadrosaurids from the Dinosaur Park Fm, and the differences were quite exciting. A thread [1/11]
doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
Disparate feeding mechanics between two hadrosaurid dinosaurs support the potential for resource partitioning | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The Dinosaur Park Formation (DPF) of western Canada is well known for its diverse fossil assemblage, preserving over a dozen species of large-bodied herbivorous dinosaurs. The high density of large herbivores has raised questions of how these animals were ...
doi.org
October 1, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Introducing our latest special issue, From Fossil to Microscope: Unraveling the Tapestry of Tissue Anatomy through Paleohistology, with this wonderful cover image from @funstonpaleo.bsky.social et al., of compacted coarse cancellous bone from the early Palaeocene taeniodont, Conoryctes comma.
September 3, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Some plucky (or lucky) mammals survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Among them were our ancestors!

How did they do it? Was it because of the way they grew and reproduced?

Check out our new study on the cover of @journalofanatomy.bsky.social led by @funstonpaleo.bsky.social
Introducing our latest special issue, From Fossil to Microscope: Unraveling the Tapestry of Tissue Anatomy through Paleohistology, with this wonderful cover image from @funstonpaleo.bsky.social et al., of compacted coarse cancellous bone from the early Palaeocene taeniodont, Conoryctes comma.
September 3, 2025 at 11:48 AM
A new paper of mine just came out in the Journal of Anatomy! Learn more about Conoryctes and why the insides of its bones are important on my website. Or, check out the open-access paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Digging into the rise of mammals
gregfunston.com/2025/07/14/d...
Digging into the rise of mammals
A new study of mine has just been published in the Journal of Anatomy! The paper is open access, courtesy of UC Davis, so it is free to access and read for all. You can find it here. The paper is p…
gregfunston.com
July 14, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
S.P. Zack et al. (2025)
New Cranial and Postcranial Remains of the Once Enigmatic Early Eocene Mammal Wyolestes (Mammalia, Ferae, Hyaenodonta) from North America, and Phylogenetic Evidence for its Interordinal Relationships
Bulletin of the AMNH 475: 1-173
doi: doi.org/10.1206/0003...
New Cranial and Postcranial Remains of the Once Enigmatic Early Eocene Mammal Wyolestes (Mammalia, Ferae, Hyaenodonta) from North America, and Phylogenetic Evidence for its Interordinal Relationships
Wyolestes is an extinct placental mammal from early Eocene (Wasatchian) rocks of North America whose phylogenetic position has been enigmatic for decades. Known from three species with distinct, high-...
doi.org
July 5, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I am thrilled to announce I will be joining Stony Brook University as an Assistant Professor this fall! Read more on my website:

www.gregfunston.com/2025/06/25/big-news/

I feel very lucky—this has not come without a tremendous amount of support from a huge cast of people.
June 26, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Greg Funston
The new Walking With Dinosaurs is here!

A quarter century ago the original inspired this geeky teenager to study dinosaurs. I hope this series does the same for a new generation!

A special full circle moment to work on the series & consult with @arctomet.bsky.social & @skeletaldrawing.bsky.social
May 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Check out my new Palaeocast blog post!

This time about the evolution of the arms of oviraptorosaurs. It's a summary of the recent research by Milly Mead @funstonpaleo.bsky.social @stevebrusatte.bsky.social

It features an interview with Milly too!

www.palaeocast.com/evolution-of...
Palaeocast | Palaeontology podcasts
Palaeontology podcasts
www.palaeocast.com
May 14, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Very proud of my undergraduate students who presented our work at the NorCal GeoBio Symposium this past weekend! It’s been a real pleasure working with this all-star team! From right to left: Xinyu Wang, @versingh.bsky.social and Garrett Zebley.
May 13, 2025 at 4:24 AM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Published yesterday in @journalofanatomy.bsky.social with open access, we demonstrate how tiny slices of isolated bones (in this case, troodontid metatarsals) can provide a wealth of information on the growth, lifestyle, and injuries of these animals. (🧵) (Troodontid art by Henry Sharpe )
April 21, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Saw a fascinating seminar by @funstonpaleo.bsky.social today on reconstructing life history of mammals around the KP boundary. Incredible that folks can now identify gestation and weaning times from the chemical signatures of milk in fossilized teeth.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
April 23, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Fantastic pop sci article about our recent study, written by lead author Milly Mead! It was such a pleasure working with Milly on this project—keep a close eye because she’s sure to produce more excellent work in her exciting PhD project!!

theconversation.com/the-bizarre-...
The bizarre-looking dinosaur challenging what we know about the evolution of fingers
Oviraptorosaurs are weird dinosaurs, which look a bit like flightless birds. But these ancient animals aren’t just funny looking fossils. As my team’s new research shows, they can help us understand h...
theconversation.com
April 3, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
The newest dinosaur discovery from Scotland! Over 100 tracks made by theropods & sauropods.

In the same spot where, 170 million years later, Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Skye to escape the English.

When the Prince was on the run, he sprinted in the footsteps of dinosaurs!
April 2, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Many theropods shortened their arms and lost fingers. How did they do it?
Our Edinburgh student Milly Mead, in her first paper, looks into oviraptorosaurs. Arm shortening and finger loss were decoupled!
@funstonpaleo.bsky.social & I are proud supervisors!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Forelimb reduction and digit loss were evolutionarily decoupled in oviraptorosaurian theropod dinosaurs | Royal Society Open Science
Theropod forelimbs exhibit wide morphological disparity, from the elongated wings of birds to the diminutive arms of T. rex. A wealth of work has sought to understand the evolution of bird flight via ...
royalsocietypublishing.org
March 26, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
Glad to see our latest work on hadrosaur teeth is out today!

Gill Gallimore, David Evans, and I did a deep dive into whether hadrosaur teeth are as useful as they seem in phylogenetics. A thread [1/14]
dx.doi.org/10.1080/1477...
Individual, ontogenetic, and phylogenetic variation in the dentition of hadrosaurids (Iguanodontia: Ornithischia)
Phylogenetic analyses of Hadrosauroidea are generally well-resolved, but finer resolution within Hadrosauromorpha remains contentious. This lack of resolution is due in part to the inability of dis...
dx.doi.org
November 25, 2024 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Greg Funston
🚨PhD Opportunity: Come to Edinburgh and study ichthyosaurs with us!
Study Scottish fossils from Skye! New ones & historic specimens!
Project led by Stig Walsh, co-supervised by @davfoff.bsky.social Nick Fraser, Erin Maxwell & me.
Details👇
e4-dtp.ed.ac.uk/e5-dtp/super...
November 25, 2024 at 3:32 PM