Dr Susannah Lydon
@susieoftraken.bsky.social
4.5K followers 1.3K following 1.6K posts
Palaeobotany | Scicomm | Associate Prof in Plant Science, Nottingham, UK | Vogon poet | Views my own | She/her
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
thetnholler.bsky.social
ICYMI: “And now, a response from the leader of the frog resistance...” 🐸 🎵 #Colbert
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
asherelbein.bsky.social
Dr. Maxine “Max” Abbott (née Langford) is an oft-forgotten paleontologist of early 20th century Texas. Born in the 1920s, this pint-sized paleobotanical powerhouse worked on the Carboniferous swamps of North America and the Cretaceous jungles of Texas.

(All photos from her papers at Sul Ross.)
A dark-haired woman with an upturned nose, a white shirt, a ribbon and a plaid skirt holds up a piece of carboniferous plant material from her work desk, where she's been painting it with clear varnish to preserve it A 1950s news article about Maxine Abbott's NSF grant, which notes that she was previously conducting her paleobotany research as a volunteer while at Cincinnati and working in a local department store office three days a week to pay research costs. A black and white photo of a young Maxine Langford in the 1930s at Texas Tech, smiling at the camera from a bench. She's wearing a knee-length dress, a plaid short sleeved shirt, and glasses. She's clearly very small. A photo of undergraduate Maxine Langford posing climbing in through the window of an abandoned stone building new Mexico, wearing field pants, boots, and a short sleeve shirt. It's a great look, honestly.
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
freeyourradio.bsky.social
#5debutalbums8084 #NowPlaying
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - Magnetic Flip
Released in 1984. Re-issued along with Beat of the Mesozoic & Birdsongs of the Mesozoic) via Cuneiform Records
cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dawn-o...
Dawn of the Cycads, by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic
32 track album
cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
toriherridge.bsky.social
What an opportunity! Four years in one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, Lake District on your doorstep etc, working with one of the cleverest, kindest, funniest people I know, on a FASCINATING topic!

Please share far and wide

🧪🏺👩‍🔬
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
tomsharperocks.bsky.social
#AdaLovelaceDay: that Ada's contemporary, Mary Anning, was much more than a fossil dealer is clear from her letters with her observations on coprolites, the orientation of Pentacrinites and their association with fossil wood, and her dissection of living marine molluscs to understand fossil sepia.
Mary Anning's account of dissecting a modern animal: '... the second one I disected at Miss Philpots it first had a shell this shape [sketch] very like a smooth pectin only more concave, also a sack or ink bag exactly resembling the fossil one you borrowed from Miss Philpot...' Mary Anning's observations on coprolites: 'I have no doubt myself but that they were dropped quietly where we now find them and that Ichthyosauruses fed on scaly fish'. Mary Anning's observations on Pentacrinites: 'the pentacrinite lies with the head downwards invariably with the footstalk uppermost on which lies the lignite...'
susieoftraken.bsky.social
💛💛💛
bowlerhatscience.org
ginkgos are our continuity with the age of the dinosaurs, when we tread on fallen ginkgo leaves we are for a moment a Stegosaur, autumn fog condensing on our plates as we roam Jurassic forests
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
marcmorris.bsky.social
Today's the 959th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, so obviously I'm reposting my scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry in Playmobil.
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
markwitton.bsky.social
A heads up that I'm talking at @NewScientist Live this weekend (Sunday 19th October) about my book, King Tyrant: A Natural History of Tyrannosaurus rex. Details, tickets etc. can be found here: live.newscientist.com/nsl-london-2... #dinosaur #fossils #scicomm #paleontology #books
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
rensingstefan.bsky.social
Very happy and proud to share the #Spirogyra genome: 50 Mbp small, lacking almost all plastid division proteins and many transcription factors. Kudos to all the many people involved in this multi year project!
@jandevries.bsky.social
@watertoland.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
markwitton.bsky.social
I was thrilled to help to excavate more of this huge Oxfordshire dinosaur track site earlier this year. The BBC's new article has a ton of fantastic images and graphics that bring the tracks to life, including a moment where a sauropod paused to... do something?
richardjbutler.bsky.social
Back in June we were back on the Oxfordshire “dinosaur highway”, excavating more dinosaur tracks with our teams from the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford & Liverpool John Moores. The BBC have a story out today about our work at the site:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...
In the footsteps of giants - BBC News
One of the longest sets of dinosaur footprints in the world has been discovered in a limestone quary near Bicester, in Oxfordshire, England.
www.bbc.co.uk
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
rootstrapping.bsky.social
🌿 Amazing opportunity for scientists from any field to move into plant biology! I might host a fellow in the area of root-microbe or root-environment interactions (DM me). 👉 simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons-postdoctoral-fellowships-in-plant-biology

#PlantScience #ClimateChange #HarnessingPlants
Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology
Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology on Simons Foundation
simonsfoundation.org
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
cpdinosaurs.bsky.social
A very good morning from this unimpressed glyptodon model - which was to be one of twelve real scale sculptures in Ciutadella Park, Barcelona.

Only a mammoth was completed before the project ended in 1910

(All the models are here:
mdc.csuc.cat/digital/coll...)
black and white photo. Close-up of a model glyptodon head. it has quite the facial expression
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
palaeopercs.bsky.social
It's #PalaeoPercs day! Join us at 1500 UTC to learn more about phytoplankton dynamics in the Devonian with David Kröck from University in Shenzhen, China!
susieoftraken.bsky.social
Momento morel
darkandwondrous.bsky.social
As October begins, we contemplate how the sea wind had its way with this now-fungal saint.
scary sea-weathered saint on the church near Hartlepool headland (body of saint is heavily eroded down to a veined or boxwork-like underlying structure of the stone, which looks like weird branching fungus).
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
whalepetunias.bsky.social
Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
mrrobvalentine.bsky.social
The London Fortean Society’s The Haunted Landscape event is basically Spooky Christmas and a joy to attend each year. You can go in person at Conway Hall, or watch online, and if you’re into dark histories, strange beasts, urban legend and the downright weird, I urge you to bag a ticket.
forteanlondon.bsky.social
The Haunted Landscape 2025: Ghosts, Magic and Lore
22 November 2025 10 am - 5 pm @conwayhall.bsky.social and online

A legendary trip through the Haunted Landscape with our day of expert talks on British ghost, magic, and folklore.

#TheHauntedLandscape

www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/eve...
1/10
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
richardjbutler.bsky.social
The release of the BBC story on this year’s dinosaur track excavation at Dewars Farm means I can finally post these team photos. Thanks so much to quarry manager Mark Stanway & all his team at Smiths Bletchington for being utterly amazing & supporting our work at the site.
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
geologyjohnson.bsky.social
3.2 billion year old microbial mats on one of Earth's first beaches. The dark wrinkles are the mats. This has been weathered, so the mat is easy to see. #geology #paleontology
Photo of yellow sand stone with dark green wrinkly microbial mats. The core is 6 cm wide.
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
stevebrusatte.bsky.social
Walking in the footsteps of…giant Carboniferous trees?

Some 325 million years ago these coal swamp trees were so heavy they made ‘tree prints’ in the soft coral-infused limestone under the soil.

And today we saw them on our University of Edinburgh undergrad trip to Barns Ness!
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
minyaaa.bsky.social
Ran into these AMAZING Stapelia grandiflora in our conservatory today. The patterns, colors, hairs, and the smell - carrion mimic to perfection. #Stapelia #plantjoy #iamabotanist
A close up of one flower showing red hairs and petal with yellow strips Another close up from a slightly diff angle How the plant looked like