Dennis Hansen
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dennish.bsky.social
Dennis Hansen
@dennish.bsky.social
Concept- & content developer new Natural History Museum UniZurich; Island biologist w. fetish for giant tortoises (Aldabrans!) & rewilding 🐢
Fond of Gessner (x2) & Scheuchzer; lover of old books, older fossils, history of science & music of metal
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
THE WONDER OF LIFE ON EARTH is published 5 Feb 2026 and is available for pre-order. For more details inquire within: www.panmacmillan.com/authors/henr...
November 16, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
#2025SVP For people who missed my talk: I’m happy to give this or longer versions via zoom/in person for your seminars/colloquiums. Being based at a small museum w/ little daily exchange among peers, it’s a great opportunity for me to stay connected & for you to learn about our shelled overlords.
#2025SVP ! If you want to get an idea of the major steps of 🐢turtle🐢 evolution, come to see my talk on Friday, Nov 14, 8:30 AM, Hall 8. My student Guilherme Hermanson talks just before me (8:15). 4 years of macroevolutionary research on turtles went into our talks, covering many unpublished results.
November 16, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
We're advertising a PhD project to investigate the hydrodynamics of Aldabra Atoll @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social! We are looking for a student with strong quantitative skills and interest in ocean modelling. Competitive funding available through ILESLA. Please share with anybody who may be interested!
October 22, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Reposting an oldie for #FossilFriday!
This is Kalligramma brachyrhyncha, a medium-sized kalligrammatid ( #Mesozoic lacewings) from the Middle #Jurassic of Inner Mongolia, China. It is known to have had eyespots on its wings and may have acted as a pollinator for #bennettitaleans. #paleoart
October 24, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Join us in Rome or online for a seminar on plant illustrations on 6 November! 🪴🌻🌿

Through images of mandrakes and ferns, @fabribald.bsky.social and I will be discussing issues in the role of images in early modern botany.

www.biblhertz.it/events/43483...
The Role of Images in Early Modern Botany
This seminar brings together two experts on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plants. Zooming in on the dilemma of visualizing plants (or not), and how images could become part of epistemic methods w...
www.biblhertz.it
October 20, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
A magnificent exhibition: "Nürnberg Global, 1300-1600," showcasing stunning #MedievalSky & #EarlyModern objects—paintings, engravings, goldsmithing & scientific objects, woodcuts, books (of hours), architectural models, sculptures, armor, textiles, coins. It's SO good!
🗃️ #HistSci #ArtHistory 🏛️
October 13, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
After two years of hard work, I’m proud to announce that our new special exhibition @smnstuttgart.bsky.social is now open for the public – Meet Triassic Life: Dawn of the world of reptiles (1/7).
October 17, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Might there have been hybrids between Mesozoic (non-bird) #dinosaurs, perhaps even between groups that had been separated for 10s of million of years? YES, the existence of such animals is very likely. But could we >identify< such animals? Let's see... tetzoo.com/blog/2025/9/...
In Quest of Hybrid (Non-Bird) Dinosaurs — Tetrapod Zoology
Might there have been hybrid dinosaurs in the deep geological past? If so, could we identify them from the fossil record? Let’s discuss…
tetzoo.com
September 15, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
The maniacal, scribbling gnomes in the cellar of Ball Mansions have tossed of another tome:

Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments, and the Birth of Modern Science

And it’s gorgeous!

#histsci
September 12, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
In other news, I'll be talking about #earlymodern news media next week in Copenhagen. This is the first workshop of the new "Objects of Knowledge" network, organized by @lauraskouvig.bsky.social and @mariasimonsen.bsky.social

comm.ku.dk/research/inf...

#histknow meeting #newshistory, #skystorians
September 10, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Back again. Did I miss anything important?
September 11, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Delighted to have come across this lovely book for a patron visit - Isabella Sinclair’s Indigenous Flowers of the #Hawaiian Islands (1855). The first book published with colour images of Hawaiian flowering plants. A great blog here blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2019/03/isab... #rarebooks #flowers
September 10, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Published today in Biological Reviews:

"New perspectives on body size and shape evolution in dinosaurs" - the biggest paper from my PhD (my favourite chapter, too).

doi.org/10.1111/brv....

Here's a thread outlining some of our key findings. (1/10)
May 9, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
One of my "secret projects" I've recently finished is making a copy of the arm of Dakota the dinomummy. Here's the blog update on it with shoutouts to @boydpaleo.bsky.social and @himmapaan.bsky.social and @uglyfossils.bsky.social for their work on the paper/exhibit rmdrc.blogspot.com/2025/04/dako...
Dakota Goes Digital: Replicating a Mummy Arm
Reonstruction by Natee Puttapipat from Drumheller et al., PLoS One, 2022 Confession time: I love giving nicknames to the specimens that I fi...
rmdrc.blogspot.com
April 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Madagascar Journal. Back at camp after a long day tracking Radiated tortoises in the spiny forest, this one found us!
April 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
The Lives of Frogs — it's real! #frogs #amphibians #conservation #ecology #naturalhistory #biodiversity Available in all good book shops (and probably some bad) from 20th May 🧪 @princetonupress.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social @ucl-pnl.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk
February 13, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
George Catlin (USA, 1796-1872)
The Great Ant-Eater, 1854/1869
oil on card mounted on paperboard
46.2 x 61.9 cm (18 3/16 x 24 3/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art DC 1965.16.255 www.nga.gov/collection/a...
“THE GREAT ANT-EATER, visiting the author’s camp on the Rio Yucayali.”
#GiantAnteater #Anteater
April 6, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Sand grains as big as her head ❤️
April 3, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Call-out to paleoartists!

The virtual 3D exhibition goes into its second round and is looking for paintings, animations, 3D models, poems,…

This will be the start of a continuous exhibition of contemporary paleoart. Registration starts on April 1st!

More infos below 👇
March 30, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
I'm happy to announce that Mesozoic Art v.II has now gone to press. Looks incredible and thanks to all the artists who contributed, and to @tetzoo.bsky.social and everybody at @chiffchat.bsky.social for their patience, resilience and hard work. Book goes on sale 25th September - don't miss it!
March 27, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Do you love #fossil plants? Are you searching for a #PhD position? I am recruiting a doctoral student to join my group at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt/M! Deadline on the 11th of May
#paleobotany #paleontology #plants #botany

www.senckenberg.de/en/career/sc...
Jobs for Scientists | Senckenberg Society for Nature Research
www.senckenberg.de
April 1, 2025 at 4:26 PM
A sure sign the world is going to hell in a handbasket: The new Nortt album sounds happy (sarcasm off; it is of course deliciously dark, doomy, and slow 🖤🤘)
April 1, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Rumors have it that this edition of the book also has a fascinating foreword about disinformation and post-truth populism by a Danish military analyst.

(And also that a Danish version of the book will be available very soon.)
April 1, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
Pieter Vogelvormer, the Dutch naturalist who bred the finches that #Darwin later studied in the Galapagos, was born #OnThisDay in 1608.

Read about this little-known contributor to the history of #evolution in a very special #ScientistOfTheDay post:

www.lindahall.org/about/news/s...

#histSTM 🗃️📜
April 1, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Dennis Hansen
‼️ Early Bird ends today ‼️
So if you are a student or a postdoc, this is the last day to register for free!
🚨 Early Bird Pricing Closes TODAY🚨

It's your last chance to sign up with discounted registration for the upcoming CPEG and CPB conference!

Early bird pricing ends TODAY at MIDNIGHT (CET) 🕒

Don’t miss out and register now ⬇️
👉 cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch/en.html

#CPEGCPB25
| Crossing the Paleontological-Ecological Gap & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium | Zurich, 2025 | UZH
cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch
March 31, 2025 at 1:32 PM