Duncan McIlroy
LightNews LightNews
banner
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Duncan McIlroy
@dmcediacaran.bsky.social
440 followers 180 following 190 posts
Ediacaran palaeobiologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Working on beautiful fossils in Newfoundland & UK alongside amazing students/colleagues with strong local community partnerships to support GeoEducation GeoConservation & ethical GeoTourism
Posts Replies Media Videos
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
what a great crowd out to learn about #Charnia brasieri at the GeoCentre tonight and the celebratory cake from emthefairycakemother.
I can confirm that C. brasieri was delicious. I’ve decided that #Ediacaran organisms became extinct because they tasted so good.
November 25, 2025 at 1:38 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This week I found a partial #Charnia brasieri hiding in plain sight 🥷 in the cast of the #Ediacaran Mistaken Point E Surface that is housed at @johnsongeocentre.bsky.social where I’m giving a talk about C brasieri on Monday! Happy #FossilFriday
Leaf like fossil with zigzagged axis branches meet the axis at a steep angle, are curved (falcate) with transverse second order branches
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Some more #Charnia content this #FossilFriday, but this time Charnia grandis reins. stat. It had been synonymized with C.masoni and mostly used for gigantic specimens of what is now C.brasieri but its strange rhomboidal branches are very distinct. the 1st branches are 45o and 2nd are at 90o
specimen of C grandis showing rhomboidal branching plaster cast at The Rooms opposing leaf like charnias parallel to current so not felled but growing along the seafloor in our opinion schematic showing the 1st and 2nd order branches of all the charnia species
November 14, 2025 at 11:34 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
I like to think we did Martin justice in this. I know he would have loved it. For once i’m prepared to admit that i’m actually quite proud of my part of this work.

you can read free here

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

This is my favourite rangeomorph ❤️.

Thanks for reading so far 🙂
October 31, 2025 at 1:34 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
I still miss him a lot and even now I still find myself wanting to call him when we find something cool or I have a new idea. He was a deep thinker and amazing note keeper i came across this note of his (via his son Dr Alex Brasier) which is absolutely typical. Most ideas i had Martin would ..
October 31, 2025 at 1:34 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
i wrote something longer over on fb but just to say Martin was very special to me he considered me his protégé in the literal sense he was there for me at my very lowest and heartily celebrated all my successes in a way i’m not so good at myself. 🧵
Prof Martin Brasier and Dr Jack Matthews enjoying the Upper Island Cove fossil site
October 31, 2025 at 1:34 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This #FossilFriday I’m excitedly sharing a new #Ediacaran #Charnia brasieri named for my PhD Supervisor & friend Martin Brasier who died 2014. I’ve wanted to name something for him ever since but I wanted it to be something special. When I saw the first one from Inner Meadow I knew it was the 1 🧵
leaf shaped animal fossil with sickle shaped branches meeting a a zigzagged axis Charnia brasieri sp nov Shaped of the currently valid species of Charnia and their branch types seafloor reconstruction of Charnia brasieri as a procumbent organisms living among microbial matgrounds
October 31, 2025 at 1:34 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
A bit late on #FossilFriday but this Ediacaran Mistaken point specimen has been on my desk haunting me this last month. It is the paratype of #Beothukis mistakensis. All know specimens of this sp. on the E Surface are oriented nearly perpendicular to the palaeocurrent doi.org/10.3389/fear...
fractal like branches in 3 rows attributed to #Beothukis mistakensis. Fossil is a latex mold so what the bottom of the organism would have looked like if you had pulled it off the seafloor. From Mistaken Point Newfoundland
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This is such a beautiful fossil to work with. As soon the first specimen appeared i loved the architecture & pulled rank, calling dibs on working on it (which i seldom do). This is the artwork of our new #Charnia that i produced for the journal to go in the graphical abstract.
#sciart #paleoart
two charnias lying in a matground the fronds are living reclined on the seafloor (procumbent) and have falcate primary order branches that we interpret as having curved up above the seafloor, becoming the classic charnia shape in 3D
October 17, 2025 at 2:11 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday from the #Ediacaran of Newfoundland and our #InnerMeadow site, teasing this beauty of a #Charnia which will get a name any day now. This specimen was found just a couple of weeks ago (after acceptance of the paper) & is c. 35cm long & 8cm wide (before retrodeformation)…,,
fossil with alternating falcate branched with 2 orders of smaller rangeomorph branches. it is a negative relief on top of a grey siltstone.
October 17, 2025 at 2:11 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday, brought to you this week from the #Ediacaran Johnson Discovery Surface in Discovery UNESCO Global geopark. This lovely #Bradgatia like #Fractofusus shows the wonderful fractal-like branching of the #Rangeomorpha for your enjoyment. @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 11:36 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday ! When we were in the late stages of publishing the new #Ediacaran #Lydonia jiggamintia i was in very early phases of learning digital painting (I have been sculpting for a while now). and realized i wanted to try to depict a matground covered seafloor starting to reclaim #sciart
depiction of #ediacaran microbe covered seafloor reclaiming (pink) fractofusus necromass being simultaneously overgrown by a papillate yellow sponge relative #Lydonia jiggamintia
October 3, 2025 at 12:47 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday from the #Ediacaran of Inner Meadow in Newfoundland. The meadow is beautiful this time of year and it is great for the clearing work. Here is a newly exposed #Charnia masoni. The first masoni from this site, our faunal list is getting long!
September 26, 2025 at 12:51 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Bob Hooper was my friend and predecessor in the role of Director at Bonne Bay Aquarium and Research Station. I am going to miss this lovely human. Anyone who knew Bob might like to watch this. #BonneBay m.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Dk...
Dr Bob Hooper in the Shed at Bonne Bay
September 25, 2025 at 9:54 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
we would love to find out!
the analogue we use to reconstruct #Lydonia. The modern encrusting sponge Polymastia (no direct affinity implied) which is yellow with long papillae sitting amidst rhodoliths in the Bonne Bay Aquarium and Research station from my time as Director there.
September 19, 2025 at 11:25 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
his style, especially his spiked hair. We have brought these two together in the name Lydonia jiggamintia which we use for an early encrusting sponge that grew over the rotting tissues of rangeomorph #Ediacaran organisms, with an upper surface covered with papillae that were probably the entrance
two #Lydonia jiggamintia on the Johnson Discovery Surface in Discovery UNESCO Global Geopark showing the oval morph and pimply surface
September 19, 2025 at 11:25 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
happy #FossilFriday! in the 1820’s a captive Beothuk woman Shanawdithit created a word list including jiggamint (spiky gooseberry). She was the last of her people & from what we know a truly amazing person.
In the 1970’s punk icon John Lyndon (Johnny Rotten) inspired a generation with angst and..
painting of the beothuk woman Shanawdithit. The beothuk were rendered culturally extinct by european settlers, what we know of that vanished culture comes from the art and stories of this amazing woman. Painting by Henry Gosse taken from Shanawdithit’s wikipedia page John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) showing his iconic spiky hair that is compared to the short spiky papillae of Lydonia My seafloor reconstruction of Lydonia jiggamintia showing a yellowish sponge with short spikes (papillae) overgrowing a dead Rangeomorph (pinkish) #Fractofusus. the seafloor and Fractofusus are covered in whitish microbes and microbial filaments representing the matgrounds typical of #Ediacaran seafloors
September 19, 2025 at 11:25 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
In 1992 I visited the type material of #Blackbrookia in @charnwoodforest.bsky.social with my then PhD supervisor Martin Brasier and decided between us it wasn’t a body fossil but a microbial mat. In 2008 Blackbrookia was used to describe pimply structures from @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social
Artwork (c) Duncan McIlroy showing Lydonia jiggamintia over growing another dead organism on a microbe covered seafloor. Lydonia is a yellow encrusting structure with yellow spikes on top (papillae). The (pinkish) organism is a fractal rangeomorph called Fractofusus.
September 16, 2025 at 5:28 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland. For your enjoyment here is a specimen of the most common form of (as yet undescribed) #Charnia from our Inner Meadow site of #Ediacaran age in Newfoundland. It has J shaped branches and i particularly love the arcs the secondaries describe.
spindle shaped fossil with zigzagged central axis and numerous j shaped branches with fractal-like subsidiary branches. interpretive drawing of branching in the new inner meadow charnia arcs of primary (black) and secondary order (red) branches shown
September 12, 2025 at 11:04 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
we previously considered that it might be a sponge and compared it to the Cambrian #crumillospongia but then found that the mesh like surface was actually the eroded remnant of infilled papillae (tubular spikes) seen in the third image which is a little bit like the sponge polymastia
detail of the encrusting sponge Polymastia which has the openings to its aquiferous system on long papillae (analogous but much longer than the internal mold of the papillae of the Johnson Surface “Blackbrookia” which is considered sponge like. Note that these papillae have gas trapped in them from collection and are usually more floppy. These were collected for the Memorial University aquarium i used to be Director of in Bonne Bay. internal molds of small papillae on the surface of a “blackbrookia” from the Johnson Discovery Surface somewhat comparable to those of the modern polymastia sponge
September 5, 2025 at 12:59 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday from Johnson Discovery Surface in @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social, famous for its #Fractofusus andersoni, but which also has large enigmatic forms dubbed #Blackbrookia (now considered a pseudofossil). The JDS material is however covered in pimples or meshes not seen in the type.
large obovate fossils from Discovery geopark covered in mesh like textures or pimples (previously called Blackbrookia and informally “pimply melons”) surrounded by many rounded fractal like Fractofusus andersoni detail of a “blackbrookia” showing the mesh like texture interpreted as the cross section through the base of spike like papillae
September 5, 2025 at 12:59 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
#Charnia has been one of my favourite fossils since I saw a cast of it in an undergrad lab. it has been a privilege to be able to work on it these last couple of years. Partly through new #Eduacaran material at Inner Meadow but with my 3D reconstructions allowing us to envisage how little biomass
30+ cm long charnia gracilis, a long narrow frond like a spear point with 3 clear orders of branching from Inner Meadow, Newfoundland seafloor reconstruction of reclining charnia on an Ediacaran seafloor surrounded by microbial matgrounds that are partly eroded, in some views you can see the open nature of the structure when sculpted using the brasier model. The competing pneu model of seilacher produces something like an inflatable mattress.
August 29, 2025 at 2:39 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This #Fossilfriday i’m going to share a little #sciart adventure with #Charnia masoni which comes from the Charnwood Forest Geopark in the UK. The models are those i created using Martin Brasier’s rangeomorph architecture rules.

doi.org/10.1144/jgs2...

it has very low amounts of biomass
three leaf shaped charnia masoni nestled in a partly eroded deep marine microbial mat
August 22, 2025 at 10:46 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
I find the easiest way to get orchids to re-bloom is arrange a trip away so they can do it with no one watching. This one made an error of judgment.
August 16, 2025 at 10:58 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #fossilfriday from the #Ediacaran of Newfoundland. Slightly younger than our most impressive frondose fossils, but the discs of the upper Fermeuse Formation have their own charm. This block has #Aspidella terranovica, the triangular #Triforillonia costellae & Ediacaria flindersi.
sediment surface covered in small circular impressions of possible Cnidarians some have concentric rings (ediacaria) others radial structure (Aspidella terranovica) and a weird triradial form a bit like aspidella (Triforillonia). Scale bar 1cm
August 8, 2025 at 11:49 AM