Paul D. Taylor
@nhmbryozoa.bsky.social
Invertebrate palaeontologist and bryozoologist at the Natural History Museum, London.
#MolluscMonday A fossil scallop shell ‘Down Under’. Photographed in a building stone of Miocene Batesford Limestone at the Old Magistrates Court, Melbourne.
November 23, 2025 at 8:51 PM
#MolluscMonday A fossil scallop shell ‘Down Under’. Photographed in a building stone of Miocene Batesford Limestone at the Old Magistrates Court, Melbourne.
#FossilFriday One extra fossil from Singapore, in the black limestone cladding of the same Prada shop as the rugose coral posted earlier, a brachiopod preserving internally the calcite supports of the two arms of the lophophore visible as rings of dots on the left and right side of the fossil.
November 20, 2025 at 8:50 AM
#FossilFriday One extra fossil from Singapore, in the black limestone cladding of the same Prada shop as the rugose coral posted earlier, a brachiopod preserving internally the calcite supports of the two arms of the lophophore visible as rings of dots on the left and right side of the fossil.
Final fossil from Singapore - a silicified tree trunk, one of several in the Marine Bay gardens. Age and provenance unknown to me.
November 20, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Final fossil from Singapore - a silicified tree trunk, one of several in the Marine Bay gardens. Age and provenance unknown to me.
Another fossil from the streets of Singapore, a large nerineoid gastropod in the stone cladding of a jewellery shop in Little India. Presumably a European Cretaceous limestone.
November 19, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Another fossil from the streets of Singapore, a large nerineoid gastropod in the stone cladding of a jewellery shop in Little India. Presumably a European Cretaceous limestone.
Singapore Fossil Number 2, a Late Palaeozoic rugose coral, fortuitously brought to Singapore by Prada in a polished black limestone cladding one of their shop fronts.
November 18, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Singapore Fossil Number 2, a Late Palaeozoic rugose coral, fortuitously brought to Singapore by Prada in a polished black limestone cladding one of their shop fronts.
A bonus for #MolluscMonday, the first fossil I spotted today in Singapore, a sectioned ammonite on a polished slab of German Jurassic Treuchtlingen Formation used to clad a wall in Changi Airport.
November 17, 2025 at 7:29 AM
A bonus for #MolluscMonday, the first fossil I spotted today in Singapore, a sectioned ammonite on a polished slab of German Jurassic Treuchtlingen Formation used to clad a wall in Changi Airport.
#MolluscMonday The L.F. Spath collection at the NHM in London includes numerous thin sections through the early growth stages of ammonoids. This crudely photographed example is of a Cretaceous ammonite.
November 17, 2025 at 4:07 AM
#MolluscMonday The L.F. Spath collection at the NHM in London includes numerous thin sections through the early growth stages of ammonoids. This crudely photographed example is of a Cretaceous ammonite.
#FossilFriday Painted black to enhance contrast, a pair of cheilostome colonies encrusting a test of Echinocorys from the English Chalk. Bryozoans are exceedingly common on the tests of this infaunal echinoid which had to be exhumed before encrustation.
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 AM
#FossilFriday Painted black to enhance contrast, a pair of cheilostome colonies encrusting a test of Echinocorys from the English Chalk. Bryozoans are exceedingly common on the tests of this infaunal echinoid which had to be exhumed before encrustation.
#MolluscMonday Balanced on a wall beneath the ice-cream parlour at Aubeterre (Charente, France) is a fossil of the large rudist bivalve Hippurites, probably collected from a local field underlain by Campanian limestones.
November 10, 2025 at 7:30 AM
#MolluscMonday Balanced on a wall beneath the ice-cream parlour at Aubeterre (Charente, France) is a fossil of the large rudist bivalve Hippurites, probably collected from a local field underlain by Campanian limestones.
La Barde dawn last Friday for comparison.
November 7, 2025 at 5:51 PM
La Barde dawn last Friday for comparison.
#FossilFriday Sectioned stems of the Jurassic crinoid Apiocrinus in the paving stones around the Place de la Bourse, Bordeaux. From Burgundy to Bordeaux.
November 7, 2025 at 7:20 AM
#FossilFriday Sectioned stems of the Jurassic crinoid Apiocrinus in the paving stones around the Place de la Bourse, Bordeaux. From Burgundy to Bordeaux.
#MolluscMonday Spirals from the Cretaceous: sections of fossil snail shells in the pavements of Libourne and Bordeaux, SW France.
November 3, 2025 at 6:43 AM
#MolluscMonday Spirals from the Cretaceous: sections of fossil snail shells in the pavements of Libourne and Bordeaux, SW France.
#FossilFriday A bonus fossil for #Halloween: the ghoulish ‘face’ of a sectioned Carboniferous brachiopod from a Winchester Cathedral gravestone.
October 31, 2025 at 5:41 AM
#FossilFriday A bonus fossil for #Halloween: the ghoulish ‘face’ of a sectioned Carboniferous brachiopod from a Winchester Cathedral gravestone.
#FossilFriday The gravestone of the oddly named Connop Thirlwall in Westminster Abbey is made of black limestone (?Tournai Marble) containing horizontally sectioned productid brachiopods.
October 31, 2025 at 5:40 AM
#FossilFriday The gravestone of the oddly named Connop Thirlwall in Westminster Abbey is made of black limestone (?Tournai Marble) containing horizontally sectioned productid brachiopods.
#MolluscMonday Handsome facsimile of a scallop shell on a plaque celebrating marine circumnavigation. Westminster Abbey cloisters.
October 27, 2025 at 7:42 AM
#MolluscMonday Handsome facsimile of a scallop shell on a plaque celebrating marine circumnavigation. Westminster Abbey cloisters.
#FossilFriday Not to be outdone by Isaac Newton who is buried beneath a gastropod fossil in Westminster Abbey, the famous geologist Charles Lyell’s gravestone is Carboniferous crinoidal limestone full of columnals of these ‘sea-lilies’.
October 24, 2025 at 6:06 AM
#FossilFriday Not to be outdone by Isaac Newton who is buried beneath a gastropod fossil in Westminster Abbey, the famous geologist Charles Lyell’s gravestone is Carboniferous crinoidal limestone full of columnals of these ‘sea-lilies’.
#MolluscMonday Flattened specimen of the Early Jurassic ammonite Harpoceras photographed on the North Yorkshire coast in 2011.
October 20, 2025 at 4:27 AM
#MolluscMonday Flattened specimen of the Early Jurassic ammonite Harpoceras photographed on the North Yorkshire coast in 2011.
#FossilFriday This large slab in the NHMUK covered with screws of the Carboniferous bryozoan Archimedes was unknown to me until last week. For at least 46 years it has been lurking among large specimens in the coral collection.
October 17, 2025 at 6:51 AM
#FossilFriday This large slab in the NHMUK covered with screws of the Carboniferous bryozoan Archimedes was unknown to me until last week. For at least 46 years it has been lurking among large specimens in the coral collection.
Isaac Newton is buried beneath a fossil snail as I discovered yesterday when visiting Westminster Abbey. Near the centre of his gravestone is a rather nice section of a gastropod, probably from the Carboniferous.
October 16, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Isaac Newton is buried beneath a fossil snail as I discovered yesterday when visiting Westminster Abbey. Near the centre of his gravestone is a rather nice section of a gastropod, probably from the Carboniferous.
#MolluscMonday Paving slabs of Early Cretaceous Purbeck Marble packed with shells of freshwater gastropods and bivalves in Winchester Cathedral.
October 13, 2025 at 7:06 AM
#MolluscMonday Paving slabs of Early Cretaceous Purbeck Marble packed with shells of freshwater gastropods and bivalves in Winchester Cathedral.
Novel take on the ladder of progress iconography of human evolution from an album cover. The orthogenetic trend continues into the future with the huge brains of our descendants causing them to topple over in a manner reminiscent of old ideas about the massive antlers of the giant deer Megaloceros.
October 12, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Novel take on the ladder of progress iconography of human evolution from an album cover. The orthogenetic trend continues into the future with the huge brains of our descendants causing them to topple over in a manner reminiscent of old ideas about the massive antlers of the giant deer Megaloceros.
#FossilFriday Horizontal sections of concavo-convex brachiopods (probably productids) in gravestones of Carboniferous limestone in Winchester Cathedral. The outer rings are the convex ventral valves, the inner rings the concave dorsal valves.
October 10, 2025 at 6:51 AM
#FossilFriday Horizontal sections of concavo-convex brachiopods (probably productids) in gravestones of Carboniferous limestone in Winchester Cathedral. The outer rings are the convex ventral valves, the inner rings the concave dorsal valves.
#FontsOnFriday The magnificent 12th century Tournai Marble font in Winchester Cathedral depicting episodes from the life of St Nicholas.
October 10, 2025 at 6:48 AM
#FontsOnFriday The magnificent 12th century Tournai Marble font in Winchester Cathedral depicting episodes from the life of St Nicholas.
Here are the details of the shrinking bryozoan paper, as the dot doesn't seem to work.
October 9, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Here are the details of the shrinking bryozoan paper, as the dot doesn't seem to work.
The Incredible Shrinking Bryozoans. Published today, our study of long-term zooid size decrease in the cyclostome form-genus 'Berenicea'. doi: 10.1111/pala.70027
October 9, 2025 at 7:24 AM
The Incredible Shrinking Bryozoans. Published today, our study of long-term zooid size decrease in the cyclostome form-genus 'Berenicea'. doi: 10.1111/pala.70027