BensonLabOxford

Tetrapod morphology, phylogeny, macroevolution & palaeobiology. At @OxUniEarthSci, profile pics from @morethanadodo, tweets mostly from Roger Benson

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Evolution of the bird skeleton is more than the sum of its parts.

Highlights:
-High resolution CT scans of 330 bird species
-More than 250,000 points clicked
-Structural scales ranging from local shape variation of individual bones, up to the whole* skeleton

(*many parts)

[Guillermo Navalón @GNavalon]

Very excited to see our work published in @Nature! We present 1 of the most comprehensive characterisations of 3D #shape across (almost) the whole #skeleton in a group of land #vertebrates. Paper: https://t.co/kCRlNMx1Si

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Correction: 230 bird sampled, not 330. But in fact, I scanned more than 500 birds in preparation for the work. My arm aches from opening and closeing the big lead (Pb) doors of the scanner.

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Evolution of the bird skeleton is more than the sum of its parts.

Highlights:
-High resolution CT scans of 330 bird species
-More than 250,000 points clicked
-Structural scales ranging from local shape variation of individual bones, up to the whole* skeleton

(*many parts)

[Guillermo Navalón @GNavalon]

Very excited to see our work published in @Nature! We present 1 of the most comprehensive characterisations of 3D #shape across (almost) the whole #skeleton in a group of land #vertebrates. Paper: https://t.co/kCRlNMx1Si

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

@bolet_arnau Thanks! The next one is a real doozy...

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Thanks Arnau for writing an excellent summary of our new lizard discovery!

[Arnau Bolet (Paleontology) @bolet_arnau]

Glad to share my News and Views comment @Nature on the discovery by Tałanda and colleagues of an articulated Middle Jurassic squamate from the UK

https://t.co/Mxy1MHXRzY

@ICP_MCrusafont
@BristolPalaeo
@NatureNV
@UABBarcelona
#lizard #squamate #scicomm #paleontology

[Dr Elsa Panciroli @gsciencelady]

This week's #FossilFriday is our tiny wee lizard from #Skye, Bellairsia gracilis. The skull is amazing - only the tip of the snout is missing, worn away by the hungry sea. You can download meshes and CT data for this specimen from @MorphoSource via: https://t.co/ILym0HR433

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Here's an accessible account of the new fossil lizard!

https://t.co/wlSw4BnAdD

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

@JamesAl04100080 True. And if you like that, you should check out a frogmouth skeleton.

[Dr Elsa Panciroli @gsciencelady]

Today in @Nature we published a spectacular near-complete stem squamate skeleton from Middle #Jurassic of #Scotland! 😍 Bellairsia gracilis is the most complete fossil lizard of this age in the world, & helps us understand the origins of the group. [1/8] https://t.co/ZFa4H1FrJg

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Free, read-only version of the paper here: https://t.co/J0sBTEXNza

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Free, read-only version of the paper here: https://t.co/KxZPYYMdIl

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

We found this tiny fossil lizard, 170 million years old. It is a close outgroup of the squamate crown-group, based on exceptional synchrotron tomography.

https://t.co/ulWNvqyz70

Thanls to great collaborators, Mateusz Talanda, Elsa Panciroli, Vincent Fernandez, Susan Evans.

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Funny story...
Paper here: https://t.co/KxZPYYMdIl

[Dr Elsa Panciroli @gsciencelady]

I found the wee fossil of Bellairsia (just 6cm long!) in 2016 on my first ever fieldwork to the #IsleofSkye with @BensonLabOxford, Stig Walsh (@NtlMuseumsScot), & @ButlerLabBham. 'It's just a splodge of algae', they said. But it has teeth, I replied... 😆 [4/8]

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

@SirJoscha The real congrats go to everyone else who worked on these projects.

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Do you want super-high res synchrotron scans and 3D models of every* bone of the early near-lizard Bellairsia gracilis? (I mean, who wouldn't).

Get them @MorphoSource free today!
https://t.co/NhRujU5e1V

This is our paper: https://t.co/iv859MR45d.

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

@ja_tobias Thanks Joe! I look forward to your opinons of the paper.

You know, we do so many iterations of reading and re-reading these papers. How did I end up as Roger 'J.' Benson? #cannotspellownname

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Do you want high resolution scans and 3D models of bird skeletons? Get them @MorphoSource!

TEMPO birds: https://t.co/k70koTFKEt

Our paper: https://t.co/Im8DHg33aR

For segmenting bones from scans: Lizzy Griffiths, Andrew Orkney, Steph Wright, Andrzej Wolniewicz, Alex Bjarnason

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Do you want the details of Jeholornis skull anatomy? Wait no longer (and thank Hu Han!): https://t.co/e1zSYgwBOP.

Also thank Yezi for this amazing cartoon that really brings the Mesozoic world to life! One for the parents of young children (opinions about bed-times and fruit)

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

@SirJoscha Any'one' can do this

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Things you probably didn't know about the semicircular canals of turtles: (1) Turtles have large semicircular canals, proportionally similar to birds. (2) Turtle canal shapes have much to do with skull aspect ratio, and nothing to do with locomotion.

https://t.co/JrQ3rIiF9d

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

If only I could spell.

[BensonLabOxford @BensonLabOxford]

Palaobiologists must analytically address the spatial sturcture of our main dataset – The Fossil Record. Here are some tools that help you do this! Gwen did an amazing job.