Dr. Joe Moysiuk
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cambrojoe.bsky.social
Dr. Joe Moysiuk
@cambrojoe.bsky.social
240 followers 190 following 20 posts
Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Manitoba Museum and Adjunct Prof. at U of Saskatchewan Geological Sciences, using Cambro-Ordovician #fossils to illuminate early animal evolution (personal account)
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cambrojoe.bsky.social
Dr. Joe Moysiuk @cambrojoe.bsky.social · May 13
Introducing Mosura fentoni, a new radiodont from the #BurgessShale.
Paper here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos.2…
Thi#fossilil species has 3 eyes, spiny claws, wing-shaped swimming flaps, and a unique abdomen-like body region.
Artwork by Danielle Dufault © ROM Artwork by Danielle Dufault © ROM © ROM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
manitobamuseum.bsky.social
Manitoba Museum Student Associate and Mitacs Fellow Urgon Snider’s Master’s thesis research is on microfossils. He’ll be working dissolving ancient rocks, extracting tiny fossils, and mounting them for our collections, expanding our understanding of 450-million-year-old ecosystems! #FossilFriday
Urgon with some fossils collected on Lake Winnipeg this summer, where further fieldwork will be continued this fall. The moon-like landscape of the Alberta badlands, taken during fieldwork this summer in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. An exciting discovery! Urgon found and collected this large specimen while doing fieldwork in southern Alberta this summer.
October 24, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
manitobamuseum.bsky.social
Museum colleagues discovered a completely white wood frog ("Boreorana sylvatica") in a pond just outside of Winnipeg! This is the first record of a white individual of this species anywhere in North America. The white wood frog was likely a female as it was found mating with a normal-coloured male.
An all-white frog with dark eyes being held by a brown frog on its back as they mate in shallow water of a pond.
October 31, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
tomlewin.bsky.social
Lophophorata is monophyletic!

Super excited to see this work out in Current Biology - we sequenced a phoronid genome and used shared chromosome fusions to confirm the monophyly of Lophophorata.

A big team effort from the Luo Lab @yjluo.bsky.social!

More here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1m3mV3QW8S...
November 10, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
prehistorica.art
Hallucigenia sparsa, a small lobopodian from the Cambrian-age Burgess Shale, climbing on a sponge.
November 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
manitobamuseum.bsky.social
Manitoba has over 1,700 species of wildflowers, ferns, shrubs and trees, but identifying them is not easy. For two decades, staff at the Museum, with a team of volunteer botanists, have been working on an updated edition of Manitoba Flora.

Pre-order today: www.manitobamuseumshop.ca/shop.html?lo...
Front cover of Volume 1 of Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson's new publication, "Manitoba Flora: A Guide to the Vascular Plants of Manitoba" with forward written by Shirli Ewanchuk/Black Thunderbird. Book cover is atop a backdrop of an illustrated prairie scene from the Manitoba Museum Prairies Gallery. The Manitoba Museum Shop logo is in the lower left corner.
October 22, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
luiscollantes.bsky.social
Izquierdo-López et al. - Cambrian (Stage 4-Drumian）non-trilobite arthropods from the Murero biota (Spain)

doi.org/10.1144/jgs2...
October 22, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
geolassoc.bsky.social
Fascinating article spotlighting urban geology in London with Ruth Siddall of @pavementgeology.bsky.social

Ruth has led urban geology walks in London for the GA and has several free self-guided walking routes to download on her website: ruthsiddall.co.uk/UrbanGeology...

www.bbc.com/future/artic...
'Urban geology': How to find fossils (and other discoveries) in your city's buildings
If you look closer at the building stones, tiles and pavements of the big city, you can find a hidden world of geology and history, from fascinating fossils to unusual rocks.
www.bbc.com
October 17, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
manitobamuseum.bsky.social
This summer Dr. Diana Bizecki Robson was able to partner with the Birdtail Sioux First Nation to document the plant diversity and search for rare plants there.

In this video she shows us the samples of a few of the rare plants found to be growing there! youtu.be/ZIXCGIGeknc
Manitoba's Rare Plants
YouTube video by Manitoba Museum
youtu.be
October 17, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
manitobamuseum.bsky.social
Recently our palaeontology team took a collecting trip to the Cat Head site, in collaboration with Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation. This site is known globally for its preservation of Ordovician Period fossils, and new samples will support research on the conditions under which it formed. #FossilFriday
The field team, left to right: Joe Moysiuk (Manitoba Museum), Ricardo Silva (U of M), Tabitha Harper (Manitoba Museum), Colin Sproat (U Sask), David Wright (volunteer). Tabitha Harper holding a fossil of a sea weed, Winnipegia cuneata. This species is unique to the Cat Head area.
September 26, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
jkimmig.bsky.social
I'm happy to introduce the newest Cambrian critter 'Tentalus spencensis' from the Spence Shale of Utah. Publications out today in Geological Magazine (Open Access). Thanks to Karma Nanglu and Paul Jamison for their help with the paper.

Link:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
September 18, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
andrejpaleo.bsky.social
Glad to share our latest article on the "co-coordinated stasis of large mammal diversity with the environments". Long in reviews it is finally out--a work done during the post-doc of Simona Bekeraitė
app.pan.pl/article/item...
1/4
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology #Macroecology
Species richness histories of three large mammal clades: Artiodactyla (A), Carnivora (B), and Perissodactyla (C).
September 10, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
andrejpaleo.bsky.social
Creative use of autocorrelation in analyzing trace fossils in the Ediacaran-Cambrian explosion:
"..lack of temporal correlation in the studied Ediacaran trajectories and its presence in...Cambrian trajectories, indicating time-tuned behaviours.."
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.02940
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio
Sample movement path (thick grey line), subdivided into equidistant segments, with measures used in this study Partial autocorrelation boxplots for the sampled Ediacaran specimens and Cambrian specimens
September 8, 2025 at 7:34 PM
cambrojoe.bsky.social
For anyone in Toronto in Oct. -
50 years of discovery: #BurgessShale research @romtoronto.bsky.social
www.rom.on.ca/whats-on/eve...
#FossilFriday
50 years of Discovery: Burgess Shale Research at ROM
For 50 years, ROM has been at the forefront of Burgess Shale research, uncovering dozens of new fossil sites and species. Celebrate this milestone with the stories of ROM’s researchers and partners. H...
www.rom.on.ca
August 22, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
jack-tamisiea.bsky.social
Last #FossilFriday I had the pleasure of visiting the @romtoronto.bsky.social and checking out the Dawn of Life gallery! I’ll dig into my favorite individual fossils soon, but the exhibit was a gorgeous mix of science, art and specimens and I loved that it featured specimens from across Canada! 🇨🇦
A display case practically overflowing with trilobite fossils A cast slab of Mistaken Point from Newfoundland. The cast, which is bronze and gray, features the imprints of several fern-like early animals A life-like restoration of the Cambrian predator Anomalocaris hangs from the gallery’s ceiling. A display case featuring several gray Burgess Shale fossils and a lifelike model of the predator Titanokorys gainesi
August 22, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
tommyplodocus.bsky.social
This week's #FossilFriday example is small... but luckily, there's a big model showing what it might have looked like alive! Habelia optata was an arthropod that lived in the waters 506 million years ago during the Cambrian. This fossil was found in British Columbia, Canada! 🇨🇦
December 13, 2024 at 2:05 PM
cambrojoe.bsky.social
Isotelus sp. from the #Ordovician Cat Head Member, Red River Formation.
#TrilobiteTuesday #Paleozoic #ManitobaFossils
August 20, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
paleoadiel.bsky.social
Job Alert‼️ Postdoctoral Fellow opportunity in paleontology/biology at the University of Alabama Museums:
careers.ua.edu/jobs/688232b... Aim: assess biotic interactions using mollusks from both sides of the Isthmus of Panama. Please share widely! @paleosoc.bsky.social @almnh.bsky.social
Postdoctoral Fellow opportunity. The NSF-funded project “Energetic Controls on Marine Benthic Community Structure in Space and Time” aims to (1) evaluate how productivity affects the energetic and trophic structure of marine benthic communities on either side of the modern Isthmus of Panama, where there is now a strong contrast between the high productivity, upwelling-dominated regime of the eastern Pacific and the low-productivity, low-seasonality regime of the Caribbean (2) use this knowledge to evaluate the fossil record of Caribbean benthic ecosystems before, during, and after the uplift of the isthmus during which planktonic productivity decreased in the Caribbean and (3) relate ecosystem changes driven by productivity shifts to the well documented Caribbean extinction event ~2 Ma. This is a project in collaboration with Ohio State U, UC Berkeley, and STRI. One key component of this project is to assess biotic interactions such as predation and possibly parasitism using fossil and modern molluscan assemblages from both sides of the Isthmus of Panama. I am recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow with a background in paleontology and/or biology/ecology with strong quantitative skills, attention to detail and organization, and someone who can effectively supervise students. Conference support is provided. The postdoc will work with Dr. Adiel Klompmaker (aaklompmaker@ua.edu) within the University of Alabama Museums’ Department of Museum Research and Collections (https://collections.museums.ua.edu/). Initial appointment will be for 1 year, with renewal contingent upon funding. The deadline to apply is 5 September 2025 at 22:55 US Central Day Time. The salary will be $56,000 per year. Please upload a cover letter expressing your interest and qualifications, a CV, and contact details of at least two references. To apply and for more information see: https://careers.ua.edu/jobs/688232bd-b82e-49d3-90ea-06601c242dab
August 8, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
cambriancam.bsky.social
Welcome back to #fossilfriday

Here are the boney plates from a Placoderm fish. These come from the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Silica Shale Formation in Sylvania, Ohio. I am unsure as to what genus and species of the fish plates belong to.

-Image is from Wikipedia Commons
August 15, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
kmkocot.bsky.social
Postdoctoral Fellow opportunity in paleontology/biology at the University of Alabama Museums with @paleoadiel.bsky.social as part of the NSF-funded project “Energetic Controls on Marine Benthic Community Structure in Space and Time.” For more information see: careers.ua.edu/jobs/688232b...
Figure showing violin plot of chlorophyll-a density in the region of study and fossil mollusks.
August 13, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
danbowdenpalaeo.bsky.social
I missed #FossilFriday so here are some cool #Eocene flower #fossils from British Columbia’s Allenby Formation. Collected near Princeton, BC.

#PaleoSky #Palaeontology #Paleontology #Palaeobotany #Paleobotany
August 12, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
amnh.org
How do scientists name a newly described species? Museum Postdoctoral Researcher Russell Bicknell, who recently had a trilobite named after himself, explains!
August 11, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
lapworthmuseum.bsky.social
Eophrynus prestvicii, the Coseley Spider, is an extremely well-preserved, 300-million-year-old #arachnid discovered near Dudley. Though it looks like modern #spiders, it was unable to spin a web, instead catching prey using powerful jaws!

#FossilFriday #LapworthRocks #geology #palaeontology
August 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM
cambrojoe.bsky.social
Celebrating our recent fieldwork this #FossilFriday with this pair of #crinoids from the #Ordovician Red River Formation, Cat Head Member.
#ManitobaFossils #Paleozoic #echinoderm
August 9, 2025 at 2:09 AM
Reposted by Dr. Joe Moysiuk
karenpaulscbc.bsky.social
Fun day trip this week! On a warm, sunny July day, paleontologist Melina Jobbins and her team search an old rock quarry near Lundar, Man., for 390-million-year-old fossils of an extinct fish that swam in what was once a vast inland sea. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... @umanitoba.bsky.social
Move over, Jurassic Park. Manitoba was home to newly discovered 390-million-year-old extinct fish | CBC News
A research team from the University of Manitoba has discovered a new genus of placoderm fish, named Elmosteus lundarensis, one of the earliest fish to develop bones, a jaw and teeth.
www.cbc.ca
July 19, 2025 at 12:09 PM
cambrojoe.bsky.social
Just returned from a fantastic week of field work along the coasts of Lake Winnipeg. Many amazing #Ordovician #fossils now safely back at the museum and lots of new ideas for advancing research in the area. Couldn't have asked for a better team!
#FossilFriday #ManitobaFossils
August 2, 2025 at 3:15 AM