Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
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palaeostephan.bsky.social
Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
@palaeostephan.bsky.social
Associate Professor in Palaeobiology @ University of Birmingham,
Research Lead @ Lapworth Museum of Geology,
vertebrate palaeontologist, dinosaurs, digital visualisation, biomechanics & functional morphology
🦕🐶🌱🇪🇺
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Feeding Without Jaws opens this Wednesday!

Our temporary #exhibition tells the immersive story of our ancestors, jawless fish. Find out about why these ancient fish have fascinated palaeontologists, & what new discoveries have been made about them.

www.birmingham.ac.uk...

#LapworthRocks
November 10, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Attending #2025SVP #SVP2025? Interested in Palaeozoic fish and temnospondyls, dinosaurs old and new, sabre-tooth cats, biomechanics, biogeography, museum ethics, etc? Don't look any further, the Lautenschlager Lab got you covered - thanks to a lot of hard work by students, post-docs and colleagues!
November 10, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Very happy to have contributed two papers to this Special Issue on Sabertooths:
October 9, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
As we see so often in research, bullies and abusers do terrible things while everyone who could stop them wrings their hands and gives free speech platitudes just so they don't have to act with unity and strength.

This is just another example of academic inequalities and harms writ large. Appalling
October 1, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
He should have been expelled. This is way more than policing opinions.

- Inciting violence at far right rallies
- Interfering in government affairs
- Destroying health and science infrastructures
- Ensuring thousands will die

Abusers, excused and enabled by craven others, always grow in power.
"I am increasingly concerned over threats to the values that allow science to flourish." Read the full statement from the President of the Royal Society Sir Adrian Smith: royalsociety.org/news/2025/10...
A statement from the President of the Royal Society | Royal Society
A statement from the President of the Royal Society regarding threats to the values that allow science to flourish.
royalsociety.org
October 1, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Until a few weeks ago I knew next to nothing about early Devonian jawless fish. To be honest, I still know shamefully little about them. But I’m currently illustrating a bunch of them, and have become utterly fascinated by these extraordinary little freaks.
Anyway, just saying 🤷‍♂️
September 23, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Is it really *that hard* to say that it is totally morally wrong to say to people who have come here legally, worked, paid taxes, built their lives here, contributed to Britain, that they have to fuck off now, rather than "unfunded".
Keir Starmer’s spokesperson asked for the PM's response to Nigel Farage’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of people living and working completely legally in the UK, replies that he thinks it is “unworkable” and “unfunded”.

So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong
September 22, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
That feeling of desperately wanting your elected government to loudly call out racism & far right violent extremists...

And nothing.

Labour so afraid to lose power, it has forgotten both how to use it & that with power comes responsibility.

As America gets ever darker, too little light here.
September 14, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Expect more silence from the Royal Society in the face of their most notorious fellow advocating for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of a country he is neither a citizen nor a resident of (yet he is a fellow of their most prestigious learned society).
September 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
@palaeostephan.bsky.social - you might enjoy this one. 😉
Erlikosaurus andrewsi.
A portrait of the Asian therizinosaurid.
July 4, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Should All Earth Scientists Be Vegan?

Watch our full discussion with Earth Scientist & Geophysicist Chris MacAskill from Viva Longevity on the PBN YouTube channel 📺🌱
June 19, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Megalosaurus: an illustration for an exhibition last year at Lapworth Museum to mark 200 years since it was officially described.
May 15, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
The Prime Minister imitating Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is sickening.

That speech fuelled decades of racism and division. Echoing it today is a disgrace. It adds to anti-migrant rhetoric that puts lives at risk.

Shame on you, Keir Starmer.
May 12, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
You are a "citizen of nowhere", they said.

A "queue-jumper", they said.

Now I am a "squalid chapter", they say.

A risk as I might make this an "island of strangers", they say.

I am "pulling the country apart", they say.
May 12, 2025 at 8:46 AM
This is horrendous but far from just a problem in German academia (albeit exacerbated by its civil servant system)! One of the problems outlined in the article is the lack of consequences and the precarity for those who have experienced abuse and bullying.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Can Germany rein in its academic bullying problem?
Researchers and administrators are exploring ways to restructure a rigid hierarchy that can breed power abuses.
www.nature.com
May 7, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
We have a new social media feature starting: #WhatsNewWednesdays!

For our first post we want to tell you about Ben Miller's #comedy show at the Museum in September! Have you ever watched a #comedian perform under a #dinosaur?

Book earlybird tickets now: lapworth-comedy.even...

#LapworthRocks
May 7, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
I'm disappointed to resign from the editorial board of @royalsocietypublishing.org @royalsociety.org journal Biology Letters. I won't give my time and labour away to an organisation that - through inaction - condones the destruction of US science by one of its own, Elon Musk FRS.

🧪⚒️
May 6, 2025 at 7:16 AM
The bite force is strong with this one!

Reposting our recent study by @taphonomist.bsky.social and myself investigating the biomechanics and bite of the Rancor. jgeekstudies.org/2025/03/08/i... in @jgeekstudies.bsky.social

Happy May the 4th!!!!

#StarWarsDay #StarWars #MayThe4thBeWithYou
May 4, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Essentially *all* research and expert assessments show that this does not work. It will not counter Farage, but literally push votes towards Reform.

It genuinely is impossible to overstate how profoundly stupid and strategically illiterate this decision is.

You cannot out-Reform Reform.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing tougher measures on immigration to stem a record flow of arrivals across the English Channel and stave off the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after it made sweeping gains in this week’s local elections.
Starmer Plots Harder Line on Migration to Counter Farage Threat
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing tougher measures on immigration to stem a record flow of arrivals across the English Channel and stave off the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after it made sweeping gains in this week’s local elections.
bloom.bg
May 3, 2025 at 8:00 AM
An interesting change from reconstructing dinosaurs and other terrestrial animals... My digital restoration and reconstruction of the cyathaspid heterostracan Anglaspis heintzi from our new paper (see below). #FossilFish #DigitalReconstruction #Palaeontology
April 28, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.
April 2, 2025 at 1:09 AM
Reposted by Dr Stephan Lautenschlager
We are one of the oldest geological museums in the UK. Open seven days a week, your visit is completely free of charge and provides engaging insight into our planet through time.

For more information, including how to find us, please visit our website: shorturl.at/0npcu
The Lapworth Museum of Geology - University of Birmingham
The homepage for the Lapworth Museum of Geology.
shorturl.at
April 2, 2025 at 9:06 AM