Robert Gay
@paleorob.bsky.social
Educator and paleontologist. Here for science communication. Personal account, all postings are my own and do not reflect the views of any employer.
Most recent pub:
https://giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.php/GIW/article/view/82
Most recent pub:
https://giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.php/GIW/article/view/82
Reposted by Robert Gay
Excited to present the flounder effect - how our biases in sampling and worker effort impact our view of organisms.
A long term collaboration with @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Jon Hendricks, and Curtis Congreve!
#FossilFriday ⚒️🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A long term collaboration with @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Jon Hendricks, and Curtis Congreve!
#FossilFriday ⚒️🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation - npj Biodiversity
npj Biodiversity - The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation
www.nature.com
February 1, 2026 at 2:28 PM
Excited to present the flounder effect - how our biases in sampling and worker effort impact our view of organisms.
A long term collaboration with @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Jon Hendricks, and Curtis Congreve!
#FossilFriday ⚒️🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A long term collaboration with @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Jon Hendricks, and Curtis Congreve!
#FossilFriday ⚒️🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
@garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @tuttran.bsky.social and myself are here at the @nhmu.bsky.social DinoFest! Come by today and tomorrow to learn about the #Idaho fossils from @imnh208.bsky.social that come from our ancient fliers!
January 31, 2026 at 5:57 PM
@garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @tuttran.bsky.social and myself are here at the @nhmu.bsky.social DinoFest! Come by today and tomorrow to learn about the #Idaho fossils from @imnh208.bsky.social that come from our ancient fliers!
Reposted by Robert Gay
Very excited to share Scyllacerta creanae, a new Permian stem-reptile from South Africa known from an aggregation of several individuals. This specimen provides unprecedented detail regarding the anatomy of the early reptile skull. 🦎
(1/🧵)
(1/🧵)
January 23, 2026 at 11:47 PM
Very excited to share Scyllacerta creanae, a new Permian stem-reptile from South Africa known from an aggregation of several individuals. This specimen provides unprecedented detail regarding the anatomy of the early reptile skull. 🦎
(1/🧵)
(1/🧵)
Reposted by Robert Gay
Congrats to John Foster, Kelli Trujillo, ReBecca Hunt-Foster, and Spencer Lucas for seeing this latest Morrison volume across the finish line!!! There are so many new great things in this volume.
Papers galore; pdfs available through authors. @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @agu.org
Papers galore; pdfs available through authors. @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @agu.org
January 23, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Congrats to John Foster, Kelli Trujillo, ReBecca Hunt-Foster, and Spencer Lucas for seeing this latest Morrison volume across the finish line!!! There are so many new great things in this volume.
Papers galore; pdfs available through authors. @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @agu.org
Papers galore; pdfs available through authors. @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @agu.org
Reposted by Robert Gay
January 23, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Excited for this. Just received last year's volumes this week and have been diving in. Already looking forward to the next installments.
Ayyyyyy, thanks everybody for sharing the crowdfund sign-up page! It really helps; the more followers going in, the better we do.
The better we do, the more we can pay our contributors, and the more cool stuff we can make for you the rest of the year!
www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...
The better we do, the more we can pay our contributors, and the more cool stuff we can make for you the rest of the year!
www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...
January 23, 2026 at 9:43 PM
Excited for this. Just received last year's volumes this week and have been diving in. Already looking forward to the next installments.
Reposted by Robert Gay
Happy #FossilFriday. Did you know Diplodocus skin glows orange under UV light? 🦕🟠
January 23, 2026 at 8:13 PM
Happy #FossilFriday. Did you know Diplodocus skin glows orange under UV light? 🦕🟠
First paper of 2026 is out for #FossilFriday, and the first of probably several ornithischian papers over the next interval. Here my coauthors and I describe some tantalizing bits that suggest that ornithischian diversity in the Morrison Formation is higher than previously recognized.
January 23, 2026 at 8:34 PM
First paper of 2026 is out for #FossilFriday, and the first of probably several ornithischian papers over the next interval. Here my coauthors and I describe some tantalizing bits that suggest that ornithischian diversity in the Morrison Formation is higher than previously recognized.
Reposted by Robert Gay
This #FossilFriday we are pleased to have published the new younginid taxon Scyllacerta from the late Permian of South Africa 🇿🇦
This beautiful aggregation has the holotype and has been in the literature for 30 years as “juvenile Youngina”.
Photo taken before scanning at the @esrf.fr
This beautiful aggregation has the holotype and has been in the literature for 30 years as “juvenile Youngina”.
Photo taken before scanning at the @esrf.fr
January 23, 2026 at 7:25 PM
This #FossilFriday we are pleased to have published the new younginid taxon Scyllacerta from the late Permian of South Africa 🇿🇦
This beautiful aggregation has the holotype and has been in the literature for 30 years as “juvenile Youngina”.
Photo taken before scanning at the @esrf.fr
This beautiful aggregation has the holotype and has been in the literature for 30 years as “juvenile Youngina”.
Photo taken before scanning at the @esrf.fr
Reposted by Robert Gay
Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae
With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
January 23, 2026 at 1:56 PM
Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae
With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
Reposted by Robert Gay
Gary McGaughey, a doctoral candidate in biological sciences, recently presented his research at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 85th Annual Meeting in Birmingham, UK.
#idahostateucose #STEM #paleontology
#idahostateucose #STEM #paleontology
December 22, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Gary McGaughey, a doctoral candidate in biological sciences, recently presented his research at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 85th Annual Meeting in Birmingham, UK.
#idahostateucose #STEM #paleontology
#idahostateucose #STEM #paleontology
Reposted by Robert Gay
Just a quick heads up for those who intended to use the free scale bars handed out at this year's SVP by #PaleoTools: don't...
December 17, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Just a quick heads up for those who intended to use the free scale bars handed out at this year's SVP by #PaleoTools: don't...
Very excited and pleased to see this important work out to the public after many twists and turns!
giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
A visual paleontological inventory of Utah’s National Park Service areas
| Geology of the Intermountain West
giw.utahgeology.org
November 24, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Very excited and pleased to see this important work out to the public after many twists and turns!
giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
Reposted by Robert Gay
#2025SVP was a hit for Idaho and the IMNH, with a big showing for Peecook Lab members past and present! @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @slvrhwk.bsky.social @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social @paleorob.bsky.social
@idahostateucose.bsky.social
@idahostateucose.bsky.social
November 16, 2025 at 11:00 AM
#2025SVP was a hit for Idaho and the IMNH, with a big showing for Peecook Lab members past and present! @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @slvrhwk.bsky.social @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social @paleorob.bsky.social
@idahostateucose.bsky.social
@idahostateucose.bsky.social
Reposted by Robert Gay
The posters are hung at the conference with care, in hopes that paleontologists soon would be there.
Last Poster Session starts this afternoon! Come find me and @paleorob.bsky.social side by side for all the weird and mysterious fossil goodness. #2025SVP
Last Poster Session starts this afternoon! Come find me and @paleorob.bsky.social side by side for all the weird and mysterious fossil goodness. #2025SVP
November 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
The posters are hung at the conference with care, in hopes that paleontologists soon would be there.
Last Poster Session starts this afternoon! Come find me and @paleorob.bsky.social side by side for all the weird and mysterious fossil goodness. #2025SVP
Last Poster Session starts this afternoon! Come find me and @paleorob.bsky.social side by side for all the weird and mysterious fossil goodness. #2025SVP
Reposted by Robert Gay
JUST PUBLISHED!!!! A major azhdarchoid phylogeny paper coauthored with @skyemcdavid.com - the fruit of years of work - is now out in @journalsystpal.bsky.social! New clades, reconstruction of size evolution, and more. Full thread to come soon!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Enter the dragons: the phylogeny of Azhdarchoidea (Pterosauria: Pterodactyloidea) and the evolution of giant size in pterosaurs
Azhdarchidae is a clade of pterosaurs which includes the largest-ever flying animals. The evolutionary history of this clade and its closest relatives remains incompletely understood and highly deb...
www.tandfonline.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM
JUST PUBLISHED!!!! A major azhdarchoid phylogeny paper coauthored with @skyemcdavid.com - the fruit of years of work - is now out in @journalsystpal.bsky.social! New clades, reconstruction of size evolution, and more. Full thread to come soon!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Robert Gay
There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.
“Chicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic study... Without the univ’s support, & the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of kn going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...
If the University of Chicago Won’t Defend the Humanities, Who Will?
Why it matters that the University of Chicago is pausing admissions to doctoral programs in literature, philosophy, the arts, and languages
www.theatlantic.com
August 27, 2025 at 2:02 PM
There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.
Reposted by Robert Gay
👋 Good-bye "Parareptilia"! Good-bye "Diapsida"! 👋
Since the advent of cladistics, reptiles have generally been split into 'eureptiles' and 'parareptiles'. This early dichotomy in the evolution of reptiles has implied long ghost lineages for numerous reptile groups, conflicting with more traditional hypotheses of reptile origins by Romer and Watson
August 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM
👋 Good-bye "Parareptilia"! Good-bye "Diapsida"! 👋
Very excited to see this finally out! Xavier and team have been working on this for years, and if you've been to SVP the last couple of years you've probably known this is coming. Substantially changing what we know about where reptiles come from.
It’s finally out!
Our work addressing the origins of reptiles is published in PCJ! peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....
We use novel info gleaned from the scan data of dozens of stem reptiles to substantially revise our understanding of early reptile evolution #paleontology #herpetology
Our work addressing the origins of reptiles is published in PCJ! peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....
We use novel info gleaned from the scan data of dozens of stem reptiles to substantially revise our understanding of early reptile evolution #paleontology #herpetology
August 28, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Very excited to see this finally out! Xavier and team have been working on this for years, and if you've been to SVP the last couple of years you've probably known this is coming. Substantially changing what we know about where reptiles come from.
"Manuscript accepted," is a nice way to round out #FossilFriday
August 15, 2025 at 11:26 PM
"Manuscript accepted," is a nice way to round out #FossilFriday
Reposted by Robert Gay
@museumoftherockies.bsky.social #DinosaursandMOR speaker schedule posted! Spread the word #paleontology people! @arctomet.bsky.social @dinochick.bsky.social @ladynaturalist.bsky.social @paleeoguy.bsky.social @jgn-paleo.bsky.social @drneurosaurus.bsky.social museumoftherockies.org/signature-ev...
March 18, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Robert Gay
One of the amazing things about science is we will never run out of mysteries.
Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.
I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."
Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.
I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."
March 15, 2025 at 11:48 PM
One of the amazing things about science is we will never run out of mysteries.
Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.
I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."
Take "Naturwissenschaften (2003) 90:495–500", which performed a survey of 10,000 dinosaur fossils for evidence of tumors in the bone.
I was prepared for yes, no, but what I wasn't prepared for was:
"only in hadrosaurs."
Reposted by Robert Gay
Trump signed an executive order to dismantle seven federal agencies: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
March 15, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Trump signed an executive order to dismantle seven federal agencies: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
Reposted by Robert Gay
My first book, The Fossil Keeper’s Treasure, is out now! It’s illustrated by the amazing Nat Cardozo. Each page features embossed fossils you can touch.
Every fossil tells a story, and every scientist started out as a curious kid.
I can’t believe it’s finally here!
#fossilfriday #booksky
Every fossil tells a story, and every scientist started out as a curious kid.
I can’t believe it’s finally here!
#fossilfriday #booksky
March 7, 2025 at 4:15 PM
My first book, The Fossil Keeper’s Treasure, is out now! It’s illustrated by the amazing Nat Cardozo. Each page features embossed fossils you can touch.
Every fossil tells a story, and every scientist started out as a curious kid.
I can’t believe it’s finally here!
#fossilfriday #booksky
Every fossil tells a story, and every scientist started out as a curious kid.
I can’t believe it’s finally here!
#fossilfriday #booksky
If you see this QRP with your animal painting.
Not really a painting, but here's my most recent #dinosaur, something very much like Prenoceratops and based on photos of the mount of that animal. #IdahoPaleo
Not really a painting, but here's my most recent #dinosaur, something very much like Prenoceratops and based on photos of the mount of that animal. #IdahoPaleo
March 11, 2025 at 2:19 PM
If you see this QRP with your animal painting.
Not really a painting, but here's my most recent #dinosaur, something very much like Prenoceratops and based on photos of the mount of that animal. #IdahoPaleo
Not really a painting, but here's my most recent #dinosaur, something very much like Prenoceratops and based on photos of the mount of that animal. #IdahoPaleo