Stephen Chester
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purgatoriidae.bsky.social
Stephen Chester
@purgatoriidae.bsky.social
Paleontologist at Brooklyn College, The Graduate Center, CUNY, and NYCEP
Curatorial Affiliate / Research Associate at AMNH, DMNS, FLMNH, and YPM
https://www.stephenchesterpaleontology.com/
Pinned
Excited to share our new paper on the most complete mixodectid fossil ever discovered! Phylogenetic results support Mixodectes as most closely related to primatomorphans (primates and colugos) among mammals.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
www.nature.com
We had a great time at commencement at Lincoln Center last night! Congratulations to Dr. Jordan Crowell and to all our 2025 CUNY Graduate Center graduates!
June 11, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Yesterday's senior seminar presentations were excellent!Congratulations to all our graduating seniors!
May 22, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Congratulations to Nidhi Mahadevan! She received first place in STEM at the 2025 Macaulay Honors College Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards ceremony last week for her work on Purgatorius lower molars using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. Well done, Nidhi!
May 12, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Congratulations to Jordan Crowell @crowelljw.bsky.social on a successful doctoral dissertation defense at the AMNH yesterday!!! A special thank you goes to Eric Delson, Chris Gilbert, and John Wible for serving on his committee!
April 5, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Stephen Chester
Meet Prestosuchus chiniquensis. It lived in what’s now Brazil some 210 million years ago. Although it was a large animal with big claws & a huge head with sharp-toothed jaws, it wasn't a dinosaur—it's actually a close relative of crocodylomorphs.

Photo: © AMNH
April 4, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Happy Fossil Friday! Today I was invited to speak to my son's class about paleontology. He interrupted me when I simply referred to one of my 3D prints as a primate fossil. He wanted me to tell the class the GENUS. He is 2. 😂
March 21, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Stephen Chester
I enjoyed the opportunity to present the diamond open access, community owned, PaleoAnthropology journal and discuss the situation at the Journal of Human Evolution at the NYCEP seminar, City University of New York last week!

Thank you to Larissa Swedell for the invitation.
March 13, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Stephen Chester
Anthropology + @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social's @purgatoriidae.bsky.social worked with a team of researchers to uncover fascinating new details about Mixodectes pungens, a long-mysterious mammal that roamed North America in the early Paleocene, just after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Stephen Chester and Team Unlock Secrets of Mysterious 62-Million-Year-Old Mammal - Brooklyn College
New Findings Illuminate Ancient Species and its Evolutionary Connections to Modern-Day Humans.
brooklyn.edu
March 14, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Stephen Chester
Our early mammal ancestors had drab boring fur colors.

Why make yourself all bright and shiny when you're only coming out at night, to avoid those huge dinosaurs?

Exciting new research on fossil melanosomes from Matthew Shawkey & team! My thoughts for @popsci.com:

www.popsci.com/science/earl...
Early mammals were all one color, study suggests
Their fur may not have been flashy, but it served a purpose.
www.popsci.com
March 13, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Our new paper led by Jordan Crowell on the oldest known plesiadapiform cranium is out! If you're in Baltimore, set your alarm and check out more cool work from our lab at Jordan's 8:15 AM talk on Friday #AABA2025

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
March 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Stephen Chester
A new study by Prof. Stephen Chester uncovered surprising new details about Mixodectes pungens, a long-mysterious mammal that roamed North America just after the extinction of the dinosaurs www.gc.cuny.edu/news/stephen... @purgatoriidae.bsky.social
Stephen Chester and Team Unlock Secrets of Mysterious 62-Million-Year-Old Mammal
New findings illuminate an ancient species and its evolutionary connections to modern-day humans.
www.gc.cuny.edu
March 11, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Excited to share our new paper on the most complete mixodectid fossil ever discovered! Phylogenetic results support Mixodectes as most closely related to primatomorphans (primates and colugos) among mammals.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
www.nature.com
March 11, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Happy Fossil Friday! I was happy to see the admittedly ugly but cool ceratopsian horn I picked up 13 centimeters below the pollen-defined K-Pg boundary many moons ago is now on permanent display at the Yale Peabody Museum!
February 28, 2025 at 4:46 PM
I’m back to my old stomping grounds with Tyler Lyson and team at the Yale Peabody Museum today! I first met Tyler in Elisabeth Vrba’s Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory course in 2006, and we've been collaborating ever since…
February 27, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Check out our children’s book on paleontology and life in the Eocene! This work stems from our NSF funded research on mammalian response to the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum in the Wind River and Bighorn basins of Wyoming.
digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/165/
A Day in the Badlands: A 52 Million-Year-Old Safari Adventure
with Amy Chew, Christopher Gilbert, Ross Secord, and Stephen Chester Illustrations by Jenn Paul • Book design by Aaron Sutherlen About the Badlands Fossils -- This story tells about the fossils of anc...
digitalcommons.unl.edu
February 26, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Hi, I’m Stephen and I study how primates and other mammals evolved following the extinction of the dinosaurs. I run the Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory (“MEML”) at Brooklyn College and look forward to sharing our discoveries with you!
February 25, 2025 at 11:53 PM