Zach Cofran
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dizachster.bsky.social
Zach Cofran
@dizachster.bsky.social
1.6K followers 79 following 300 posts
Associate professor of Anthropology, HEAD (Human Evolution and Development) Lab @ Vassar College. Bones & brains. lawnchairanthropology.com
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dizachster.bsky.social
Happy Thanksgibbon everyone!
Gibbon sitting on a colorful wooden bench, holding a small kangaroo on its lap. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/jgzgcl/a_gibbon_on_a_bench_holding_a_kangaroo/
November 27, 2025 at 9:47 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Awesome new hominin fossils from Ethiopia 3.5 million years ago, by Yohannes Haile-Selassie & co www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The new juvenile hip bone 😍 (left in image) has a long ischium like other juvenile Australopithecus (center) and unlike later humans like Homo naledi (right)
Three hip bones in side view, arranged side-by-side; left-most is a screenshot with a photo of an original fossil, center and right are 3D models of two other fossils
November 26, 2025 at 5:54 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Gibbons Are Great reason one million: absolutely small apes with relatively big brains
Two graphs showing the relationship between brain size and body size among primates, highlighting gibbons and the great apes; both generally above the primate regression line (bigger brains than expected for their body sizes)
November 18, 2025 at 9:52 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Walrus popping out of the water to say good evening
November 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Thanks to @archaeojake.bsky.social and the Penn State Anthropology department for letting me explore some ideas about the evolution and development of our quirky cousin Homo naledi
Title slide that reads "From the Cradle to the Grave: Homo naledi and the evolution of development, Zachary Cofran Vassar College, Penn State University, November 11 2025." The slide includes an image of a globe centered on the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, next to an image depicting many individuals of the species Homo naledi preparing to toss a dead body into a cave.
November 11, 2025 at 8:05 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
In ANTH 120 today we made footprints using different walking gaits, testing whether the 3.6 million year old footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania were made by hominins that walked like us today

(attempting to replicate this study: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...)
Room with a rectangular sandbox laid across a blue tarp. The sandbox has two trackways of footprints, and the blue tarp is covered with sand.
November 6, 2025 at 4:35 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
One of my Virtual Anthropology students is looking at primate endocasts using data from Morphosource, and they found this massive gorilla brain (630 ml) lurking inside a very cresty cranium

Original data here: www.morphosource.org/concern/biol...
October 30, 2025 at 5:28 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Jazzed to continue studying gibbon craniofacial growth with a fun new group of collaborators
Oblique view of a gibbon skull rendered in 3D, semi-transparentwith bone in green and teeth in white; orange spheres represent anatomical landmarks. All against a solid black background
October 27, 2025 at 9:20 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
my students know me too well
October 22, 2025 at 3:23 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Halloween witch holding the Berg Aukas femur fossil
October 18, 2025 at 4:24 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Check out this incredible hand skeleton from one of our weirdest extinct cousins, Australopithecus (or Paranthropus) boisei, just published by @carriemongle.bsky.social and colleagues #FossilFriday

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
hand bones depicted in their anatomical positions, laid within the outline of a fleshy hand. A caption at the top reads, "Fig. 3: Reconstructed left hand of KNM-ER 101000" Screen shot of the abstract of the linked paper that reads, "When Mary Leakey discovered the OH 5 cranium of Paranthropus boisei alongside Oldowan stone artefacts, it was declared “the oldest yet discovered maker of stone tools”1. Whether Paranthropus made and used tools has been debated ever since2,3,4, largely because there are no known hand bones that can be definitively attributed to this genus. Here we report fossil hand and foot bones unambiguously associated with craniodental material of P. boisei. KNM-ER 101000 demonstrates that P. boisei shared key manipulative and bipedal adaptations with the genus Homo. Moreover, the hand morphology of KNM-ER 101000 converges on that of gorillas in ways that are consistent with manual food processing and would have facilitated powerful grasping, such as that used in climbing. These fossils suggest that P. boisei was capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supporting the proposed dichotomy of distinct dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo. In addition to offering insights into the poorly known postcranial functional anatomy of Paranthropus, this discovery illuminates broader patterns of hominin hand evolution and tool use." Two sentences about hand function are highlighted in green.
October 17, 2025 at 4:24 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
In ANTH 120 this week we examine the "digit ratio" comparing the relative length of the second and fourth fingers, and which correlates with social behavior in primate species.

Homo naledi (South Africa ~300,000 years ago) has the highest ratio of any fossil hominin (article: bit.ly/474OVoP)
a graph on the left compares the "2P:4P ratio" among living and fossil apes (including humans), while the right-side shows an articulated fossil hand skeleton A darkened lab with brown paper covering the walls, the brown paper itself covered in colorful hand stencils
October 15, 2025 at 12:22 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Today we did the annual ritual of the cave, where students made their hand stencils on the walls of Leang Blodgett, joining generations of Anthropology students before them
October 13, 2025 at 8:15 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
First solder, next sky and sea
October 10, 2025 at 7:07 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Back in the glass workshop, switching from arboreal to aquatic mammals
Stained glass pieces cut and arranged as a walrus face
October 3, 2025 at 1:10 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Showing some work in progress at #ESHE2025 - Homo naledi inner ears, inside-out #FossilFriday

(with @ameliebeaudet.bsky.social Gideon Chinamatira and @johnhawks.net)
Nerd standing next to research poster presentation titled “The bony labyrinth of Homo naledi”
September 26, 2025 at 3:28 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
September 3, 2025 at 9:21 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
This Homo naledi silhouette is sending me

(Source: www.nature.com/articles/s42...)
Evolutionary tree with different human fossil species represented as silhouettes, all of which are standing like normal ppl except for Homo naledi which is apparently running for its life arms flailing
September 3, 2025 at 12:36 AM
dizachster.bsky.social
First day of school! Easing into the semester with my "Virtual Anthropology" (methods) intensive course

Syllabus: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Banner for course syllabus that reads: "Anth 211 / Virtual Anthropology (Intensive) / Fall 2025." Beneath the text are four views of a Neandertal fossil skull rendered from 3D models
September 2, 2025 at 8:23 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Paleozoic fossil brachiopod sabotages the stony steps of my office building #FossilFriday
August 29, 2025 at 8:38 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Stumbled upon the devil’s lair in Dublin City center
Photo of a shiny ugly building in whose window you can see the Workday logo boooo workday
August 21, 2025 at 6:23 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
Stapes in a haystack (or inner ear vestibule)
Four panels arranged 2x2. Three show 2D "slices" through a bone in black-and-white tones, with shapeless flecks highlighted in green and red. The fourth panel shows a 3D view of the components highlighted in the other panels: a beaker-shaped bone of the middle ear
August 20, 2025 at 6:26 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
forcing it upon us while warning us of its problems 🫠
August 18, 2025 at 12:30 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
just learned you can throw a fucking wrench into the gears of Google's shitty unsolicited AI overview (swears necessary)
screenshot from a Reddit thread stating: "You can simply [add] a "cuss" word to you search, and [Google's AI overview] won't show up. Ex. What is the price of milk? ... = ai overview. What is the fucking price of milk?..= no ai overview. YOU'RE WELCOME!"
August 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
dizachster.bsky.social
A juvenile hip bone of 300,000 year old human cousin Homo naledi. Bony struts on the inside (right panel) are arranged to help withstand forces experienced during life, providing clues about how Homo naledi moved their bodies through their world #FossilFriday
August 8, 2025 at 1:28 PM