with @lhliow.bsky.social , Emanuela Di Martino, Piotr Kukliński, and Anna Piwoni-Piórewicz

We worked out its evolutionary relationships and suggest an origin for this weird beast by an evolutionary lengthening of development, or peramorphosis. Take a read :)

Castaneametra (named for its resemblance to the chestnut) had a record ~1,000 cirri or claw-like appendages on its underside. It's also probably the largest known feather star, and had big internal cavities which we think were adaptations for respiration at large size.

Colleagues, including my partner, with years of service at the agency. Some Permanent POs reclassified as Probationary. Exceptional scientists who were former professors at major institutions, and came to NSF to serve the community and ensure science thrives in the US.

Thanks for sharing, didn't know about his woodturning powers. Just read the story of the MBL group in David Sepkoski's book, includes some funny anecdotes of Raup trying to moderate Schopf the paleo-radical:

I could be on here for invertebrate paleobiology, especially of crinoids :)

Short, non-technical summary here: t.co/7jeLYMAMX0

A simple ecological drift model captures the relationship between species age and extinction risk, here in graptolites and probably in other groups too. Points toward role for competition in extinction (like Red Queen)