Ksepka Lab
@ksepkalab.bsky.social
Paleontologist specializing in birds (especially penguins) and dabbling in choristoderes + sauropods. Curator at the Bruce Museum. All opinions are my own.
Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for Centuriavis lioae, a 10 million year old fossil relative of turkeys. It was a lot of fun describing this stunning specimen with Catherine Early, Kate Dzikiewicz, and Amy Balanoff. The fossil is named after our amazing museum colleague Suzanne Lio.
November 27, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for Centuriavis lioae, a 10 million year old fossil relative of turkeys. It was a lot of fun describing this stunning specimen with Catherine Early, Kate Dzikiewicz, and Amy Balanoff. The fossil is named after our amazing museum colleague Suzanne Lio.
Come at me bro! Did you know ants can ward off elephants that attack their acacia tree homes? Learn how ants and plants work form mutualistic relationships in Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives at the Bruce Museum. On view through May 17th.
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
November 25, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Come at me bro! Did you know ants can ward off elephants that attack their acacia tree homes? Learn how ants and plants work form mutualistic relationships in Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives at the Bruce Museum. On view through May 17th.
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
Our little birdy made the cover of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Amazing how a bird sank to the bottom of Fossil Lake 51 million years ago and ended up entombed in sediments that perfectly match the background color/texture of the journal.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
November 21, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Our little birdy made the cover of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Amazing how a bird sank to the bottom of Fossil Lake 51 million years ago and ended up entombed in sediments that perfectly match the background color/texture of the journal.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Did you know ants communicate through scents? We built an ant "smell station" simulating some of the smells ants create, ranging from a pleasant chocolate odor that trap-jaw ants use to say 'back off" to a rotten egg smell used by African stink ants to call for help.
November 14, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Did you know ants communicate through scents? We built an ant "smell station" simulating some of the smells ants create, ranging from a pleasant chocolate odor that trap-jaw ants use to say 'back off" to a rotten egg smell used by African stink ants to call for help.
Thousands of species interact with ants, as predators, prey, or mutualists. Headlining the list are the anteater and aardvark of course. These life-like specimens are on loan from the Yale Peabody Museum.
November 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Thousands of species interact with ants, as predators, prey, or mutualists. Headlining the list are the anteater and aardvark of course. These life-like specimens are on loan from the Yale Peabody Museum.
Ant architecture is on full diplay, with a 20x life size field ant nest crafted by the one and only Sean Murtha and 9 aluminum nest casts from the inventor of the poured aluminum technique himself, Walter Tschinkel. These are works of art!
November 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Ant architecture is on full diplay, with a 20x life size field ant nest crafted by the one and only Sean Murtha and 9 aluminum nest casts from the inventor of the poured aluminum technique himself, Walter Tschinkel. These are works of art!
Learn about ant castes, like minors, supermajors, soldiers and of course honeypot ant repletes, who store food for their nestmates in their own bodies. I think of them like living soda dispensers.
November 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Learn about ant castes, like minors, supermajors, soldiers and of course honeypot ant repletes, who store food for their nestmates in their own bodies. I think of them like living soda dispensers.
Then it is time for the head-spinning diversity of ants. Some amazing scaled up ant heads here, many thanks to scans shared by Evan Economo's lab. Stunning photos by @alexwild.bsky.social compliment models and specimens here and throughout.
November 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Then it is time for the head-spinning diversity of ants. Some amazing scaled up ant heads here, many thanks to scans shared by Evan Economo's lab. Stunning photos by @alexwild.bsky.social compliment models and specimens here and throughout.
Seriously, lift those panels, they are great! Huge thanks to Kelly McQuade for figuring out how to make a realistic set of scurrying ants to give people that spine-tingling feeling of lifting a rock and watching them swarm.
November 14, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Seriously, lift those panels, they are great! Huge thanks to Kelly McQuade for figuring out how to make a realistic set of scurrying ants to give people that spine-tingling feeling of lifting a rock and watching them swarm.
Next, check out your "share" of ants. Patrick Schultheiss, Sabine Nooten & colleagues calculated there are 2.5 million ants for every person on Earth:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
We visualize this w/ a cube (cuboid for my nerds). Plus, lift those panels for animated ants per square ft displays.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
We visualize this w/ a cube (cuboid for my nerds). Plus, lift those panels for animated ants per square ft displays.
November 14, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Next, check out your "share" of ants. Patrick Schultheiss, Sabine Nooten & colleagues calculated there are 2.5 million ants for every person on Earth:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
We visualize this w/ a cube (cuboid for my nerds). Plus, lift those panels for animated ants per square ft displays.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
We visualize this w/ a cube (cuboid for my nerds). Plus, lift those panels for animated ants per square ft displays.
Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives is officially open at the Bruce Museum! Enter the tunnel and you will meet "Buckley", our five foot long scaled-up Dinoponera ant.
Buckley is named after her creator, the great Dan Buckley.
The smaller ant is my daughter, dressed as an alate queen for the opener.
Buckley is named after her creator, the great Dan Buckley.
The smaller ant is my daughter, dressed as an alate queen for the opener.
November 14, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives is officially open at the Bruce Museum! Enter the tunnel and you will meet "Buckley", our five foot long scaled-up Dinoponera ant.
Buckley is named after her creator, the great Dan Buckley.
The smaller ant is my daughter, dressed as an alate queen for the opener.
Buckley is named after her creator, the great Dan Buckley.
The smaller ant is my daughter, dressed as an alate queen for the opener.
Get ready to enter the tunnel and explore the realm of natures tiny dynamos. Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives opens November 13th at the Bruce Museum!
November 7, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Get ready to enter the tunnel and explore the realm of natures tiny dynamos. Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives opens November 13th at the Bruce Museum!
This weekend is the last chance to see Charlie the Polar Bear and all his Arctic pals in On Thin Ice: Alaska's Warming Wilderness at the Bruce Museum Saturday and Sunday we host our 43rd Annual Outdoor Arts Festival, so make it a double play Bruce weekend!
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 2:01 PM
This weekend is the last chance to see Charlie the Polar Bear and all his Arctic pals in On Thin Ice: Alaska's Warming Wilderness at the Bruce Museum Saturday and Sunday we host our 43rd Annual Outdoor Arts Festival, so make it a double play Bruce weekend!
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
@brucemuseum.bsky.social
I love that the dinosaurs in the background are Pachyrhinosaurus - the same genus as the Bruce Museum's friendly greeters at the school group entrance. These guys are always there, rain or shine, to remind me why I come in every morning.
October 8, 2025 at 4:12 PM
I love that the dinosaurs in the background are Pachyrhinosaurus - the same genus as the Bruce Museum's friendly greeters at the school group entrance. These guys are always there, rain or shine, to remind me why I come in every morning.
October is here and nothing sets the Halloween mood like some spessartine on black quartz! On view in the Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery at the Bruce Museum.
Happy #MineralMonday!
Happy #MineralMonday!
October 7, 2025 at 8:06 PM
October is here and nothing sets the Halloween mood like some spessartine on black quartz! On view in the Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery at the Bruce Museum.
Happy #MineralMonday!
Happy #MineralMonday!
Often tempted to change the locality of this spectacular selenite specimen to Fortress of Solitude. On view in the Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery at the Bruce Museum.
Happy belated #MineralMonday
Happy belated #MineralMonday
September 30, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Often tempted to change the locality of this spectacular selenite specimen to Fortress of Solitude. On view in the Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery at the Bruce Museum.
Happy belated #MineralMonday
Happy belated #MineralMonday
This may have to do with the way great penguins incubate - out in the open, with eggs on their feet. That may have made them tempting targets for Haast's eagle. Smaller penguins in modern NZ nest in burrows and/or come ashore at night to avoid predators.
Art: Simone Giovanardi
Art: Simone Giovanardi
September 26, 2025 at 7:29 PM
This may have to do with the way great penguins incubate - out in the open, with eggs on their feet. That may have made them tempting targets for Haast's eagle. Smaller penguins in modern NZ nest in burrows and/or come ashore at night to avoid predators.
Art: Simone Giovanardi
Art: Simone Giovanardi
The surprise is that the fossil from comes from New Zealand, and dates to three million years ago. This penguin was living in a warmer environment, with sea surface temperatures estimated to be 10–20°C warmer than they are in the regions modern king and emperor penguins inhabit.
September 26, 2025 at 7:28 PM
The surprise is that the fossil from comes from New Zealand, and dates to three million years ago. This penguin was living in a warmer environment, with sea surface temperatures estimated to be 10–20°C warmer than they are in the regions modern king and emperor penguins inhabit.
The skull probably belongs to Aptenodytes ridgeni, but since that species is poorly dated and known only from leg bones, we can't be 100% certain. It was about 10% larger than modern emperor penguins and had a more powerfully built beak.
September 26, 2025 at 7:28 PM
The skull probably belongs to Aptenodytes ridgeni, but since that species is poorly dated and known only from leg bones, we can't be 100% certain. It was about 10% larger than modern emperor penguins and had a more powerfully built beak.
On #FossilFriday I am proud to share a new discovery - a skull of a large extinct relative of king and emperor penguins.
@atennyson.bsky.social, Daniel Thomas, Felix Marx,
and I report this magnificent skull in Journal of Paleontology:
https://
bit.ly/4ne3HQV
@atennyson.bsky.social, Daniel Thomas, Felix Marx,
and I report this magnificent skull in Journal of Paleontology:
https://
bit.ly/4ne3HQV
September 26, 2025 at 7:27 PM
On #FossilFriday I am proud to share a new discovery - a skull of a large extinct relative of king and emperor penguins.
@atennyson.bsky.social, Daniel Thomas, Felix Marx,
and I report this magnificent skull in Journal of Paleontology:
https://
bit.ly/4ne3HQV
@atennyson.bsky.social, Daniel Thomas, Felix Marx,
and I report this magnificent skull in Journal of Paleontology:
https://
bit.ly/4ne3HQV
Thrilled to be at the Patuxent Research Refuge for the judging of the 2025 Federal Duck Stamp contest. This program conserves millions of acres of wetland habitat and brings out the best in wildlife art!
September 19, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Thrilled to be at the Patuxent Research Refuge for the judging of the 2025 Federal Duck Stamp contest. This program conserves millions of acres of wetland habitat and brings out the best in wildlife art!
Preparations for Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives are kicking into high gear! You know we gotta have honeypot ants, and Sean Murtha is crafting some juicy ones. Meanwhile Dan Buckley is creating a super-sized 5 foot long Dinoponera. Opening in October at the Bruce Museum!
August 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Preparations for Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives are kicking into high gear! You know we gotta have honeypot ants, and Sean Murtha is crafting some juicy ones. Meanwhile Dan Buckley is creating a super-sized 5 foot long Dinoponera. Opening in October at the Bruce Museum!
Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives is going to be epic! Here is a Dolichoderus ant tending hemipteran ants, combining 3D prints and the magic of Sean Murtha. Meet this ant and over 70 of her friends this November at the Bruce Museum!
July 8, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives is going to be epic! Here is a Dolichoderus ant tending hemipteran ants, combining 3D prints and the magic of Sean Murtha. Meet this ant and over 70 of her friends this November at the Bruce Museum!
Are you very different from your sibling? Gypsum comes in forms, all with same chemical structure. In the Bruce Museum’s Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery you can see ram’s horn gypsum side by side with a selenite crystal. Same mineral formed under different conditions!
Happy #MineralMonday!
Happy #MineralMonday!
July 7, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Are you very different from your sibling? Gypsum comes in forms, all with same chemical structure. In the Bruce Museum’s Robert R. Wiener Mineral Gallery you can see ram’s horn gypsum side by side with a selenite crystal. Same mineral formed under different conditions!
Happy #MineralMonday!
Happy #MineralMonday!
Who is this beautiful little bird? Consoravis turdirostris is a new species from the famous Fossil Lake deposits of Wyoming. The name Consoravis means "companion bird", forming a phonetic group with the closely related Morsoravis ("Mors bird") and Sororavis ("sister bird").
July 4, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Who is this beautiful little bird? Consoravis turdirostris is a new species from the famous Fossil Lake deposits of Wyoming. The name Consoravis means "companion bird", forming a phonetic group with the closely related Morsoravis ("Mors bird") and Sororavis ("sister bird").