First mini I managed to (sort of finish! Quite an achievement for an artistically impaired individual such as myself...

Can you guess where I am spending the long weekend? #paleontology

everything is a JoJo reference

given the deluge of new followers, a new introduction is appropriate: I am a palaeobotanist with a passion for fossil leaves of all kind, but expecially cycad leaves! Other interests include supporting plant paleoart, TTRPGs, food, beer and wine! I also sometimes write on my blog mariocoiro.blog

the results? Cycad morphological space continued to expand after the Jurassic, and its position continuosly shifted through time. Extant cycad leaves are not a leftover of a great past diversity, but rather continue to evolve and diversify up to the present!

we used morphological data for fossil and extant cycad leaves, the fossils that started the whole 'living fossil' idea in the first place, and employed a phylogenetic tree that we generated last year with Fabien Condamine, Remi Allio, and Nathan Mazet

I am positively impressed by the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin! Their cycad collection is quite stunning, and their Wood's cycad is healthy (and huge!) 🌱🌾🧪

my google scholar word cloud is quite striking. I am not suprised I struggle to find a job with such a mish mash... 🧪🌾

"The same kind of relation that common ostrich bears to (Petisse & diff kinds of Fourmillier): extinct Guanaco to recent: in former case position, in latter time. "
Charles Darwin, Red Notebook

my candidate is the transitional Nelumbonaceous fossil Notocyamus hydrophobus, from the Early Cretaceous Crato formation in Brazil , by the amazing @rebdart.bsky.social.

I just discovered that one of my botanical 'heroes', Agnes Robertson Arber, published her first paper on cycads! She was a botanist and philosopher of science with a unique an deep perspective on science, and it is an honor to have her amongst the ranks of the cycadologists!

no Halloween for me this year. Hopefully next year my wife and I can go back into it! This is her as Delirium from @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com

I agree, Cycadales are heavenly. Though one could argue they are equally hellish...

Hi, I am Mario, a paleobotany postdoc currently in Vienna. I work on seed plant macroevolution integrating fossils, phylogenies, anatomy, and ecophysiology.

what a fantastic tool! Here is the word cloud based on my publications. Quite heterogeneous!

since I am starting to be active here, an intro is due: I am a postdoc in Paleobotany in Vienna, working on plant macroevolution with a focus on late Mesozoic seed plants (with a particular fondness for Cycads) . I am also into beer, wine, board games, food, and music.

Yeah I’m religious. I believe in the holy trinity.