And now here we are, after the first round of lab work in November with Yvonne de Rijk, a visiting Master’s student, starting to look at proteomic data from a number of elasmobranch species and further analysing dermal denticle morphologies!

October saw my first attendance at a shark conference, with the European Elasmobranch Association, and additional museum visits to collaborators in the Netherlands, @rijksmuseum.bsky.social and Rijksmuseum Boerhaave on the quest to find more marine shagreen objects!

September involved visiting many more museums in Denmark including the Marstal Søfartsmuseum on Ærø (which also included a voyage on a replica late 18th c. ship!) and the M/S Museet for Søfart in Helsingør; and lots of preparations for ICAZ-AGPM !

Early December and I am now 4 months into my project, FINS! It’s been a busy and AMAZING start to this project which is so dear to me! August included what would be my first of many visits up to @nhmdk.bsky.social to look at the elasmobranchs in their collections and attending @isba11.bsky.social !

Did you know about the small, wild population of #muskox (Ovibos moschatus) in Sweden? To learn more about their current conservation status, ecosystem services, and latest population inventory, check out our latest paper, published #OpenAccess in Polar Research! doi.org/10.33265/pol...

By using an isotopic niche space approach to our data, it turns out that modern, indigenous Mediterranean fishes today are consuming a wider array of trophic resources, have less trophic plasticity, and experience higher intra-group competition for trophic resources than their ancient counterparts.

With 137 new data points for δ13C and δ15N values from ancient fish in the eastern Mediterranean, we were able to explore how foraging ecologies and trophodynamics have changed in the context of Lessepsian invasions. AND…..

Happy to share our latest publication, “Pre-Lessepsian isotopic niche spaces: using #paleoecological proxies to assess the impact of ongoing bioinvasions on fishes in the eastern #Mediterranean Sea” in Mediterranean Marine Science and available OA here: tinyurl.com/3pzuhx53

One month left at Winterthur Museum and it's been a fruitful and delightful fellowship, I'm so grateful to the great collaborators I have here and to be working on #marine #shagreen objects, including this mid 19th c. sword from Germany! 🦈

Image courtesy of Winterthur, photo by Nat Caccamo.

I've been at Winterthur Museum for a bit over a month and I've seen many #marine #shagreen objects including 19th c. swords with #shark skins on their grips (see photo 1), started Hirox microscopy on musuem objects, and enjoyed the plethora of flowers coming into bloom here! 🦈🌸

With Week 1 drawing to a close, it's been a brilliant start at Winterthur Museum!

Lots of initial meetings and introductions, including discussing library resources (and equine shagreen😉) with @book-historia.bsky.social and starting to get a closer look at the #marineshagreen objects themselves!🦈

Last week I concluded my year in Toulouse (stay tuned for those papers 😉) and this week I've kicked off my @nehgov.bsky.social fellowship at Winterthur Museum to begin working on #marine #shagreen! Still settling in this week but very excited for the next few months here! 🦈

So a final update from my recent trip to Egypt: I got to meet up with one of my collaborators, learn about modern salted fish products, namely #fesikh (فسيخ) from a new friend, Rayah, and I started building up my Nilotic fish collection!

Some of the #fish I saw this year at Medinet Habu, Abydos, and the temple of Hatshepsut! Featuring both #Nilotic and #marine species!

I got back from Egypt this week and of course I can't go anywhere without keeping an eye out for #MarineShagreen so here are a couple of the gorgeous pieces I saw at the Abdeen Palace Museum in Cairo!

The @oceanspast.bsky.social's January 2025 Newsletter has just been sent out! 🐟⛵🦈🐳🐙⚓🦀

If you would like to stay up to date with current research in the field and join our mailing list please get in touch with me here or at info@oceanspast.org !

Sending this from a train on my way back to Toulouse after a spectacular couple of days in Paris for #IZAZ 2024! It was so nice to convene with many of the folks working with #ZooMS (*and* to get to talk about fish and #MarineHistoricalEcology 🐟🦈)!