Dr Susannah Lydon
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susieoftraken.bsky.social
Dr Susannah Lydon
@susieoftraken.bsky.social
4.6K followers 1.3K following 1.6K posts
Palaeobotany | Scicomm | Associate Prof in Plant Science, Nottingham, UK | Vogon poet | Views my own | She/her
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Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
iancjeffrey.bsky.social
A tree clothed in the Filmy-fern Hymenophyllum tunbrigense at Ceunant Llennyrch NNR. Transported for a moment to the Macaronesian laurissilva. We can only imagine what virgin temperate rainforest looked like in the Welsh uplands now - perhaps this was a more common sight @bsbibotany.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
jeremywyman.bsky.social
This new work investigates rhizotaxy on 3 rhizomorphic lycopsids including the unusual Mississippian-aged Oxroadia. We highlight the development of rhizotaxy on a juvenile Oxroadia as well as on the extant Isoetes. If you’re interested check out academic.oup.com/aob/advance-...
@annbot.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
mariapopova.bsky.social
The fascinating and touching story of how humanity saved the ginkgo (in case you need your faith in humanity restored) www.themarginalian.org/2025/09/23/g...
How Humanity Saved the Ginkgo
Pressed between the pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — a favorite book of my childhood, which my grandmother used to read to me and which still dwells in her immense library &#…
www.themarginalian.org
November 14, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
ichnologist.bsky.social
For #FossilFriday & in honor of @alinemghilardi.bsky.social & colleagues' fantastic discovery of a new Cretaceous pterosaur in Brazil in a dinosaur regurgitalite ("fossil vomit"), here's a diagram I made for my book 'Dinosaurs Without Bones' (2014) showing the physics of a puking brachiosaur. 🧪🦕🤮🪨
Cartoon depicting the black silhouette of a brachiosaur (long-necked dinosaur) vomiting from 14 meters (45 feet) above, and two small theropod dinosaurs fleeing from its impact; the deadly result of the impact velocity is shown in the upper right as a partial theropod skeleton with a splatter pattern around it. The cartoon has the following text: Brachiosaurus projectile vomiting: forces generated and resulting traces "Assuming 50 kg (110 lbs) of regurgitant, impact velocity from 14 m (45 ft) height, and hard-packed sand as impact site," and "Impact velocity = V = V 2gh = 16.6 m/s; kinetic energy before impact = 6,860 J Average impact force = 68,600 N." An original figure by me (Anthony J. Martin) in my book 'Dinosaurs Without Bones' (2014, Pegasus Books).
November 14, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
restingdinoface.bsky.social
Need a weekend read? Check out my love letter to ecosystems past, When the Earth Was Green. 🌱
When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance
Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance
bookshop.org
November 14, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
jonburkeuk.bsky.social
They market their cars as weapons and we allow them on the same roads as children cycling to school.

And I still get weird middle-aged men in my notifications obfuscating for and defending this.

This is not a serious society.
Huge Range Rover that looks like a tank.
November 13, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
helleborezine.bsky.social
Our Piper at the Gates of Dawn jumper stirred a bit of Satanic Panic! Thank you, @davidmbarnett.bsky.social, for covering this story for The Guardian.

By popular demand, you can get the jumper that got banned from Westminster Abbey here: everpress.com/hellebore-pi...
Guardian headline: 'Demonic' Wind in the Willows jumper banned from Westminster Abbey
November 14, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
cintylee.bsky.social
Billion year old shallow water stromatolitic carbonates contact metamorphosed. Green layers with diopside and occasional grossular garnet. Sedimentary layers are preserved, including ripples! Franklin Mountains, El Paso, Texas.
November 13, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
timfedak.bsky.social
A merry and very, very,... old #ChristmasTree. These #NovaScotia pine cones may be from the Cretaceous! Learn more at: museum.novascotia.ca/blog/very-ol...
Two fossil pine cones, about 6-7 cm long cones with scales. Specimen number NSM024GF32 and 1 cm scale bar.
November 14, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
lbflyawayhome.bsky.social
Other work by the Ladybird artists
‘November on the Dorset Coast’
Whitbread calendar 1971
Artist: SR Badmin
Close-up of the flora to be found in autumn along a coastal hedgerow near white cliffs
November 13, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Some more #Charnia content this #FossilFriday, but this time Charnia grandis reins. stat. It had been synonymized with C.masoni and mostly used for gigantic specimens of what is now C.brasieri but its strange rhomboidal branches are very distinct. the 1st branches are 45o and 2nd are at 90o
specimen of C grandis showing rhomboidal branching plaster cast at The Rooms opposing leaf like charnias parallel to current so not felled but growing along the seafloor in our opinion schematic showing the 1st and 2nd order branches of all the charnia species
November 14, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
derbyshiredro.bsky.social
The Green Man is a pagan symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth each spring. Here we have a beautiful architectural depiction on one of Derby’s oldest coaching inns, Mr Jorrocks Public House, taken in 1988.
#PhotoFriday #EYAReligion/Spirituality
A carving of The Green Man on the corner of a building. It shows a man’s bearded with leaves and pine cones around his head, and fruit underneath. A bunch of grapes is carved further up the wall. The carving is brightly painted – the foliage bright green, grapes purple and the face has blue eyes, a brown beard and rosy cheeks.
November 14, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
tomsharperocks.bsky.social
#FossilFriday: Amongst the 'Ichthyodontes Cuspidati' illustrated by Edward Lhuyd in his 1699 book on British fossils, Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia, no. 1328 stands out. It's a tooth of Megalosaurus from the type locality of Stonesfield in Oxfordshire.
Detail of a plate from a 1699 book on British fossils illustrating fish teeth, one of which is a tooth of the dinosaur Megalosaurus.
November 14, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
saralilplants.bsky.social
A first for me and @geologyjohnson.bsky.social to see trilobites in the wild. Look at the beautiful preservation 😍

Rocks likely heterolithic limestone with black shake and chert interbeds from late Devonian-early Carboniferous from southern Belgium.

#FossilFriday
A trilobite fossil with clear view of segments amongst a death assemblage of other marine fossils (like crinoids) preserved in limestone. Size about two human fingernails long. A very small trilobite rear end the size of pinkie finger nail. The segments are very well preserved. There is a bryozoan fossil next to it too. Close up of a trilobite fossil with clear view of segments surrounded by other marine fossils. Size about two human finger nails long.
November 14, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
aldpaleo.bsky.social
We have a new Dr in #paleobotany! Congratulations to @thibault-durieux.bsky.social who successfully passed his viva. It was a great journey & he made the advising job very easy for
@petermoonlight.bsky.social, Carla Harper and I. Big thanks to the examiners Jenny McElwain & @sandyheth.bsky.social!
November 14, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
apmahonen.bsky.social
By combining molecular genetics with cell-ablation experiments, we found that vascular cambium stem cells and xylem-identity cells form an interchangeable unit, a stem cell niche. Meticulous work by @xixizhang9001.bsky.social, Ondrej Smetana, Jing Zhang & Xiaoyu Wang 1/x www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Auxin transport positions stem cells in the vascular cambium during normal development and regeneration | PNAS
The vascular cambium contains bifacial stem cells producing secondary phloem in one and secondary xylem to the opposite direction. In Arabidopsis r...
www.pnas.org
November 14, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
tweetisaurus.bsky.social
Massive congratulations to my buddy Aubrey Roberts for her work that has made the front cover of Science today! Aubrey talked about it this morning at #2025SVP
November 14, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
chriso1.bsky.social
November 14, 2025 at 7:08 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
nataliajagielska.bsky.social
Love this Rhamphorhynchus specimen held in the Natural History Museum Karlsruhe. It's like seeing a pterosaur in flight, stuck in time.
In this specimen, preserved in the fine silt of the Jurassic Solnhofen Lagoon, not only was the complete, sessile skeleton preserved, but also the wing and tail membranes, as well as previously unknown internal structures. The complete preservation of the trailing edge of the wing membrane is exceptional. It was discovered on this fossil that the wing finger is supported on its back by a wedge of connective tissue, which ensures a perfect airfoil profile but renders the wing finger immobile. Furthermore, under filtered UV light, the finest structures can be discerned within the wing membrane: connective tissue that stabilizes the membrane, blood vessels, and remnants of the wing membrane muscles.
November 14, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
newphyt.bsky.social
New light on old stones: a fossil #fungus in #symbiosis with one of the oldest known land plants

@chistinesd.bsky.social, et al.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@dromius.bsky.social @ffercoq.bsky.social #PlantScience

Summary also available in French and Spanish.
November 14, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
nhmbryozoa.bsky.social
#FossilFriday Painted black to enhance contrast, a pair of cheilostome colonies encrusting a test of Echinocorys from the English Chalk. Bryozoans are exceedingly common on the tests of this infaunal echinoid which had to be exhumed before encrustation.
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
babeandoak.bsky.social
ALT Text benefits everyone

Alt text helps with accessibility, identifying/explaining elements you might not get to in your posts and makes your posts/work more discoverable - Make sure to toggle it on to “require alt text” in your settings
Writing alt text infographic “WRITING ALT TEXT - IDENTIFY WHO - EXPRESSION - DESCRIPTION - COLOUR INTERESTING FEATURES “A capybara looking relaxed in a hot spa. Yellow yuzu fruits are floating in the water, and one is balanced on the top of the capybara’s head”
November 13, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
jackryeo.bsky.social
At the
November 14, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
vajra.me
You can still get a copy of the limited special edition of THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS from Inkstone btw! Signed, numbered, sprayed edges and other fancy touches. Excellent gift for the bookish people in your life (if I do say so so myself) inkstonebooks.com/product/sain...
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera - Limited Edition - Inkstone Books
Signed & Numbered First Edition of The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, with sprayed edges and case foiling.
inkstonebooks.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Dr Susannah Lydon
samthielman.com
Goodness me, I stayed up late reading and it’s already Partially Muscled Skeleton Screaming by the Perimeter Fence Day. Hope you’ve all been good this year!
A panel from Watchmen no. 4 drawn by Dave Gibbons. Script by Alan Moore.
November 14, 2025 at 5:34 AM