Punk and Emo made the cover!
Our two Silurian aculiferan fossils Punk ferox and Emo vorticaudum made the cover of this week’s Nature issue!
Pierre
Two punk-looking fossils harmonize the early history of mollusks
Mollusks, which include snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses, represent one of the most diverse animal groups on Earth today. This is certainly true for aforementioned organisms that form one of the two main branches of the mollusk evolutionary tree, but […]
National radio coverage about Setapedites
On May 22nd, I had the visit of Swiss journalist Cécile Guérin of the Science and Health radio program CQFD produced by the RTS, for an interview about the work led by PhD student Lorenzo Lustri on Setapedites abundantis published earlier this […]
Synziphosurine from Fezouata documents the early evolution of chelicerates
Modern scorpions, spiders and horseshoe crabs belong to the vast lineage of arthropods, which appeared on Earth nearly 540 million years ago. More precisely, they belong to a subphylum that includes organisms equipped with pincers used notably for biting, grasping […]
A Neotropical armoured catfish from the Cretaceous of Morocco
South America is considered the place of origin and initial diversification of freshwater catfishes, based on the fact that the most basal clades–Diplomystidae (velvet catfishes) and Loricarioidei (suckermouth and armoured catfishes)—are all endemic to the Neotropical region (South and Central […]
National radio coverage for the discovery of the Cabrières Biota
This time I was interviewed about our discovery of the Cabrières Biota by journalist Camille Crosnier for her column Camille passe au vert in the French science radio program La Terre au carré produced by France Inter. The column, broadcasted today, can […]
International radio coverage for the discovery of the Cabrières Biota
On March 23rd, Allison Daley of the University of Lausanne and myself joined ardent amateur paleontologists Sylvie and Éric Monceret in Cabrières for the recording of an episode of the weekly science radio program Science in Action produced by the BBC World […]
An Ordovician polar ecosystem unearthed near Cabrières, southern France
Today our international team led by Farid Saleh of the University of Lausanne and Bertrand Lefebvre of the Lyon University introduces a new fossil site that has been uncovered in the French department of Hérault through the perseverance of two […]
Development of the marrellid arthropod from the Fezouata Shale
Today’s arthropods –critters with jointed legs that contain today’s crabs, beetles, or spiders– often show very complex development with their juveniles and larvae living and feeding in a different way than the adults. A classical example is a flying butterfly with […]
Gilsonicaris, not an Early Devonian anostracan but a polychaete annelid
For over 200 years, since Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville first used the term palæontologie in 1822, later giving rise to the English word ‘palaeontology’, this discipline has faced with the challenge of interpreting fossils that bear no resemblance to any known […]