We're well into 2018, and I finally have a moment to pause and think about what this year will hold for our profession and our professional society. Here are my (personal and unofficial) thoughts on what 2018 might bring.   Increased civic engagement by paleontologists. In the wake of the controversies surrounding Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, many of us are paying more attention to the in... Read More

Last week, I was interviewed by a major American TV program regarding potential changes to the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and how it might impact paleontology. Of course, I spoke about the importance of the monument for the science, and how monument status and its accompanying infrastructure facilitate research. In the moment, though, I also had a realization--monument recognition and protection of thes... Read More

P. David Polly President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology pdpolly@indiana.eduTwo weeks ago I visited Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on behalf of SVP. Largely spurred by finds of Late Cretaceous mammals by Jeffery Eaton and Rich Cifelli, the Monument was created in 1996. The proclamation speaks of “world-class paleontological sites” including the “only evidence in our hemisphere of terrestrial ... Read More

      My last post about two failed attempts to lift a horned dinosaur skull via helicopter was a sour one, given that it has been my pet project these last two years. But I’m back with good news: the third time’s a charm!       My research assistant, Scott Rufolo, and I returned to our beloved Chasmosaurus skull in the badlands of the South Saskatchewan River of Alberta ... Read More

Note: This interview was contributed by Christian Kammerer. Zoë Lescaze is an art critic and historian based in New York. I recently met with Ms. Lescaze while she was in Berlin promoting her new book, Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, an enormous tome covering much of the history of the genre. Among the topics we discussed were the destroyed and reconstructed paleontological mosaics on the walls of the Berlin Zoo (figured ... Read More

Following the annual meeting, we're highlighting the student and early career award winners from the society. Today we talk with Aaron LeBlanc (University of Alberta; website and Twitter feed), winner of the 2017 Alfred Sherwood Romer Prize, recognizing an outstanding scientific contribution in vertebrate paleontology by a predoctoral student. Aaron received the award for his presentation, "Heterochrony and the Origin of the... Read More

Following the annual meeting, we're highlighting the student and early career award winners from the society. Today we talk with Christopher Griffin (Virginia Tech Paleo [on Twitter here]; professional website here), second place recipient of the Taylor & Francis Best Student Paper Award for his senior authored publication, “The histology and femoral ontogeny of the Middle Triassic (?late Anisian) dinosauriform Asilisau... Read More

Following the annual meeting, we're highlighting the student and early career award winners from the society. Today we talk with Dr. Ornella Bertrand (research website here), first place recipient of the Taylor & Francis Best Student Paper Award for her senior authored publication, “First virtual endocasts of a fossil rodent: Ischyromys typus (Ischyromyidae, Oligocene) and brain evolution in rodents.&rdqu... Read More

Following the annual meeting, we're highlighting the student and early career award winners from the society. Today we talk with Megan Whitney (University of Washington; Twitter feed here), recipient of the Dawson Award for her project, “The Evolution of Mammalian Dentition: Insights from Fossil Synapsid Histology.” Briefly, what is your academic background up to this point? How did you get interested in paleont... Read More

Following the annual meeting, we're highlighting the student and early career award winners from the society. Over the next week or two, we'll be running brief interviews with awardees on the research related to their award. Today we talk with Adun Samathi (Universität Bonn), recipient of the Patterson Memorial Grant for his project, “Theropods of Thailand.” You can read more about him here and here.Briefly, what ... Read More