Check out the latest installment of PBS Eons addressing the evolution of the earliest echinoderms, more specifically how starfish got their arms! We are particularly excited as the cover artwork, as well as a good chunk of the video, features our recent work on the early Ordovician somasteroid (stem-group asterozoan) Cantabrigiaster fezouataensis, from the Fezouata biota in Morocco. You can check out the original publication in Biology Letters describing this...

The past month has seen the publication of two exciting studies focusing on the preservation and evolutionary significance of fossilized central nervous systems. First, a collaboration with Dr. Russell Bicknell (University of New England) and colleagues, on the discovery of an exceptionally preserved brain in the extinct horseshoe crab Euproops danae from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek deposit in Illinois. The study published in ...

We are delighted to wecome Dr. Karma Nanglu as the newest member of the Laboratory for Invertebrate Paleobiology and Evolution. Karma recently completed a prestigious Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution, and completed his PhD at the University of Toronto while working on exceptional soft-bodied fossils and community analyses of the famous Burgess Shale. Karma's ecological knowledge and skillset will play a critical role in our activities studying the early Ordovician Fezouata biota of Morocco and its...

It's finally official! We have received confirmation that the proposal "Ecological turnover at the dawn of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event - quantifying the Cambro-Ordovician transition through the lens of exceptional preservation" will be fully funded through the...

The Lab for Invertebrate Paleobiology and Evolution at OEB/MCZ and Harvard  stands firmly with the Statement Against Asian Hatred published by the Paleontological Society, the flagship scientific society for our discipline in the United States. We stand with and support the Asian members of our community in the face of systemic atrocities stemming from misinformation...