Sarah Losso has joined the lab. Sarah has an undergraduate biology degree from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She’ll be working on a group of Early Ordovician dimeropygids as part of the big Ibex project.

Adrain, J.M. & Westrop, S.R. (2016) Testing for taphonomic bias in deep time using trilobite sclerite ratios. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 463, 205–215.

Our work on using multielement trilobite exoskeletons as proxies for taphonomic overprint in deep time has finally seen the light of day. It can be downloaded on the publications page.

This paper contributes to what has become something of a theme, debunking various ludicrous claims of globally distributed Cambrian index species. Species of Irvingella have been abused in the same fashion as those of many agnostoid arthopod genera by fantasists championing supposed global distributions in the service of new Cambrian stages and their boundaries. This is mostly unscientific nonsense. Here we demonstrate that claims about Irvingella tropica and Irvingella angustilimbata don’t pass the laugh test, once you actually take a modern look at the material.

It can be downloaded on the publications page.