Location: The Literary, 122 N. Neil St., Champaign, IL 61820 Date and time: Sep 26, 2024, 6:00 – 8:00 pm Contact: Nichole Samson, samson@illinois.edu Fundraiser – Friends of Paleontology: The One Where They Played Trivia The FUNdraiser is meant to be entertaining and educational and to raise funds to help support the mission of the Illinois […]
News
Team examines pterosaur vertebra
Paleontology graduate student Cariad Williams was part of a research team that used X-ray computed tomography and 3D modeling to examine the internal structure of an azhdarchid pterosaur vertebra, finding that it was filled with dozens of spiky structures that crossed one another like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Read more about the findings […]
50 million-year-old fossil assassin bug has unusually well-preserved genitalia
The fossilized insect is tiny and its genital capsule, called a pygophore, is roughly the length of a grain of rice. It is remarkable, scientists say, because the bug’s physical characteristics – from the bold banding pattern on its legs to the internal features of its genitalia – are clearly visible and well-preserved. Recovered from […]
Cariad Williams, paleontology Ph.D. student
Cariad Williams is pursuing a Ph.D. in entomology at the University of Illinois and is advised by paleontology curator Sam Heads. Read more about her research interests and her path to studying paleontology in this short profile.
National Science Foundation awards more than $480,000 to amber preservation project
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded more than $480,000 to a Prairie Research Institute (PRI) project to preserve and digitize an extensive collection of Dominican amber that is in danger of deterioration without proper curation and care. The plants, arthropods, and vertebrates captured in the amber provide insights into life 16-18 million years ago, […]
Researchers describe new extinct fossil grasshopper
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and paleontology curator Sam Heads described a new genus and species of fossil grasshopper of the extinct family Elcanidae, from the Cretaceous of China. Check out those leaf-like metatibial spurs! View the paper’s abstract.
Researchers describe new fossil leafhoppers
INHS researchers Chris Dietrich and Michael Jared Thomas have described two new extinct fossil leafhoppers—Eoidiocerus emarginatus and Archipedionis obscurus—embedded in 37–44 million-year-old Baltic amber. Both fossils are part of the PRI Paleontology Collection. Read the full paper.
Researchers describe new Crato Formation insects
Check out this new paper by Vladimir Makarkin, Sonja Wedmann, and PRI Paleontology Collection curator Sam Heads: A systematic reappraisal of Araripeneuridae (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontoidea), with description of new species from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil: http://ow.ly/iQvP30ikJ2M.
Visit from retired ISGS palynologist
We had a special visitor at the Illinois Paleo Collection last week—Dr. Russ Peppers, a retired researcher from the Illinois State Geological Survey that specialized in the study of fossil pollen and spores.
Researchers describe new species of lacewing
Today we bring you a newly described species of lacewing: Parababinskaia elegans gen. et sp. nov. from the late Aptian Crato Formation of Brazil. The holotype specimen—housed in the INHS Paleontology Collection—was described by Vladimir Makarkin, Sam Heads (INHS), and Sonja Wedmann in a recent issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.