Apropos of publishing ethics in paleo gone astray and *absolutely* not "current events", a former colleague once tried to institute a rule that nobody at @CofCNatHistory could publish in journals with an Impact Factor lower than 5.0. I ignored them and continued to publish in journals w/ IF from anywhere between 0.9 and 10+. That's because I think that fossils that fill pedestrian or esoteric gaps in knowledge are worth studying, and there's no shame in publishing pedestrian/esoteric papers.

The Brazilian mystery flipper is NOT a cetacean! A short thread about a weird looking, unidentified appendage found on a beach in Brazil in November. Here's the original story: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar… What do we know? The skeleton is surprisingly articulated despite losing all of the external flipper tissue, and it is large, and it has enlarged digits 2-4 and hyperphalangy. Humerus is large and oddly shaped, larger & longer than radius/ulna.

SEA LIONS! That orca/sea lion/boat video is making the rounds right now. What are sea lions? Where did they come from? A thread about sea lion evolution! 🧵(1) Sea lions have been recognized as fin footed carnivores along with fur seals, earless seals, and walruses for over a century; paleontologists, mammalogists, and molecular biologists have found various evidence indicating they are caniform ("dog branch") carnivores (2)