Monographs of the Palaeontographical Society, Editor
Since May 2021 I am a co-editor of the Monographs of the Palaeontographical Society. I have previously had a monograph published in this series, one of the o...
About Me
I am a palaeontologist currently working at the University of Bristol. I’ve been especially excited about marine reptiles for many years and have been lucky enough to work on them for my PhD and first postdoctoral position. Mostly I research ichthyosaurs – fish-like marine reptiles alive at the same time as dinosaurs – but more recently have been looking at the evolution of other marine reptiles.
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Curriculum Vitae
Present
Postdoctoral Senior Research Associate
I am a senior research associate at the University of Bristol on the NERC funded BETR project examining the recovery of tetrapods after the end-Permian extin...
2021
An injured pachypleurosaur (Diapsida: Sauropterygia) from the Middle Triassic Luoping Biota indicating predation pressure in the Mesozoic
In this paper I worked with Chinese collaborators mostly based in Wuhan, with Ms Liu Quiling as part of a project supervised by Tian Li and Cheng Long (Liu e...
Open Research Prize Symposium
I was selected to present at the University of Bristol Open Research Prize 2020 Symposium, after submitting a case study for how Tom Stubbs and I approached ...
2020
Ichthyosauria
A long time coming, but hopefully should be a useful addition. Darren Naish and I contributed a chapter to the Kimmeridge Clay volume of the Palaeontological...
Some Exciting Evolution of Marine Reptiles
The joy of a lockdown and online working is being able to invite and speak around the world in places you otherwise might not be able to get to. Sure you mis...
Exploring Ichthyosaurs in the 21st Century
I was invited to talk to Bath Geological Society on 5 November 2020 – fireworks night and the beginning of Lockdown 2 (this time it’s personal) – an auspicio...
Evolution of ecospace occupancy by Mesozoic marine tetrapods
This paper is the result of a MSc project by Jane at the University of Bristol. It resulted from an earlier study using quantitative ecospace modelling (Bush...
Ordinary Committee Member
I’ve been a member of the Palaeontographical Society Committee since 2017, contributing to the running of the society.
Early high rates and disparity in the evolution of ichthyosaurs
Rates of evolution in ichthyosaurs have been considered a few times previously (Fischer et al. 2016, Motani et al. 2017), but not at the level of the whole g...
2019
Phylogenetics in Palaeobiology Workshop
In late 2019 I was asked to help lead a workshop at Nanjing University entitled Phylogenetics in Palaeobiology alongside Mike Benton and invited and hosted b...
Measuring diversity, ecology, and evolution in marine tetrapods
This workshop at China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China was to introduce students to the research and innovations of the Biosphere Evolution, Transiti...
Edward Forbes Prize awardee
I was awarded the 2019 Edward Forbes Prize by the Palaeontographical Society for my monograph Ichthyosaurs of the British Middle and Upper Jurassic. Part 2. ...
Convergence and functional evolution of longirostry in crocodylomorphs
This project was completed by Antonio while he was an MSc student at the University of Bristol. We used CT scan data of two crocodiles: Pelagosaurus, from 18...
Effects of body plan evolution on the hydrodynamic drag and energy requirements of swimming in ichthyosaurs
As part of her PhD, Susana Gutarra has been modelling ichthyosaur hydrodynamics, investigating the effects of body morphology on their swimming ability. This...
Does exceptional preservation distort our view of disparity in the fossil record?
What started out as a summer project led by Tom Stubbs started growing into an exploration of methods for calculating diversity. This was done by Joe Flanner...
Postdoctoral Research Associate
My first postdoctoral position was part of a Leverhulme Trust funded project to research the palaeontology of the Strawberry Bank lagerstätte, a Toarcian (Ea...
2018
Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting, Co-organiser
I helped to organise the 2018 PalAss Annual Meeting along with Jakob Vinther, John Cunningham, Tom Davies, Phil Donoghue, Emily Rayfield, Dani Schmidt, and o...
Ichthyosaurs of the British Middle and Upper Jurassic. Part Two. Brachypterygius, Nannopterygius, Macropterygius, and taxa invalida
While part one of this monograph covered one taxon, Ophthalmosaurus, part two includes three different ichthyosaur taxa, and a few others that aren’t conside...
Attenborough and the Sea Dragon, Scientific Advisor
I was invited to advise and contribute to this documentary during the proposal stage, and following commission, further advised on the anatomy, scanning, and...
2017
Morphofunctional diversity in Toarcian (Early Jurassic) ichthyosaurs
This was my second presentation at a Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference, after Berlin in 2014, although this one will probably stick in my memory ...
2016
Ichthyosaurs of the British Middle and Upper Jurassic. Part One. Ophthalmosaurus
Ichthyosaurs have been a relatively common fixture of UK palaeontology since Mary and Joseph Anning’s discoveries around early 1810s, but the best specimens ...
Evolutionary trends in ichthyosaurs: post-Triassic ‘stagnation’?
This is a fairly direct follow up to my 2014 SVP talk in Berlin using an updated version of my large ichthyosaur phylogeny (Moon 2019) and doing a more compl...
2015
PhD Geology
My PhD thesis is entitled “Ichthyosaurs of the British Middle & Upper Jurassic & the Evolution of Ichthyosaurs”. My three chapters covered distinct q...
The skull and endocranium of a Lower Jurassic ichthyosaur based on digital reconstructions
In a first for ichthyosaurs we presented a 3D reconstruction and endocranium of the Early Jurassic ichthyosaur Hauffiopteryx typicus, as part of Ryan Marek’s...
Progressive Palaeontology, Co-organiser
I got to help our with the organising of the 2015 ProgPal conference, mostly in making the booklet for the conference (PDF) and driving for the field trip to...
The fossil record of ichthyosaurs, completeness metrics and sampling biases
For her MSc project Terri Cleary assessed how ichthyosaur skeletal completeness varied through time using metrics devised by Mannion & Upchurch (2010) an...
2014
A new species-level phylogeny of the Ichthyopterygia and analysis of macroevolutionary trends
My first visit to a Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting was in 2014 when it came to Berlin. Not only was this a great chance to visit the Museu...