James Rawson

Extremely excited to share the first paper from my postdoc, out today in Proceedings B @RSocPublishing ! We explore the diversity of jaw morphologies in lepidosaurs 🦎🐍 and its evolutionary drivers. Read all about it here: doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2… #Evolution #morphology #reptiles

@NAnthwal Thanks so much Neal, very happy to see this out!

Congratuations James, Emily and co. Fascinating work!

Another day another jaw-dropping discovery in mammal evolution! 🦴 Fossils from southern Brazil reveal mammal ancestors experimented with jaw and ear features millions of years earlier than thought! 🔍 👉https://bhttps://brnw.ch/21wNc3r @UoBEarthScience @JimBobJud

Pleased that our paper on mammalian jaw evolution is out today in @Nature. First paper from James’ PhD arising from on-going collaboration with our friends and colleagues Pam Gill, @agu_martinelli, @MarinaBentoSoa2 and Cesar Schultz. Thread 🧵👇

@bonz_us @Nature @GraphicsSci Indeed, it was nice to confirm Crompton's findings in a Triassic taxon, especially since Riograndia seems to show a more basal morphology than Diarthrognathus/Pachygenelus

NEW PAPER!🚨Very pleased to announce that the first paper from my PhD on mammalian jaw joint evolution has been published today in @Nature! nature.com/articles/s4158… Graphical abstract by @GraphicsSci

Very excited to see the results of so much collaborative work published! Huge thanks to all my coauthours/supervisors @agu_martinelli, Pamela Gill, @MarinaBentoSoa2, Cesar Schultz, @jemilyr @BristolPalaeo and to @SWBio_DTP @NERCscience for making this project possible!

By contrast, we found no dentary-squamosal contact in Brasilodon, the closest relative of mammaliaforms. This means that the lineage of cynodonts that include Riograndia likely evolved this feature separately. Jaw joint evolution in cynodonts is more flexible than we thought!

Widespread convergence towards functional optimization in the lower jaws of crocodile-line archosaurs ow.ly/FpCc50T7bCO | #ProcB #Biomechanics #Evolution #Palaeontology

This paper was distilled out of work done for my MSci thesis I completed back in 2021. Very glad to see it out and thanks to my coauthors @digitalpalaeo @DrTLStubbs @PalaeoTom @jemilyr @glpcjd for seeing it through!

We also found that resistance to Von Mises stresses (i.e. jaw strength during biting) is actually not a strong driver of morphology in our lower jaws, and may operate as a minimum boundary for viable shapes.

NEW #OpenAccess PAPER OUT TODAY from @BristolPalaeo! Here we explore the morpho-functional diversity of crocodile-line archosaur lower jaws, from their diverse origins in the Triassic to the crocodilians of today royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Thrilled to see these mind-blowing specimens published. Every day working on the tomographic data revealed new intricate details. I still can’t quite believe that they exist, never mind that I got to work on them. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Super proud to announce my first publication: doi.org/10.1098/rsos.2…. A big thanks to all those involved, @jfabrombacher @anjgoswami @tomezard, Alex Searle-Barnes and Marisa Sweeney!

@digitalpalaeo 😮

Just trying something fun - the reconstructed evolutionary pathway of the jaw, from the ancestor of modern crocs to the American Alligator