Matt Friedman

@friedmanlab.bsky.social

1445 Followers 954 Following

Vertebrate evolutionary biologist | Professor University of Michigan | Director & Curator UMMP | he/him/his

X-ray projection through the body of a fossil fish showing a chain of vertebrae.
Radial phylogenetic tree of passerine birds, with branches colored according to evolutionary rate. Color drawings of select species decorate the tips. A set of bivariate plots are shown as four panels below.
Selfie of three people smiling in an airport.
Photograph of a fossil fish with a high dorsal fun missing the skull.
Selfie showing several people smiling in front of a screen showing another person.
Slide depicting a set of fishes against a deep blue background. It advertises a talk titled "Teleost fish evolution in the Cenozoic: New insights from Paleogene ichthyofaunas from the Eastern Desert of Egypt" by Sanaa El-Sayed. It lists her affiliations and dissertation committee.
Advertisement for academic talk. It features a photograph of Hesham Sallam and includes the following text: Beyond the Pyramids: Discovering Egypt's Ancient Life Internationally recognized paleontologist Professor Hesham Sallam, Director of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center, Egypt, and National Geographic Explorer will give a special public lecture titled "Beyond the Pyramids: Discovering Egypt's Ancient Life." Wednesday, July 15 at 7:30 p.m. Kraus Auditorium Biological Sciences Building
Photo of a presenter at a lectern with a screen of talk acknowledgements behind them.
Fossil starfish on a piece of slate.
Sunset over a lake.
Photograph of Lepidocybium against a blue-green background with a wooden ruler. The fish looks like a mackerel that is colored in splotches of brownish-black. Image shared under CC-BY-NC: by Hamid Badar Osmany, from https://fishbase.se/photos/UploadedBy.php?autoctr=34620&win=uploaded
Phylogenetic tree diagram for scombrids. The terminals are illustrated with beautiful depictions of individual taxa. From Brownstein et al. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1257
Rocky cliff face with abundant vegetation. A creek is visible in the foreground.
Section of branching diagram depicting evolutionary relationships of cyathaspidids. Anglaspis and Americaspis are adjacent branches. From: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/spp2.70030
Elliptical fossil preserved in tan rock. Raised features on the surface of this mold record different aspects of internal anatomy.
Puzzle depicting a sculpture of the fossil of a barracuda-like fish and various marine invertebrates.
Gray rock cliff with a river in foreground. The upper part of the cliff is covered in a lush forest.
Limestone bas relief depicting two speared fish in the foreground and stylized papyrus reeds in the background.
Large fossil tooth held in palm.
Cart covered with fossil skulls.
Scale plaster model of a cliff with birds and their nests.
Tail of fossil teleost under preparation. The bone is dark brown against a much lighter matrix.
Complete fossil crab in a specimen tray with labels.
Blue T-shirt lying on a rust-colored rug with diagonal lines. Shirt reads "CAMP EXPLORATIONS" in white, with a eurypterid grabbing the "A" with one of its claws.
Four panel figure showing a fossil fish skull, a 3D model of the surface of the fossil, a rendering of the bones in many colors in a semitransparent matrix, and the bones in isolation.
View of a badlands landscape at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Large fossil fish skeleton in a plaster jacket. Head is mostly missing.
Skull of large mammal from quoted post, but shown in side view on a turntable in a large light box. A camera tripod is visible in the foreground.
Gray 3D print of fish skull with big teeth.
Replica of a dried dodo head. The tip of the beak is white, but the remainder of the head is shades of brown and gray.
Large mammal skull with massive upper and lower canines and chunky molars. The nasal opening is severely retracted.
Side view of a mammal skull with massive, flat teeth and two gigantic cone-shaped extensions on the top of the head.
Small dinosaur skeleton posed on a slab.
Underside of a triangular reptile skull with large, elliptical crushing teeth on the roof of the mouth.
Spade-shaped tetrapod skull, forelimb, and chain of axial elements on a slab.
Cast of a tetrapod-like fish with a spade-shaped head and dorsally facing eye sockets. The body is covered with diamond-shaped scales.
Cast of head and trunk shield of an armored fish. It looks a bit like a turtle shell.
Cast of a jawless fish that looks a bit like an old banana.
Smiling person holding a white resin replica of a coelacanth.
A fossil lungfish burrow in a specimen tray with label. It looks like an unassuming rock.
Multi-panel figure showing ordination of faunal similarity (left) and coarse taxonomic composition as a function of paleolatitude (right).
Multi-panel figure showing images of fossil fishes. So many percomorphs.
A multi-panel figure showing fossil fishes.
Tiny scraps of black fossil bone on brown/gray rock. A scalebar is on the left, with mm gradations shown.
Sanaa and two colleagues perched on an outcrop, excavating fossils.
Multi-panel figure depicting incomplete fossil fishes.
Fossil fish specimen in the field, with a coin for scale.
Photograph of geological exposure on a monumental scale in Egypt. Sanaa is visible as a tiny figure.
Matt and Sanaa, looking much younger.
Two paleontologists smiling and wearing academic regalia.
Image showing stacked morphospace plots, showing an increase in spiny-rayed fish diversity between the Cretaceous and Paleogene. From Friedman (2010) Proc. Roy. Soc. B.
Abstract and title of a scientific paper. Title of paper is "An overview of the early fossil record of acanthomorphs" and the author is Colin Patterson.
Embryonic Matt holding a fossil and standing between two curators. One on the left (Jim Tyler) is holding a modern fish skull. Bearded curator on the right (Dave Johnson) is chuckling. A filled bookcase is in the background.
Picture of museum storage, with paper taped to cabinet reading "FISH."
Articulated marine acanthomorphs from the Paleocene (Danian) Tenejapa-Lacandón Unit of Chiapas, México. A, the syngnathiform †Eekaulostomus cuevasae (Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City, MéxicoMéxico, IGM 4716). B, the incertae sedis percomorph †Kelemejtubus castroi (IGM 4864). C, the putative serranid percomorph †Paleoserranus lakamhae (IGM 4550). D, the pomacentrid percomorph †Chaychanus gonzalezorum (IGM 1183). All images provided by Kleyton Cantalice. Scale bars equal 10 mm. From Friedman et al. 2023 Geologica Belgica.
Title page of an article in The Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society titled "On the fossil fish of the Cretaceous formations of Scandinavia."
Diagram showing a stratigraphic column with pie charts and paleogeographic reconstructions. The pie charts indicate composition of marine fish faunas, which are dominated by percomorphs from the Eocene. The paleogeographic reconstructions show locations of fossil sites. In the Eocene especially, these are at high latitude. From Friedman et al. (2015) Geol. Soc. Lond. Spec. Publ.
Illustration of many fishes swimming in sunlit blue water.
A very large egg in a foam cavity mount.
Colorful illustration of a figure wearing the skin of a leopard and carrying a harp. A snake coils around their ankles. It is lying on an opened envelope.