WitmerLab at Ohio University

@witmerlab.bsky.social

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21st-century approaches to fleshing out the past! Mission: to use the structure of past & present animals to interpret evolutionary history...and to share it!

Two empty cans of Jackie O's "Dinosaurs on TV" hard seltzer sit in a stool with a T. rex brain endocast. A Triceratops endocast and various tyrannosaur parts are in the background.
The cast of the full skeleton of Brachiosaurus mounted outside the northwest terrace of the Field Museum in Chicago, silhouetted by the sun. I took this photo in 2011. In 2022, the cast was dismantled and recycled due to weathering damage, which is sad.
Figure 1 from Degrange et al. 2026 (https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.252544) showing the brain endocast of the stem-anseriform Conflicto as well as the endocast within the transparent fossil skull and a life restoration by H.S. Druetta.
The WitmerLab team that worked the "Unearthing a Story" event at the Athens Public Library. In front is Ohio University undergrad Casey Funk and standing (from left) former master's grad student Daniel Dunfee, former PhD student Ruger Porter, and Larry Witmer.
Witmer stands next to a tall display cabinet filled with dinosaur skull casts at the Athens Public Library, which he just set up in advance of his upcoming public dinosaur event at the library next Tuesday, June 16th: https://bit.ly/4xrOiSM.
Members of the Deep Time Cognition grant team outside the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From left: Ryan Ridgely, Milly Mead, Mathias Osvath, Helena Osvath, Fraser Weston, George Poon, Kristina Kverková, Simon Grendeus, Thibault Boehly, Lona Lalić, Adam Manning, Larry Witmer, Thomas Rejsenhus Jensen, Steve Brusatte, Pavel Němec.
Smiling members of the Deep Time Cognition project at a pub in Edinburgh, Scotland).
OHIO rising senior Casey Funk scanning a Laysan albatross skull on the OU microCT scanner.
Three books written by Steve Brusatte sit on a table, each adorned with a relevant skull: an ostrich for the bird book, a Velociraptor for the dinosaur book, and an opossum skull for the mammal book.
Justyna Słowiak of the Institute of Paleobiology at the Polish Academy of Sciences poses with the disarticulated skull bones of the Mongolian tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus, while surrounded by other tyrannosaur skulls.
A specimen of Pinacosaurus that was described in 2003 by Rob Hill, me (Witmer), and the late great Mark Norell was made the holotype of a new species—Pinacosaurus hilwitnorum—in an article this week by Paul Penkalski. By combining the first three letters of each author's name, he honored our 2003 collaboration (https://bit.ly/4nC5PTU).
Justyna Słowiak with the full skeleton of the same adult Tarbosaurus specimen (ZPAL MgD-I/4) in the museum space at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw
Justyna Słowiak of the Institute of Paleobiology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, seated at a workstation working on CT scan data of a braincase of the Mongolian tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus.
Justyna Słowiak of the Institute of Paleobiology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, seated at a bench in WitmerLab surrounded by casts of skull bones of the Mongolian tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus.
Phil Currie and me (Witmer) at the CurrieFest event, celebrating Phil's 50 years in Alberta and honoring his contributions to paleontology and his profound influence on so many people, myself included!
Larry Witmer and Jared Voris stand behind a wonderful skull of a juvenile Gorgosaurus.
Graduating Ohio University senior Grace Vance holds her complete and submitted senior honors thesis on cranial vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals. In front of her on a table is the skull of an adult male hooded seal.
First page of the Livius et al. (2026) article in JVP: https://bit.ly/48oGPZG. Superimposed on the page is a Zoom screen capture of Marissa Livius' master's proposal defense from May 2021 with Jordan Mallon, Witmer, Hillary Maddin, Michael Ryan, and Marissa.
Eric Boll peers through the jaws of Tyrannosaurus rex, along with a copy of the Michael Crighton novel Jurassic Park, which according to his research was, along with the movie, a major influence on news coverage of paleontology and dinosaurs in the 1990s.
Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆
A traditional chocolate Easter bunny with a microCT-scan-based rendering of a rabbit skull (OUVC 9527) in place.
The articulated skull of a huge specimen of the sauropod Camarasaurus—the Gunma Museum specimen (GMNH-PV 101)—sits on a table surrounded by the disarticulated cast bones of the same specimen, arranged roughly in position for comparison. Also, nearby at left is the skull of the Carnegie Museum specimen of a juvenile Camarasaurus (CM 11338). OHIO freshman Klazina McKeigan set this up to help her learn dinosaur skulls. A bunch of theropods skulls also share the table space.
A volume rendering of CT scan data of a sabertooth cat collected from the Las Brea Tar Pits (FMNH P12418) in right oblique view.
Bobcat to Boilermaker! We're thrilled to announce that Grace Vance, Ohio University senior in the OHIO Honors program who is completing her senior thesis in our lab on vascular diving adaptation in seals, will be joining Dylan Wainwright's lab at Purdue University as a PhD student this fall! Grace also was accepted into the internship program at Friday Harbor Laboratories near Seattle and Vancouver for this summer! Congratulations on all your success, Grace!
Ohio University freshman Klazina McKeigan at the Field Museum in Chicago with SUE the T. rex (FMNH PR 2081).
Another Ohio University undergraduate joining our lab this semester is Klazina McKeigan, a freshman in Biological Sciences. As a high-school senior, Klazina was accepted into the highly competitive Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine Early Assurance Program, meaning that she's already been accepted to our medical school (where I'm also faculty)! But for now, Klazina is starting research on her other passion, which is dinosaurs! As a kid, she visited dino haunts like the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, and this week (our spring break) she's been in Chicago visiting the Field Museum. This semester she's been digging into skull structure of birds and reptiles...and now starting into dinosaurs, as with the disarticulated Majungasaurus skull she's working on here! Stay tuned for more!
OU sophomore Stella Kurtz joined our lab this semester and has taken on the mountain of Ohio bobcat skeletons that we've been preparing since the pandemic. The carcasses were collected by the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources as part of a censusing project in collaboration with OU biology professors & students (but not WitmerLab folks), who collected age, sex, size, DNA, & precise locality data. The carcasses were to be destroyed but I swooped in before that happened (bones have stories to tell, too!). I held Bobcat Dissection Parties during the pandemic with the OU Wildlife Club and others, and our team also participated...a LOT. We now have dozens and dozens of data-rich skeletons. Right now, Stella is making sense of the collection, doing much needed curation, and becoming acquainted with the whole project. We are indeed the OHIO Bobcats sports-wise—and our team mascot is Rufus, the bobcat's species name: Lynx rufus—so who'd be better than us to have a nice collection of Ohio bobcats!
Issue of the journal Nature depicting on its cover Nanotyrannus together with T. rex (art by Anthony Hutchings). Article by Lindsay Zanno & James Napoli here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09801-6
Volumetric renders of CT scans of two intact alligators and three Nile crocodile skulls.
A photo taken through the gantry of the CT scanner at OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio, featuring an alligator carcass surrounded by Witmer and undergraduate researchers Klazina McKeigan and Grace Vance.
From https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70150. FIGURE 10 Life reconstruction of the head of Triceratops prorsus with nasal soft tissues inferred in the present study shown. Soft tissues include the main narial nerves and blood vessels, nasal gland, nasolacrimal duct, and respiratory turbinate. Note that the nasolacrimal duct and respiratory turbinate were inferred mainly in centrosaurines. Artwork by K. Sakane. n & bv, nerves and blood vessels; ng, nasal gland; nld, nasolacrimal duct; rt, respiratory turbinate.
Witmer poses with freshman undergrad researcher Klazina McKeigan and her brother Alexander and our T. rex skull (AMNH 5027) as part of a tour for Sib Weekend.
Witmer studies a slab of the Cretaceous bird Ichthyornis at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science.
The book The Voices of Nature by Nicolas Mathevon sits on a table surrounded by skulls of the animals depicted on the cover (which were all drawn by the author's dad, Bernard Mathevon!) The skulls are American robin (Turdus migratorius, OUVC 9766), spectacled caiman (Caiman cf. C. crocodilus, OUVC 11550), northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris, OUVC 9581), and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, OUVC 10571).
The tiny skull of a ruby-throated hummingbird (OUVC 10851) sits on the tip of a finger. The even tinier humerus of this bird sits in front of the skull.
Cover of the Ohio University student newspaper, 30 years today (Jan 8th).
Wisdom the Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) — band number Z333 — also known as the mōlī in Hawaiian language, has returned to her nest site on the sands of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Jon Plissner / USFWS / public domain). Photo and caption from https://bit.ly/4qu6IxN
Disarticulated skeleton of a mōlī (Laysan albatross, Phoebastria immutabilis, OUVC 10448), with the separated bones laid out on a table and spelling "Happy New Year."
Why Santa's elves hate dinosaurs...! 🎄🎅🦖. A Santa's hat hangs from the jaws of a festive Tarbosaurus.
Getting in the spirit...! The bony foot of the ornithomimosaur Gallimimus busts through a Christmas stocking with the caption "Dinosaurs make the best stocking stuffers...!"
To honor the passing of John Noble Wilford, on a table sit a copy of the New York Times from Aug 3 2001, showing his front-page article covering the publication of an article I wrote in Science, which is also on the table. Also in the photo is a copy of Wilford's book The Riddle of the Dinosaur, published in 1985 and which I read as a young grad student.
Volume renderings of CT scan data of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541). The top image is mostly a left lateral view. The bottom image is a ventral view showing the caudal half of the hyoid bone preserved in place.
The book "Unearthing the Dragon" published in 2005 by Mark Norell (1957–2025)and Mick Ellison, with a blurred T. rex skull cast in the background. The T. rex is a specimen (AMNH 5027) from the American Museum of Natural History where Mark worked for many years.
Life restoration by Matheus Fernandes showing a Triassic scene with the lagerpetid non-pterosaurian pterosauromorph Ixalerpeton with early pterosaurs flying overhead. The publication is here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01467-8
"Bird Brains and Behavior: A Synthesis" book by Georg Striedter & Andrew Iwaniuk, surrounded by birds skulls and 3D printed brain endocasts of, from left, ostrich, golden eagle, African grey parrot, American crow, and wild turkey. The pale turquoise endocast is that of a New Caledonian crow.
Philippe Taquet & Witmer in Dr. Taquet's office (19 July 2007, Paris)
James Napoli, Witmer, and Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Caitlin Colleary with the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) for CT scanning (June 2023).
The figure used in my News & Views commentary. I generated the CT-based rendering of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541), based on a recent scan. The lower image was done by the Nature art department.
Witmer with a 3D print of the brain endocast of Tyrannosaurus rex on exhibit at the Fukui Prefecture Dinosaur Museum in Fukui, Japan, based on CT scanning of AMNH 5117.
Seishiro Tada dissects a snapping turtle head that previously had been injected and then microCT scanned.