Hermsen Lab

Modern and fossil fruits of golden raintree ( Koelreuteria ). Credits: Modern fruits (E.J. Hermsen); fossil fruit (National Park Service) I have posted a new page on Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life (DEAL): Fruit & seed dispersal. You can find it here:  https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/embryophytes/angiosperms/dispersal/

Festive sauropod skull at the Mef In early January, I traveled to Trelew, Argentina, to examine fossils from the Cretaceous La Colonia and Eocene Laguna del Hunco floras held at the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (Mef) in Trelew, Argentina. These fossils included mosquito ferns ( Azolla ), which I am studying with colleagues María A. Gandolfo and Nathan Jud of Cornell University. Check out our recent abstract from the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (2017) here .

Laguna del Hunco A new paper describing fossil Ceratopetalum (coachwood, New South Wales Christmas bush) fruits has been published in Annals of Botany . The paper documents new winged fruits from the early Eocene (ca. 52 million years old) Laguna del Hunco flora of Chubut Province, Patagonia, Argentina. I co-authored the paper with Dr. María A. Gandolfo of Cornell University. Update (March 2017): A short synopsis of the paper can be found in the Content Snapshots  section of the March 2017 issue of  Annals of Botany. 

Eucalyptus,  Natural Bridges State Beach, California The  October 2015 Land for Wildlife South East Queensland newsletter  features a summary of a 2012 paper on Eucalyptus from the early Eocene (ca. 52 million-year-old) Laguna del Hunco flora of Patagonia, Argentina, by Doug Mohr. I co-authored the  original study , which was featured in the August 2012 issue of  American Journal of Botany,  with María A. Gandolfo of Cornell University and María del Carmen Zamaloa of the Universidad de Buenos Aires.