The beta release of an innovative collaborative stand-alone authoring tool transforms manuscript preparation with semantic enrichment and real-time collaboration capabilities.
Scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft Publishers announces the beta launch of ORPHO, a revolutionary online platform designed to streamline collaborative scientific writing and produce AI-ready, future-proof scholarly literature.
ORPHO presents a significant advancement in scholarly publishing technology, combining intuitive writing features with sophisticated semantic enrichment capabilities. The new platform builds upon Pensoft’s fifteen years of experience as a developer of semantic publishing infrastructure.
Key Features
Within a shared online workspace, researchers can start with built-in customisable templates, create their own or import an existing file. They can then team up with collaborators in real time using track changes, role-based user rights, inline comments, and document-level chat. More significantly, ORPHO automatically structures scientific content according to international publishing standards, making research outputs findable, discoverable, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) once published.
Unlike its predecessor, the ARPHA Writing Tool, ORPHO is available as a standalone real-time collaborative workspace decoupled from journals hosted on Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform. Once a manuscript is ready, authors receive AI-FAIR machine-readable content that can be formatted to meet multiple journal requirements at the click of a button.
The platform’s adaptability to domain-specific workflows is currently being piloted in biodiversity science. ORPHO integrates seamlessly with leading biodiversity data aggregators, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) and PlutoF, via import and export facilities for structured data, making ORPHO particularly valuable for researchers handling taxonomic, ecological and biodiversity data.
ORPHO: A new intelligent workspace for scientific writing.
Why ORPHO?
The name draws inspiration from multiple sources which reflect the tool’s philosophy and heritage. Named after Orphium: a unique plant genus endemic to South Africa whose sole species (Orphium frutescens) is known as the sea rose, ORPHO reflects the platform’s distinctive nature, heritage, and core philosophy.
It also evokes Orpheus, the legendary musician of ancient Thrace whose home region, the Rhodopi Mountains, lies in present-day Bulgaria, where ORPHO’s developer, Pensoft, is headquartered. The name thus honours the tool’s origins whilst embodying the exceptional creative performance it enables.
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Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of Pensoft, comments:
“We are well aware that researchers today face an overwhelming list of formatting requirements and technical demands in an AI-driven landscape. It is true that rapid technological advancement presents both immense opportunities and mounting complexities for researchers.
We built ORPHO to remove that friction by offering an intuitive, collaborative workspace that lets scientists focus on their research. As a scientific publisher, our mission is to make scholarly publishing a seamless, rewarding experience fit for the modern age.”
The beta release invites researchers, institutions and publishing platforms to trial ORPHO and provide feedback. Access is available at orpho.net.
A team of palaeontologists studying penguin fossils from Seymour Island have demonstrated how ancient bird bones can act as chemical archives of past climate change.
A team of palaeontologists from China University of Geosciences (Beijing) studying penguin fossils from Seymour Island off the Antarctic Peninsula have demonstrated how ancient bird bones can act as chemical archives of past climate change.
The researchers used non-destructive X-ray mapping to examine the elemental composition of penguin remains spanning millions of years. As such, they uncovered key insights into how Antarctica shifted from a warm and humid environment to a cooler world.
“Penguins are among the most iconic animals of Antarctica and represent one of the most distinctive groups of birds, having completely lost the ability to fly and instead using their flipper-like wings for swimming.
Seymour Island preserves one of the world’s richest and most stratigraphically continuous records of Eocene penguin fossils. These fossils span an important interval of Antarctic climate evolution, from the relatively warm and humid conditions of the early Eocene to the cooler climate of the middle and late Eocene.”
The Research Team
Sampling area – Tertiary Eocene La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island. Image credit: Boyang Xia et al.
Sampling area – Submeseta Formation on Seymour Island. Image credit: Boyang Xia et al.
To study the rare fossils without damaging them, the researchers used micro-X-ray fluorescence scanning to map chemical elements across the surface of the bones. The scans revealed clear differences in the chemical composition of bones from different geological periods.
Older fossils dating back roughly 55 million years contained significantly higher levels of titanium, silicon and potassium. The team linked these chemical patterns to intense land-based weathering and heavy runoff during an ancient warm period, whereas younger fossils from cooler periods showed much lower elemental signals.
“The most surprising result was that the early Eocene fossil showed substantially higher titanium, silicon and potassium signals.
Based on the stratigraphic, sedimentological and palaeoclimatic evidence, we interpret this pattern as being consistent with stronger continental weathering and terrestrial material input under the warm and humid conditions of the early Eocene.”
“One of the main challenges was obtaining reliable elemental information without damaging the fossils.
The irregular shapes and curved surfaces of the fossil bones created practical difficulties during scanning. To minimise the influence of variations in surface height, we positioned the bones as horizontally as possible and maintained a relatively constant distance between the scanning head and the bone surface.”
Overview of the fossil specimens and the µ-XRF scanning area. Image credit: Boyang Xia et al.
Beyond tracking weather conditions on land, the scanning method also detected iron, manganese and sulphur patterns trapped within the bones, reflecting local chemical changes in the marine sediment as the fossils were buried over time.
The team additionally highlights that studying bone geochemistry offers a valuable tool for understanding historical Earth systems alongside traditional techniques such as marine sediment drilling and microfossil analysis.
“An important finding for us was that the elemental information preserved in penguin bones may record not only how external materials entered the bones, but also differences in weathering input, depositional conditions and early diagenetic environments.
We believe that fossils can provide an important complementary source of information for studying palaeoenvironmental changes on the Antarctic Peninsula.”
The study, published in the open-access journal Fossil Record, demonstrates how combining non-destructive chemical scanning with established geological context can unlock valuable environmental data from fossil collections, thus broadening the scope of future polar research.
Original source:
Xia B, Wu H, Li Q (2026) Eocene penguin fossils as archives of Antarctic weathering and climate change: insights from micro-X-ray fluorescence elemental mapping. Fossil Record 29(2): 575-587. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.29.192319
Guest Blog Post by Lara Sciscio and Christian A. Meyer
This study, published in Fossil Record, reports a large bowl-shaped depression from Late Cretaceous fluvial deposits in Bolivia, associated with sauropod trackways. Its morphology and scratch-like traces suggest a biogenic origin, possibly representing titanosaurid digging behaviour or an abandoned nest.
A good mystery always starts with a clue of something that was or shouldn’t have been…
Drone overview of the outcrop in the western part of the Maragua Syncline, Bolivia. Can you spot the palaeosurface with titanosaurid trackways?
The sun beats down on the Bolivian Altiplano as we walk across the rocky grey expanse of a now ancient riverbed, following a trail of fossil sauropod dinosaur tracks. We are in the Maragua region, near Sucre, in the heart of Bolivia.
Studying the trackways, we know they were made by titanosaurs, one of the largest long-necked dinosaurs to have walked the Earth. Then we stop. Within these trackways there lies a large bowl-shaped depression, seemingly carved into the rock. It is ~4 metres wide and over half a metre deep with a frayed, ragged margin.
It is unlike anything our ichnologist eyes have seen before.
Drone view of the Mullurina Mayu surface with the circular structure. Parallel sauropod (titanosaurid) trackways diagonally cut across the surface. Two people are the base of the outcrop are for scale.
Stepping closer, we realise that this is a rare oddity cut into the palaeosurface, and a slew of questions arises: Is this hollow formed by weathering, carved by modern waters? Or is it something older, potentially dug by the largest animals to ever walk the Earth? And then frozen in time?
Excavating loose sand from the structure before taking close-up photos for 3D modelling. In the foreground are titanosaurid tracks.
These questions led us on a scientific detective hunt that stretched back 67 million years, to when titanosaurs walked this part of the Earth. And just short of the asteroid impact that would bring the “Age of Dinosaurs” to an end.
Weathering… or Dinosaurs?
Usually, when we encounter oddly shaped depressions in the rock record, ~99% of the time, the explanation for their formation is weathering and erosion. Nevertheless, you gather evidence and then use it to determine how and what happened. These were our first priorities on encountering the Mullurina Mayu bowl-shaped depression.
As we examined the site in detail, those potential abiotic explanations soon began to fall apart. Hydraulic scours usually have smooth walls and are aligned with the flow of water; weathering pits leave characteristic weathering textures and are grouped in smaller concentrations. This bowl structure had neither, and instead, we noticed many parallel grooves grouped in bundles and oriented around its walls and near its base.
It became evident that abiotic mechanisms were unlikely, and these potential abiotic tool marks (a type of sedimentary structure) were biotic in nature. The presence of these scratch-like marks, their shape, orientations, and distribution indicated that something had been digging.
Close-up of scratch-like marks within an imprint inside the depression (scale bar: 20 cm).
Fingerprints
Our evidence was not in the shape of the depression itself, but the multitude of scratch traces around its perimeter. The walls carried bundles of parallel grooves, ~1 cm wide, several cm’s long, and other isolated claw traces preserved in what would have been mud. These traces were not random but oriented in two directions and indicate movement of an animal’s autopod.
Scratch-like traces associated with sauropod tracks are features known to ichnologists, although a rarity, and have been encountered at several sites, from Colorado (USA), Spain, to Mongolia. Recent discoveries in Mongolia have shown that sauropod feet could leave detailed impressions of their keratinised scales (“fingerprints”). These produce distinct striations, and their patterning and the elongate incisions are evidence that their feet moved through or across the sediment.
The grooves in Bolivia closely resemble those skin-drag traces made by a scaled foot as it repeatedly scraped its feet through and across the muddy riverbank sediment. We infer this as behavioural evidence of an animal, and the most likely is the titanosaur which left its footprints nearby. We had found fingerprints of a titanosaur, excavating, but excavating what?
Building a nest?
This is a question that many may ask: could the titanosaurs be trying to construct a nest? The answer – maybe.
There is a limited body of evidence of nesting scrapes in the fossil record. They are described as depressions which cut into the original sediment (tick), have a distinct rim (tick), and would later be infilled with different sediment (tick!). The strongest evidence for a nest structure, however, would be the presence of eggs, eggshell, or embryos, and this is still missing at the Mullurina Mayu depression. This makes our assumption of nesting less confident.
Instead, we can use the evidence we have to say it was most likely a sauropod dinosaur, using its scaley feet, that excavated the ground, and one possible explanation is that this is an abandoned nesting attempt. Ichnologists advance only because we make careful probabilities rather than claiming certainties where evidence is absent. Nonetheless, this is an exciting discovery for what it shows and for where it leads our imaginations!
What were they doing?
Body fossils (bones) tell us what animals look like, tracks tell us how they moved, how big they may be, and traces like the Mullurina Mayu depression give us a small glimpse of what they were doing. The ichnological (trace) fossil record often captures moments of an animal’s life. Here, we can see a giant titanosaur scraping, digging, and interacting with the environment rather than just looking at its bones.
Whether it was nest scraping, digging for fresh water or mineral salts (like modern elephants) or carrying out some other behaviour we have yet to recognise, what we do know is that the most interesting fossils are not of the animals themselves but the traces of their behaviours, short time shots of their lives, frozen and fossilised in the rock record.
Cover image:
Artistic reconstruction of the Mullurina Mayu bowl-shaped depression during the Late Cretaceous, depicting the probable tracemakers responsible for the Calorckosauripus trackways and possibly the bowl-shaped depression. Illustration by Joshua Knüppe (commissioned 2025).
Original source:
Meyer CA, Heymann JH, Ibarra EC, Flores EL, Sciscio L (2026) Digging Sauropods: excavation behaviour or evidence for nest building? An example from the Late Cretaceous El Molino Formation (Maragua, Bolivia). Fossil Record 29(2): 519-532. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.29.198794
Cute, green, and sporting two sprigs of hair on his head, a mischievous baby dinosaur named Dooly is one of the most beloved cartoon characters in South Korea.
So, when researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the Korean Dinosaur Research Center discovered a new species of baby dinosaur from Korea’s Aphae Island, they knew exactly what to call it: Doolysaurus.
“Dooly is one of the very famous, iconic dinosaur characters in Korea. Every generation in Korea knows this character. And our specimen is also a juvenile or ‘baby’, so it’s perfect for our dinosaur species name to honor Dooly.”
The newly discovered dinosaur species is named after the popular South Korean cartoon Dooly the Little Dinosaur. The titular Dooly is on the left. Credit: ⓒDoolynara.
Dooly the Little Dinosaur (on left) with other characters from the popular cartoon. Credit: ⓒDoolynara.
The baby dinosaur is the first new dinosaur species discovered in Korea in 15 years and the first Korean dinosaur fossil found with portions of its skull. The skull bones were revealed when the fossil underwent a scientific micro-CT scan at the University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (UTCT) facility.
“When we first found the specimen, we saw some leg bones preserved and some vertebrae. We didn’t expect skull parts and so many more bones. There was a fair amount of excitement when we saw what was hidden inside the block.”
Jongyun Jung
Research on the dinosaur, whose scientific name is Doolysaurus huhmini, is published in the open-access journal Fossil Record. The name huhmini honours the Korean paleontologist Min Huh, who has contributed to the study of Korean dinosaurs over the past 30 years, founded the dinosaur center, and worked with UNESCO to preserve dinosaur fossil sites in Korea. The fossil was discovered in 2023 by co-author Hyemin Jo, a researcher at the dinosaur center.
Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the Korean Dinosaur Center with a possible dinosaur skeleton on Aphae Island. From left to right: Julia Clarke, Min Huh, Hyemin Jo, Jongyun Jung. Credit: Jongyun Jung.
The dinosaur found by Jo is estimated to be about two years old and was still growing when it died. It’s about the size of a turkey, but an adult Doolysaurus may have grown to twice that size. It also may have been covered in a coat of fuzzy filaments.
“I think it would have been pretty cute. It might have looked a bit like a little lamb.”
Julia Clarke, study co-author and a professor at the Jackson School
The fossil is largely encased by hard rock, which can take close to a decade for a trained preparator to excavate by hand. But analysis of the micro-CT scan revealed the full extent of the fossil in a few months. Jong and Clarke then spent more than a year analysing the anatomy with their coauthors. CT technology has become a critical tool for revealing delicate fossils, such as birds and small non-avian dinosaurs, fossilised in hard rocks, said Clarke.
Doolysaurus lived about 113-94 million years ago during the mid-Cretaceous. Based on its anatomy, the researchers classified it as a thescelosaurid, a type of bipedal dinosaur that lived in East Asia and North America that may have had a fuzzy coat. Researchers could tell it was a juvenile based by observing growth markers on a thin slice of femur bone.
Study co-authors Minguk Kim (left) and Hyemin Jo during the initial discovery and excavation of Doolysaurus. Credit: Jongyun Jung.
The fossil also contained dozens of gastroliths, pebbles that the baby dinosaur swallowed in life to help with digesting food. The stones suggest that the dinosaur was an omnivore, eating plants, insects and small animals. They are also what prompted the researchers to look closer and scan the fossil. That’s because gastroliths are small and light-weight, and the fact that they had remained in place suggested that other parts of the fossil may still be there too.
“A little cluster of stomach stones, with two leg bones sticking out indicates that the animal was not fully pulled apart before it has hit the fossil record,” Clarke said. “So, I encouraged [Jung and co-authors Minguk Kim and Hyemin Jo] to visit Texas and the UTCT, to try scanning the fossil.”
Julia Clarke
The skeletal anatomy of a juvenile Doolysaurus huhmini. The graphic highlights the fossil bones that were found with the dinosaur. Artwork: Janet Cañamar, adapted from Jung et al 2026.
Kim and Jo are using the CT analysis skills they learned at the Jackson School to study more fossils in Korea. Jung is planning a trip back to Aphae Island to collect more fossils. South Korea is known for fossils of dinosaur tracks, nests, and eggs. While rich in these “trace” fossils, it has a noticeable dearth of actual dinosaur bones.
Jung said it’s possible that, like Doolysaurus, they’re largely hidden in the rock. He’s hopeful that micro-CT technology can lead to even more dinosaurs finds in Korea.
“We’re expecting some new dinosaur or other egg fossils to come from Aphae and other small islands,” he said.
Jung J, Kim M, Jo H, Clarke JA (2026) A new dinosaur species from Korea and its implications for early-diverging neornithischian diversity. Fossil Record 29(1): 87-113. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.29.178152
Cover image:
An artist’s interpretation of a juvenile Doolysaurus huhmini. It is depicted alongside birds and other dinosaurs that lived during the Cretaceous in what is now South Korea. Artwork by Jun Seong Yi.
Reposted with permission from The University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences.
Berlin (Germany) and Sofia (Bulgaria), 10th February, 2026 – ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and Pensoft Publishers, an independent open access publisher and provider of high-quality scholarly publishing services, today announced an expansion of their Journal Home partnership. Building on an earlier collaboration announced in 2023, the list now expands to 40 journals, covering the majority of Pensoft’s and partners’ journals using the publisher’s ARPHA Publishing Platform.
With most of Pensoft’s eligible partner journals choosing to participate, the expansion reflects strong demand for greater exposure and engagement opportunities, particularly among smaller and developing journals in niche research areas. Through Journal Home, partner publishers can reach more relevant audiences, improve discoverability, and connect more effectively with researchers worldwide.
Participating Pensoft journals will also benefit from:
Increased usage and readership, with full-text open access journal content seamlessly surfaced to highly relevant researcher communities across the ResearchGate platform.
Stronger engagement from new and returning authors, connecting partner journals, including specialist and emerging titles, with targeted researchers and potential authors throughout the research lifecycle.
Dedicated Journal Profiles and prominent placement of Pensoft journals to enhance visibility and branding, boosting recognition of partner journals with researcher communities around the world.
Improved author experience, with the automatic addition of published articles to author profiles, clearer insight into reader engagement, and greater opportunities for meaningful collaboration.
“Journal Home allows us to provide our partner journals with improved visibility and stronger connections with global researcher communities. Many of these journals serve highly specialised fields, and Journal Home helps make sure their articles reach the right researchers, who will benefit from them most.”
Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft Publishers
“We’re pleased to expand our Journal Home partnership with Pensoft to support an increasing number of partner journals. By bringing these journals onto the platform, smaller and emerging titles can expand their reach, attract high-quality submissions, and connect with the most relevant researcher communities at key moments in their research journey.”
Robyn Mugridge, Head of Partnership Development at ResearchGate
For more information about Pensoft Publishers, please visit www.pensoft.net.
About ResearchGate
ResearchGate is the professional network for researchers. Over 25 million researchers use researchgate.net to share and discover research, build their networks, and advance their careers. Based in Berlin, ResearchGate was founded in 2008. Its mission is to connect the world of science and make research open to all.
About Pensoft Publishers
Pensoft is an independent, open-access scholarly publisher and technology provider, best known for its 40+ biodiversity journals, including ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, One Ecosystem, and Metabarcoding and Metagenomics. Ever since becoming the first to introduce semantic enrichments and hyperlinks within a scientific article in the field of biodiversity in 2010, Pensoft has been working on various tools and workflows designed to facilitate data findability, accessibility, discoverability and interoperability.
The agreement encompasses five key research and medical bodies, and allows corresponding authors to publish their findings without individual Article Processing Charges.
Pensoft and the University of Zurichhave signed a comprehensive Open Access (OA) agreement, starting a partnership that enables researchers at participating institutions to publish their findings in Pensoft’s peer-reviewed journals without incurring individual Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Under this new framework, publishing costs for corresponding authors affiliated with the respective institutions are 100% covered by a centralised institutional deposit secured by the University of Zurich. By removing financial barriers, the agreement encourages scientists to disseminate their work to both the academic community and the wider public, making research immediately and freely available upon publication.
This initiative ensures that research is shared under open licences in strict accordance with the FAIR principles—making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
“We are excited to start this partnership with the University of Zurich and sign an agreement that reflects our strong commitment to inclusive and equitable open science. By supporting researcher-driven publishing, we continue to foster a sustainable environment for high-impact scientific communication.”
Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO of Pensoft
“We are pleased to extend our portfolio of gold open access journals, in which our researchers can publish their findings without paying individual APCs. We thereby strengthen our commitment to open research information.”
University Library Zurich
Are you affiliated with a research institution operating with OA agreements? Is your institution interested in helping resident researchers navigate the complex processes underpinning academic publishing and knowledge sharing? Reach out to <publishing@pensoft.net> to discuss a potential collaboration.
The agreement covers almost 100 institutions, including Karolinska Institutet, Lund University, Uppsala University, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Pensoft and the Bibsam Consortium, operated by the National Library of Sweden, are pleased to announce the signing of a comprehensive Open Access (OA) agreement, marking a significant step in the transition towards a more transparent and open scholarly publishing landscape in Sweden.
Thanks to this move, researchers at participating institutions will be able to publish their findings in 65 journals published by Pensoft or using its advanced publishing platform ARPHA, including flagship titles such as ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, NeoBiota and IMA Fungus, without incurring individual article processing charges (APCs).
All authors affiliated with participating institutions can benefit from this agreement, with publishing costs 100% covered by an institutional deposit secured by the National Library of Sweden.
Unlike subscription-based systems, an OA framework ensures that scientific findings are immediately and freely available to the global community, supporting the global shift toward accessible science and adhering to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).
OA agreements like this one reduce the financial burden on scientists and encourage them to share their work with both academia and the wider public, ultimately lowering barriers to sharing knowledge in a time when scientific input is key to resolving global challenges.
“We are excited to start this partnership with Bisbam and sign an agreement that reflects our strong commitment to open science. By supporting researcher-driven publishing, we continue to foster a sustainable environment for high-impact scientific communication.”
Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO of Pensoft
“We are delighted to announce the addition of Pensoft Publishers to our portfolio of nationally funded agreements for 2026. This represents an important step towards achieving full open access to scientific publications in Sweden.”
Niklas Willén, License Manager at Bibsam Consortium and National Library of Sweden
Are you affiliated with a research institution operating with OA agreements? Is your institution interested in helping resident researchers navigate the complex processes underpinning academic publishing and knowledge sharing? Reach out to <publishing@pensoft.net> to discuss a potential collaboration.
In November 2025, Pensoft’s Chief Communications Officer, Teodor Metodiev, crossed the Atlantic to represent the publisher at two entomology events in Portland, Oregon: the Entomological Collections Network (ECN) Annual Meeting (8–9 November) and the Entomology 2025 conference (9–12 November).
Entomological Collections Network Annual Meeting
Held at the Hyatt Regency in Portland, the ECN 2025 annual meeting brought together professionals dedicated to the care, management, and use of entomological collections. The hybrid event featured live talks, pre-recorded lightning presentations and a silent auction in support of collection initiatives.
Pensoft’s stand at the ECN meeting.
Natural History Collections and Museomics featured prominently at the event.
Deborah Paul, one of the Editors-in-Chief for Natural History Collections and Museomics, with Teodor Metodiev.
At ECN 2025, Pensoft spotlighted its journals in entomology, particularly the newly launched diamond open-access journal Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM), which welcomes research on the preservation, digitisation and analysis of natural history collections. Building on last year’s successful collaboration, the meeting again highlighted the Topical Collection “Entomological Outreach Collections and Community Engagement,” published in NHCM and inspired by the 2024 ECN programme.
Entomology 2025
Pensoft joined more than 3,200 insect science professionals at the Entomological Society of America’s annual meeting, Entomology 2025 (Ento2025), hosted at the Oregon Convention Center. Over four days, the conference offered symposia, workshops, networking sessions, mixers and a busy exhibit hall.
Pensoft showcased the EU pollinator projects VALOR and AGRI4POL at Entomology 2025.
Pensoft exhibited at booth #715, showcasing the publisher’s portfolio of entomology journals and promoting two key EU-funded projects on pollinators: VALOR and AGRI4POL. Featuring professional scientific illustrations, attractive open-access publishing opportunities, and results from Pensoft-partnered EU projects, the booth attracted considerable interest from attendees.
A highlight of Pensoft’s presence at Entomology 2025 was the participation of Lars Straub, Editor-in-Chief of the newly launched Diamond Open Access journal Advances in Pollinator Research (APR). Straub moderated two student 10-minute presentation competitions and presented his own research, “Neonicotinoid exposure reduces fitness of a widespread butterfly, Vanessa cardui.”
Dr Alfred Daniel Johnson, a Journal of Hymenoptera Research author.
Dr Kevin Li, a One Ecosystem author.
Dr Claire Rutledge, a NeoBiota author.
Dr Lars Straub, Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Pollinator Research .
Dr Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu, an Advances in Pollinator Research editor.
Dr Yihang Li, a ZooKeys author.
Dr Jose ‘Joe’ Martinez, a ZooKeys author.
Yeshwanth, H M, a ZooKeys author.
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Following a fantastic week in Portland at both ECN 2025 and Entomology 2025, Pensoft looks forward to continuing its close collaboration with the entomological and collections communities. The Entomological Society of America’s next annual meeting, Entomology 2026, will take place on 8–11 November in Columbus, Ohio, where Pensoft plans to create more partnerships and continue its support for open science in insect research.
An international research team from Switzerland and Germany has described a new ichthyosaur species based on fossils curated at the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken (Bayreuth, Germany). The study was published in Museum für Naturkunde Berlin’s open-access journal Fossil Record.
Artist’s interpretation of Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis on belemnite battleground. Credit: Andrey Atuchin.
Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles, with similar body shapes to dolphins and tuna, that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. The research team behind the discovery, led by Gaël Spicher (JURASSICA Museum, Porrentruy, Switzerland), named the new species Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis in reference to the clay pit of Mistelgau in Upper Franconia, a fossil site that has yielded numerous important finds. “We wanted to highlight the scientific importance of the Mistelgau locality,” explains Gaël Spicher.
Excavations in the clay pit have been conducted regularly since 1998 by the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken, which recovered and prepared the fossils prior to their scientific study. One specimen originates from a so-called “belemnite battleground,” dense accumulations of Jurassic cephalopod remains that are characteristic of the site.
The newly described species shares the elongation of the upper jaw typical for othe species in the Eurhinosaurus genus, producing a pronounced “overbite” similar to that of modern swordfish. Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis differs from previously known species by its notably robust ribs and special features in the joint connecting the skull and the neck.
Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis specimen from the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken on a belemnite battleground. The fossil plate is about 4 m long. Credit: Spicher et al.
“The naming of a new species emphasises the significance of the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken’s fossil collections for understanding Jurassic marine ecosystems,” says museum director Dr. Serjoscha Evers. “The Mistelgau site continues to provide rare insights into a time period that is otherwise scarcely documented worldwide.”
Further studies on the Mistelgau material are in preparation. These include analyses of injuries preserved in the ichthyosaur skeletons, which may shed light on the ecology and life history of these ancient marine reptiles.
Original source
Spicher GE, Miedema F, Heijne J, Klein N (2025) A new Eurhinosaurus (Ichthyosauria) species from the Lower Jurassic (Toarcian) of Mistelgau (Bavaria, Southern Germany). Fossil Record 28(2): 249–291. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.28.154203
The initiative aims to make it easier to access and use biodiversity data associated with published research, aligning with principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data.
The data portals offer seamless integration of published articles and associated data elements with GBIF-mediated records. Now, researchers, educators, and conservation practitioners can discover and use the extensive species occurrence and other data associated with the papers published in each journal.
A video displaying an interactive map with occurrence data on the BDJ portal.
The collaboration between Pensoft and GBIF was recently piloted with the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ). Today, the BDJ hosted portal provides seamless access and exploration for nearly 300,000 occurrences of biological organisms from all over the world that have been extracted from the journal’s all-time publications. In addition, the portal provides direct access to more than 800 datasets published alongside papers in BDJ, as well as to almost 1,000 citations of the journal articles associated with those publications.
“The release of the BDJ portal and subsequent ones planned for other Pensoft journals should inspire other publishers to follow suit in advancing a more interconnected, open and accessible ecosystem for biodiversity research,” said Dr. Vince Smith, Editor-in-Chief of BDJ and head of digital, data and informatics at the Natural History Museum, London.
— GBIF @biodiversity.social/@gbif (@GBIF) March 10, 2025
“The programme will provide a scalable solution for more than thirty of the journals we publish thanks to our partnership with Plazi, and will foster greater connectivity between scientific research and the evidence that supports it,” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder and chief executive officer of Pensoft.
On the new portals, users can search data, refining their queries based on various criteria such as taxonomic classification, and conservation status. They also have access to statistical information about the hosted data.
Together, the hosted portals provide data on almost 325,000 occurrence records, as well as over 1,000 datasets published across the journals.
