Nature journal features Former Fellow’s paper on cover

Professor Derek Siveter, former Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, collaborated with a group of researchers as co-author on a paper in the scientific journal Nature, one of the world's most-read and most prestigious academic journals. The researchers along with Prof Siveter have recently discovered two new mollusc fossils named Punk ferox and Emo vorticauduml. 

The paper discusses how the analysis of the two rare 430-million-year-old fossils, Punk ferox and Emo vorticaudum, is challenging traditional views on early mollusc evolution. Retrieved from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte, these exceptionally preserved fossils reveal that early molluscs in the Aculifera group, once considered primitive, were actually complex and adaptable.  These findings suggest early molluscs were more evolutionarily diverse than previously thought, offering new insights into their evolutionary history. 

Derek Siveter is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences (Palaeobiology) and a former curator at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. After earning his BSc and PhD at Leicester under Peter Sylvester-Bradley, he researched Irish trilobites at Trinity College, Dublin, and worked at Hull University before joining Oxford. Retiring in 2012, he held a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship (2014–17). His work focuses on fossil invertebrates, especially arthropods, and exceptional preservation sites like Herefordshire (Silurian, UK) and Chengjiang (Cambrian, China), providing key insights into ancient life and the Cambrian explosion. 

For more information on the research and it’s findings you can read the paper here.