Valentina was awarded the Charlemont Grant from the Royal Irish Academy. The Charlemont Grant is aimed at starting new collaborations allowing the applicant to travel to visit the institution/colleague.

Keep an eye out for more news from Valentina's project! "Investigating the ecological significance of colour pattern in ancient reef fish communities: the case study of the Bolca Lagerstätte".

This is the highest honour awarded to academics in Ireland and recognises exceptional contributions to the sciences and humanities.

In her talk, Maria spoke about recent attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding the concept of resurrecting extinct species.

This paper presents the first fossil evidence that the feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus, and probably other early feathered animals, had scaly reptile-type skin in naked regions and bird-like skin in feathered regions.

The winners of the 2024 National Fossil Art Contest are now on display at the Glucksman art gallery in Cork until the 24th of May 2024. The contest was run by the UCC programme Ireland’s Fossil Heritage and was open to children from 4 – 18 years old. The theme of the contest was “Irish Fossils ALIVE”. The winning entries were submitted by children from all over Ireland from County Donegal to Cork.

UCC palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts – it’s all down to their skin.

Recreation of 500-year-old painting highlights achievements of Irish women and the need for ongoing social change.

Ireland’s Fossil Heritage is hosting a public walk in Cork city centre on Monday April 15th from 11.30 am – 12.30 pm as part of the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival.

Valentina’s 2022 paper on skin patterning in fossil moonfish is one of the top-downloaded papers in the journal Palaeontology!

Hollie's talk, "Quantitative characterisation of melanin-based feather colour using reflectance spectrophotometry", received a special mention during the prize-giving ceremony.