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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Danielle Reid, Postgraduate Researcher, Women, Ageing, and Machine Learning on Screen, University of Leeds

The Blue Trail offers a bold and refreshing vision of ageing – one driven by agency, quiet defiance and profound transformation. Set against the awe-inspiring landscapes of north-west Brazil, the film weaves together dystopian sci-fi with a striking “coming-of-old-age” journey, redefining what it means to grow older.

The film follows 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg). She lives in a chilling near-future where a totalitarian regime forcibly removes anyone over 75, relocating them to remote colonies without consultation or consent.

Faced with this looming threat of unwanted exclusion and invisibility, Tereza refuses to comply. Instead, she embarks on a surreal journey along the Amazon river to chase one final dream before she is “put out to pasture”.

On her picturesque journey through the Amazon, Tereza meets Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro), an enigmatic boat navigator with shady origins, and Ludemir (Adanilo), a fickle pilot with a clouded sense of judgment. Most importantly, however, she meets Roberta (Miriam Socarras), a secretly atheist preacher who sells Bibles. Roberta is older than Tereza, and brings an exciting and alluring sense of hope and freedom to her otherwise oppressive reality.

The two women connect in a powerfully intimate way, sharing new experiences and arriving at unexpected revelations. Together, they embody an almost Thelma and Louise-like bond. The Blue Trail is a thoroughly original story, in which two older women are capable of newness, independence and transformation against all odds.

Interrogating ageism

Amid its dystopian backdrop, the film reveals moments of astonishing beauty through its fantastical visual language – drifting between surreal, dreamlike images of the Amazon’s waterways, northern Brazilian river towns and striking urban jungles.

The collision of water and land, as well as jungle and urban environments, serve as powerful visual expressions of the story’s underlying tensions. Tereza’s character experiences her greatest sense of escape and liberation when she is at one with nature.

The film also lingers on stunning close-ups of animals, their presence quietly echoing Tereza’s journey in unexpected ways. Most notably, the fictional blue drool snail serves as a driving force in the plot. Often dismissed as slow and unassuming, the snail is reimagined in director Gabriel Mascaro’s world as a creature capable of profound and unexpected things.

At its core, the film serves as a critique of ageist assumptions, imagining an Orwellian future where today’s stereotypes calcify into authoritarian policy. In this world, the supposed logic of care mutates into control, unsettlingly blurring the line between protection and punishment.

We see Tereza subjected to a series of legal and social infantilisations. She is ordered to rest, despite having no desire or need to do so. She must obtain her daughter’s consent for everyday tasks like booking travel or buying lunch. She is forced to wear adult nappies despite being fully continent. These humiliations reveal the harm in treating old age as a singular, generalised state.

In this way, the film powerfully exemplifies the influential claim made by anti-ageist activist Margaret Gullette that we are “aged by culture”. It exposes how the acceptance of reductionist attitudes towards ageing can materialise as harmful, systemic ageist practices.

Despite these harsh realities, Mascaro constructs a character who commands our admiration rather than our pity. This creative choice feels particularly significant in a cultural landscape where older people are too often framed as weak, dependent, or diminished in capacity.

Tereza is presented as both physically and mentally capable – strong-willed, perceptive, and open to the possibility of a different future. Her age never defines the limits of her identity.

Instead, her quick wit becomes a subtle-yet-entertaining form of resistance, particularly when she turns ageist assumptions about incontinence back on those who impose them, gaining the upper hand in the process. These moments also offer brief light-hearted relief within the film’s broader narrative.

A final striking element of Mascaro’s film is his use of lingering close-ups on Tereza’s face. These moments showcase an intimacy rarely afforded to ageing women’s bodies on the big screen.

Through both characterisation and visual style, The Blue Trail quietly but powerfully resists the notion of ageing as taboo, and challenges the cultural tendency to overlook or erase older people altogether.

Danielle Reid receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust as part of the Women, Ageing and Machine Learning on Screen project.

– ref. The Blue Trail is a dystopian ‘coming-of-old-age’ gem – https://theconversation.com/the-blue-trail-is-a-dystopian-coming-of-old-age-gem-280947

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jacob Parakilas, Research Leader, Defence, Security, and Justice Group, RAND Europe

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced that ground robots (also known as unmanned ground vehicles) had captured a Russian position. Zelenskyy said it was the first time in the Ukraine war that an enemy position had been taken exclusively by robots.

Ukraine’s increasing use of drones in its defence has received a great deal of attention as Russia’s invasion has dragged on. While most of this has focused on aerial and maritime drones, the army’s use of ground robotics has been a quieter story – but one with growing significance.

Military ground robotics are rapidly transforming battlefield tasks. However, for the foreseeable future, their greatest impact will be in supporting roles rather than directly replacing infantry soldiers. So, while this capture of the enemy position by robots is a milestone moment, it shouldn’t be over-interpreted.

When it comes to ground robots taking on infantry combat, there are a set of serious obstacles. The first is, quite literally, obstacles. Anyone who has watched increasingly sophisticated robotics demonstrations online will have seen machines navigating complex and difficult terrain.

However, operating in a controlled environment in front of a camera is a world away from crossing broken ground under fire. Most ground robots continue to rely either on wheels or tracks for a variety of very good reasons: mechanical simplicity, availability of spare parts, and cost.

But they have sharp limits on the types of terrain they can traverse, and not all enemy strongpoints are built at the end of paved driveways.

Even accounting for combat loads and the nature of the battlefield, human infantry can climb, jump, wade and otherwise traverse a large variety of obstacles unassisted, in ways that robots still cannot match.

Human in control

The second major obstacle is the electromagnetic environment. While the term robot is often used to describe uncrewed ground vehicles, they are mostly still remotely operated, which means the operator must maintain a constant control link with the vehicle.

This can be done via radio link. However, these links can be interrupted by enemy jamming, or by unfavourable weather or terrain.

The operator can also control the robot by a fibre-optic cable, which cannot be jammed but limits how far the robot can travel from its operator. A cable can also be severed by a blast, shrapnel or just adverse terrain.

The alternative is autonomy, and these ground robots do increasingly have some autonomous capabilities. But so far, this tends to be for specific tasks such as highlighting identified enemy positions, rather than being autonomous in the sense of driving and controlling themselves.

Autonomous driving is a massive challenge. Residents of London may have seen Waymo autonomous cabs in recent weeks, moving through the city’s streets ahead of their public rollout. But following traffic laws and (more-or-less) consistent road markings is still a huge and complex task.

Navigating a battlefield in a complex 3D environment is at least as complex, requiring a huge amount of processing power. That power can either be put aboard the robot itself, which significantly increases its cost and complexity, or done remotely and transmitted – which brings us back to the issue of control link vulnerability.

Support roles

While these are serious challenges for ground robots in an infantry role, they pose less of an issue in a range of critical support tasks. Robots have, for example, been extensively used by Ukraine for battlefield casualty evacuation, front-line resupply, combat engineering, mine laying and mine clearing.

In these instances, their smaller size, substantially lower cost, versatility and lower profile relative to traditional crewed vehicles (which makes them harder to detect) hold benefits that substantially outweigh the drawbacks. And while they are remotely operated so do not drastically reduce overall personnel requirements, if the ground robot is destroyed, its operator is not.

For Ukraine, the strategic imperative to rapidly roll out ground robots is enormous. Four years of war against a numerically larger opponent has imposed huge challenges on its ability to continue recruiting and deploying a large enough force to safeguard its sovereignty.

On a battlefield where the enemy can see and hit almost anything moving within 20 kilometres of the front line, swapping irreplaceable humans for cheap and replaceable robots is a necessary condition for staying in the fight long enough to win it.

But for the immediate future at least, robots are more likely to support that fight, rather than lead it.

Jacob Parakilas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Robots just captured a Russian position in Ukraine – but don’t worry about real-life Terminators just yet – https://theconversation.com/robots-just-captured-a-russian-position-in-ukraine-but-dont-worry-about-real-life-terminators-just-yet-280959

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mara Fischer, PhD Candidate, School of Environment, University of Exeter

Diners may soon need to rethink a staple of the classic English fish supper. The Marine Conservation Society, an environmental charity in the UK, recently downgraded all UK cod stocks and removed them from its list of sustainable seafood.

The Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide, a tool designed to help consumers make sustainable seafood choices, now lists Atlantic cod from the Arctic, northern shelf, and British seas with the worst possible rating: “avoid”. This reflects severe declines in population status.

The guide recommends that cod lovers seek out fish from further north, from Icelandic waters, where it’s still available in quantity. But the cod served up in most fish and chip shops right now should be considered under threat and avoided, unless specified as Icelandic.

This warning echoes one of the most dramatic collapses in fisheries history, the collapse of Newfoundland cod stocks in Canadian waters in 1992. Despite mounting scientific warnings, fishing continued until stocks crashed, triggering a moratorium that put tens of thousands out of work. More than 30 years later, recovery remains incomplete. The lesson is clear: once a fishery collapses, recovery is slow and uncertain. Yet current trends suggest that we are not heeding the lessons of history.

The rise of cod

The English love affair with cod goes back a long way. Archaeological evidence shows that cod was traded as early as the Viking age, driven in part by the rise of Christianity across Europe. Dried and salted cod – a protein-rich food which could be stored for months without spoiling – offered an alternative to meat on Fridays and during Lent, fuelling the growth of the cod trade.

Even centuries ago, consumer demand may have outstripped local supply. Analysis of fish provisions from the sunken Tudor warship Mary Rose suggests some cod was sourced from distant waters, including Iceland.

This demand intensified with industrialisation. As cities expanded, so did the need for cheap protein. Enter the national dish: fish and chips. Cod was no longer salted or dried but fried. Its dominance was enabled by the introduction of steam-powered trawlers and the use of ice in the late 19th century, which allowed British fleets to fish further and more intensively.

Cod landings subsequently boomed, drawing heavily on stocks in northern Atlantic waters. Following the mid-20th century cod wars, the cod eaten in the UK was increasingly imported from locations such as Iceland, although local fisheries continued to contribute to our beloved fish supper. But poorly managed fisheries, with fishing quotas often set above scientific advice, led to declines in stocks around the UK.

Why are cod not recovering?

Today, cod populations around the UK are so depleted that the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has advised zero catches for some stocks for several years. Yet catch limits have consistently been set above scientific advice, for example, allowing catches of around 14,000 tonnes of North Sea cod in 2026. This is no exception as 58% of all UK fishing quotas for 2026 exceed recommendations from ICES.

Even where quotas are reduced, recovery is hampered by how many fisheries operate in practice. Cod are frequently caught in mixed fisheries that primarily target other species such as haddock. However, the use of unselective and destructive gears such as bottom trawls (heavy fishing nets that get dragged along the seabed) means that cod continues to be removed from the ecosystem, even when it is not the intended target.

Climate change adds further pressure. As waters warm, cod are forced northwards or into deeper waters, disrupting ecosystems and fisheries. Warmer seas can also affect reproduction, reducing the survival of eggs and larvae, while changes in ocean currents and availability of prey make it harder for populations to recover.

Together, these factors mean that the outlook for local cod stocks is increasingly dire.

Read more:
Half the UK’s fish stocks are overfished – but the evidence shows how they can be revived

The future of cod in the UK

Despite these challenges, cod is likely to remain on the menu. But where it comes from – and how it is managed – matters. Not all cod stocks are in crisis.

Atlantic cod that is caught in Iceland’s waters by long lines and nets, for example, remain a “best choice” on the Good Fish Guide. This reflects the use of fishing gears with lower risk of damage to ocean habitats plus strong management aligned with scientific advice. Similarly, other fisheries show that recovery is possible when limits are set and followed appropriately, although climate change adds increasing uncertainty for many species. In contrast, Atlantic cod caught from stocks in the Arctic, North Sea and other seas around Britain are all labelled “avoid”, regardless of how they are caught.

This makes our roles as consumers that much more complex – and important. Asking where fish comes from and how it was caught can help drive demand towards better managed stocks. If that information is unavailable, switching to alternatives, such as hake, can reduce pressure on depleted cod populations. If you are not sure, check for the stocks and catch methods labelled green on the Good Fish Guide, or that have been awarded a blue tick from the Marine Stewardship Council.

Our long relationship with cod has shaped diets, economies and cultures. But history shows that without stronger alignment between science, policy and informed consumer choice, the future of cod in the UK may be far from guaranteed.

Mara Fischer receives funding from the Convex Seascape Survey.

Ruth H. Thurstan works for The University of Exeter. She receives funding from the Convex Seascape Survey and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 856488).

– ref. New advice on avoiding British cod: how to make sure your fish and chips are sustainably sourced – https://theconversation.com/new-advice-on-avoiding-british-cod-how-to-make-sure-your-fish-and-chips-are-sustainably-sourced-280667

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London

Production company Blumhouse has taken a gamble by featuring director Lee Cronin in top billing in his third film’s marketing campaign. Announcing Cronin as a horror auteur, the film’s full title is Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. This is an odd move for a director with only two (admittedly strong) previous features under his belt. It is perhaps a strategy to differentiate the film from the Brendan Fraser-led adventure series or the abysmal Tom Cruise vehicle from 2017.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy features little that ties it to the long legacy of previous films with the same title. The template for The Mummy was established by Boris Karloff’s looming Imhotep of 1932 and Christopher Lee’s Kharis of 1959, both Ancient Egyptians who return to life after being exhumed by Western archaeologists. Lee Kronin’s The Mummy is less about the plundering of Ancient Egyptian tombs and more about tapping into the elemental fears of parenthood – as Cronin explored to great effect in his previous two films.

Cronin’s first feature was the independent horror film The Hole in the Ground (2019), which was a confident and capable outing. Like several other first-time filmmakers of independent horror film in the 2010s (Mike Flanagan, Corin Hardy, Rose Glass) Cronin was rapidly courted by Hollywood. He was then handed the reins of the most recent instalment of Sam Raimi’s well-loved Evil Dead series. Cronin wrote and directed the savvy, elementally terrifying Evil Dead Rise (2023), which transported that franchise from its familiar cabin-in-the-woods setting to an urban high rise with brilliant results. His third feature isn’t up to par with these, sadly.

In The Mummy’s harrowing opening, every parent’s worst nightmare is realised as nine-year-old Katie is snatched by a stranger who entices her with sweets at the bottom of the family’s garden in Cairo. The action cuts to eight years later and Katie is found alive having been mummified – buried in an Egyptian sarcophagus wrapped in bandages. The returned Katie is erratic, non-verbal and animalistic, needing attentive care.

In the build-up to revelations about what Katie has endured and how she has remained alive, her parents face the challenges of caring for a child with significant physical and behavioural needs. Played differently, this theme could be explored with sensitivity and insight. However, in an early scene that foreshadows the kind of excessive body horror that Cronin is heading towards in the film’s climactic scenes, the parents try to clip Katie’s overgrown toenail, resulting in the gruesome peeling off of her leg’s atrophied skin.

This harrowing scene sets the film’s tone. Cronin is far more interested in pummelling his audience with relentless gore and shallow shock tactics that seriously exploring the story’s themes.

The Mummy revisits familiar tropes from horror classics rather than searching for its own identity. Eventually, and far too conventionally, the film’s focus on the creepy possessed child owes far more to the well-worn tactics of The Exorcist(1973). Like The Exorcist’s Regan, Katie’s body contorts and she becomes vicious and foul-mouthed. Modern special effects bring to life her abject bodily fluids vividly. While Cronin drew from The Exorcist enjoyably in Evil Dead Rise, threats to the American family are rehashed less successfully here.

Horror can be a powerful way to explore themes of parental sacrifice and struggle sensitively and meaningfully. Jennifer Kent’s sublime and influential The Babadook (2014) reworked the conventions of uncanny horror to produce an empathetic and moving depiction of a grieving mother caring for a child with psychological needs. Cronin’s breakout The Hole in the Ground was reminiscent of Kent’s film for its depiction of a mother faced with her son’s increasingly erratic and disturbing behaviour. It is difficult to imagine, however, how a horror film in The Mummy’s mode of intense gore and aggressive violence could bear the weight of the topic.

Troublingly, the film derives spectacle from representing disability with unsettling horror. For instance, when Katie’s wheelchair hovers and clatters its wheels menacingly against the ground, it moves uncomfortably towards the criticism of the wider genre for using disability as shorthand for wickedness and immorality.

The characterisation is also disappointingly facile and shallow. Cronin’s script’s attempts to humanise his traumatised family, before the inevitable frenzy of violent set-pieces, fall flat. This is not helped by contrived moments and one-dimensional performances across the board.

Given the notoriety of prior horror films that present Egyptian history and culture as strange and exotic, playing into anxieties around “foreignness”, we should reasonably expect this film to work hard to avoid stereotypes and cliches. But it doesn’t.

The familiar laying on of sandstorms, hieroglyphics, beetles, scorpions and other tired signifiers of Egyptian culture do little to work against a white western gaze. The casting of Egyptian actors may have offset issues with cultural representation. But the main Egyptian actor plays a barely fleshed-out detective (May Calamawy, Marvel TV’s Moon Knight) who is investigating the mystery of Katie’s disappearance. She also adds little beyond tired police movie tropes.

Cronin’s third film continues the kind of punk rock horror aesthetic that the director is becoming known for. But, it is not a showcase for the evident talent that he displayed in his first two films. In the search for fairground-style gasp-out-loud horror moments, The Mummy becomes unhinged and unruly, descending into a formless barrage of gory body horror and careening violence.

The film is overlong at 133 minutes and outstays its welcome. Despite its length, there is surprisingly little suspense and little that is actually scary. Its sharp shocks would have been better delivered within the tighter structure usually expected from a genre film like this, or the running time could be better employed to build tension and character.

Matt Jacobsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy – an uninspired, unscary gore fest that demonises disability and leans into stereotypes of Egypt – https://theconversation.com/lee-cronins-the-mummy-an-uninspired-unscary-gore-fest-that-demonises-disability-and-leans-into-stereotypes-of-egypt-280957

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tarek Abou Jaoude, Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Queen’s University Belfast

Following direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli officials, a ten-day ceasefire has been agreed between the two countries. It is currently unclear whether Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that has been fighting Israel in southern Lebanon since early March, has agreed to observe the temporary cessation of hostilities.

If it holds, the ceasefire will be welcomed by the Lebanese government. This latest conflict has brought the state to its knees. Not only is Lebanon’s government logistically and administratively stretched, having to find shelter for and relocate over a million displaced citizens, it is also in a fragile position politically.

Having taken the decision to ban Hezbollah’s military activities and restrict its role to the political sphere on March 2, the government is now attempting to establish full control over the capital of Beirut. The cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah is thus essential to avoid a complete breakdown in state authority.

The ceasefire also comes despite Israel’s seemingly mixed stance on ending its conflict with Hezbollah. Hours after the signing of an earlier ceasefire between the US and Iran, Israel launched over 100 missiles towards Lebanese territory. The attacks, which came amid confusion over whether Lebanon was covered by the deal, killed more than 300 people in what has become known as “Black Wednesday” in Lebanon.

There has been much speculation about the strategy behind this attack. Some argued the Israelis were taking advantage of the unclear situation. Others saw the attack as a deliberate tactic to derail the entire negotiation process, knowing Iran would insist on Lebanon’s inclusion in any talks. But it soon became clear that the Trump administration preferred for hostilities to, at the very least, de-escalate in Lebanon.

With the US insisting that Israel preserves “its right to take all necessary measures in self-defense, at any time, against planned, imminent or ongoing attacks”, it is unclear what kind of ceasefire will be implemented. The most likely outcome is a scenario in which Israeli attacks on Beirut end, while troops continue their skirmishes with Hezbollah in and around the southern villages.

Hezbollah has already insisted the ceasefire must not allow Israeli troops freedom of movement in the south. However, the Lebanese army has reported that there have been “several Israeli attacks” in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire took effect.

Long road ahead

With ten days to seek further agreements, there is still much left to be negotiated. An ultimate goal for the Lebanese government will be to secure full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it has captured along the border.

The Israeli military has taken full control of the first line of villages and towns along the border and is currently sitting a few kilometres inside Lebanese territory. There has been irreparable damage to buildings in the villages it has occupied, leading some to compare the destruction to that seen in Gaza.

But there is no obvious reason for Israel to withdraw. Local media has reported that Israel is insisting on a long-term security zone in Lebanon of up to 0.8km to provide protection from future Hezbollah rocket attacks. A second zone up to the Litani River – around 30km from the border – would remain under Israeli control and would be “gradually” handed back to the Lebanese armed forces.

A 2006 UN resolution demanded the withdrawal of all armed groups, except for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers, from this area. However, the resolution has been violated repeatedly both by Israel and Hezbollah. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has previously stated that this larger security zone is an objective for his country’s military.

There is also no real bargaining chip the Lebanese government can play. The only resistance to Israel’s presence on Lebanese soil in the current conflict is being provided by Hezbollah, which is not represented in the direct talks. And it is clear by now that Israeli officials simply do not trust the Lebanese state’s ability to control or rein in the Iran-backed party.

There are rumours that Israeli and Lebanese officials may be working on a possible peace treaty, emulating the 1978 Camp David accords. These accords allowed Egypt to reclaim the Sinai peninsula in exchange for peace with Israel. A similar treaty could make Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon possible.

But there are three factors that make a peace treaty unlikely. First, the issue of peace with Israel remains highly divisive in Lebanon. In 2022, surveys implied that roughly 17% of Lebanese people supported normalisation with Israel, a relatively high percentage among Arab countries.

After two conflicts since then, it is unclear how these numbers now break down. But recent Shia-dominated protests in Beirut show just how divided the country remains over this issue. At a protest on April 13, demonstrators called Lebanon’s Sunni prime minister, Nawaf Salam, a “Zionist” for agreeing to engage in talks.

Second, it is unclear that the Israelis themselves are looking for peace. There is considerable division among members of the Israeli cabinet on this issue. While the foreign minister, Gideon Saar, has insisted that “peace and normalisation” are desired, the more extreme right-wing minister Bezalel Smotrich has continued to call for the permanent annexation of southern Lebanon.

And third, what remains an insurmountable reality for both countries is Hezbollah itself. The party’s reason for existence is to resist Israeli occupation and it has said over the years that it would only hand over its weapons in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal and if a Lebanese state emerges that showcases an ability to repel Israeli forces on the border.

The fact that the Lebanese armed forces have not entered the current fight with Israel and have evacuated positions in the south ahead of Israeli incursions will not encourage Hezbollah or its base to trust any peace process and lay down its arms peacefully.

All of this leaves Lebanon with few realistic outcomes. What people inside the country now fear is a return to the status quo: a fragile and unobservable ceasefire, Israeli troops stationed in Lebanese territory and a state stuck in gridlock.

Tarek Abou Jaoude receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. Why the ceasefire in Lebanon is unlikely to change much on the ground – https://theconversation.com/why-the-ceasefire-in-lebanon-is-unlikely-to-change-much-on-the-ground-280851

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Unwin, Reader in Palaeobiology, School of Heritage and Culture, University of Leicester

Georges Cuvier, the 19th-century French anatomist who first recognised pterodactyls as flying reptiles, wrote that “of all the beings whose ancient existence has been revealed to us, [they are] the most extraordinary”.

Now known as pterosaurs, this extraordinarily diverse, highly successful group lived alongside dinosaurs for more than 150 million years, occupying habitats around rivers, lakes, coasts and even the open ocean. While some species were quite small (no bigger than a pigeon), a few evolved into flying giants with wingspans exceeding ten metres.

Pterosaurs are unlike any other animal, living or extinct. Despite this, a surprisingly long list of fossils have been misidentified as pterosaurs – including a specimen of the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx, and an extinct aquatic reptile, Tanystropheus, which had extraordinarily long neck vertebrae like some pterosaurs.

One of the most renowned misidentifications occurred in 1939 when Ferdinand Broili, a Munich-based palaeontologist, described a new pterosaur, Belonochasma, based on what appeared to be the remains of jaws bearing hundreds of long, fine teeth.

Several decades later, Franz Mayr, founder of the Jura Museum in Eichstätt, Germany, recognised the true nature of these remains. The “teeth” were actually gill filaments. More complete fossils, including remains of the body, showed unequivocally that Belonochasma was actually a fish.

Back in the 1930s, it could be years before publications became widely known and decades before errors were corrected. The gentle pace of research meant misidentifications usually had little impact.

Contrast that with today’s digiverse. Now, most palaeontologists are aware of newly published research within days or even hours of publication – and can immediately start downloading datasets that include it.

This rapid dissemination and repurposing of data – in the case of palaeontology, relating to age, geographic location and bodily structure – mean that errors can also spread very quickly.

A highly unusual fossil

In November 2025, a team of Brazilian palaeontologists led by Rodrigo Pêgas, based in the Museum of Zoology at the University of São Paulo, described what they took to be a new pterosaur. Bakiribu waridza had been found in 110 million-year-old Early Cretaceous rock of Araripe in northeast Brazil.

This highly unusual fossil apparently comprised several small fish plus the remains of not one but two pterosaurs – each represented by what were claimed to be fragmentary remains of jaws, plus hundreds of fine teeth.

Pêgas and colleagues speculated that these specimens were contained in dinosaur vomit (known as regurgitalite) so large that it could only have been produced by a huge predator – perhaps a Spinosaurus-like theropod dinosaur. Enthusiastically promoted, the newly announced Bakiribu drew much attention, including numerous palaeoartists’ impressions and its own Wikipedia page.

However, a group of us who study pterosaurs – including David Martill and Roy Smith from the University of Portsmouth, and Sam Cooper from the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History – soon spotted some problems.

Comparing our extensive collection of high-resolution digital photographs of pterosaur fossils with published images of Bakiribu, it appeared that its “teeth” did not extend along both sides of the jaw in symmetric fashion, as with all toothed pterosaurs. They also lacked a root, which is omnipresent in pterosaur teeth. Moreover, features such as dentine and dentine tubules, typical of pterosaur teeth, appeared to be absent.

We also noticed that bone fragments associated with the supposed jaws did not match any cranial element of pterosaurs, and their coarse external texture was unlike the smooth finish typical of pterosaur bone.

So, what was Bakiribu? Martill recalled the 1939 Belonochasma episode, which prompted me to examine the original fossil during a visit to Munich earlier this year. It was immediately clear that Belonochasma and Bakiribu were remarkably similar.

Comparing Bakiribu with the fossil remains of ancient bowfins discovered in the same rocks, and taking advantage of Cooper’s expertise in fossilised fish, we were able to identify the supposed teeth of Bakiribu as gill filaments, and the associated bony elements as branchials (structures that support the gills). Like Belonochasma, the Bakiribu fossil was in fact a collapsed gill arch of a large fish, preserved alongside two smaller fish.

A paper detailing our findings has just appeared in the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Pegas and colleagues, who disagree with our conclusions, were offered an opportunity to publish a response in the same issue of the journal, but did not take up this invitation.

Misidentifications matter more now

All palaeontologists – myself included – have misidentified at least one fossil during their careers. The fragmentary, incomplete nature of many fossil remains means erroneous identifications are as inevitable as death and taxes.

But in today’s world of rapid international communication, it is all the more important that they are highlighted as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the digiverse can also help do this.

Within five weeks of the first appearance of Bakiribu, our team flagged the possibility of a misidentification by posting a reinterpretation as a non-peer reviewed “preprint” article. And only five months later, our fully peer-reviewed account was published.

The speed of the digiverse means this alleged regurgitalite has rapidly been regurgitated. But doubtless many other misidentified fossils remain unsuspected, and more mistakes will be made in the future.

Once spotted, however, at least we have the tools to quickly verify such errors, in order to restrict their impact on the body palaeontologic.

David Unwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How we worked out a fossilised ‘pterosaur’ was actually a fish – new research – https://theconversation.com/how-we-worked-out-a-fossilised-pterosaur-was-actually-a-fish-new-research-280848