PLOS Paleo Top 10 Taxa of 2017

                          Invitation to PLOS Paleo Community members

Last year, we asked this community to vote for their choices for the top 10 fossil vertebrates published open access last year. Over 800 of you voted, with winners announced at SVP in Oct/2016. You can find the results of last year's contest here.

This year, based on your feedback, we are changing our eligibility rules for the competition to include either vertebrate or non-vertebrate taxa published Open Access either as a research article or as a preprint, between December 1, 2016, and November 15, 2017.


This is not just a popularity contest, we want to honour researchers who've thought long and worked hard to provide quality research that is openly available to all in the broad community of paleo researchers and readers!

Take your time looking through the articles below, vote below for your choices for the top 10 taxa, and then spread the word!

Below you will find a list of invertebrate and vertebrate species that were the subjects of research articles or preprints published over the past year (Dec 1 2016 to Nov 15 2017). These papers were selected by the editors of the PLOS Paleontology Community blog (Andy Farke, Jon Tennant, Sarah Gibson). Each option contains a link to the original research article where the organism was described.

Having a hard time deciding? Criteria to consider when selecting organisms should include the thoroughness and quality of the description; the preservation or completeness of the specimen(s); the importance of the the organism to understanding the evolutionary relationships, evolutionary history, paleoecology, or functional morphology of their respective groups; or even the quality of the figures and associated paleo art (when applicable).

Lastly, if you think that we missed something big -- your own work or another research team -- that was published within our time frame, write it in! If enough people write in the same organism, it could be selected!