Rate My Professor James Holmes

Dr. James Holmes serves as Lecturer in Zoology within the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England. Holding a PhD from the University of Adelaide, he is a palaeobiologist whose research centers on patterns of morphological evolution across the history of life. Utilizing geometric morphometrics, Holmes examines morphological diversity in fossil animals across scales, from ontogenetic growth and development in individual species to macroevolutionary dynamics of disparity over geological timescales. Trilobites form the core of his model system, complemented by studies on the Ediacara biota—the earliest macroscopic multicellular life—and Cretaceous reptiles. His delineated research interests encompass morphological evolution and disparity-through-time, ontogeny and development of fossil invertebrates, trilobite phylogenetics and biogeography, and Australian Cambrian biostratigraphy. Previously associated with Uppsala University during his doctoral and postdoctoral phases, Holmes contributes to international collaborations, including with the American Museum of Natural History, Uppsala University, and Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany.

Holmes has garnered the 2023 Walter Howchin Medal and a prestigious 2026 Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award for his project investigating trilobite radiation into global ecological niches during the Cambrian Period approximately 520 million years ago. This initiative introduces a novel analytical method to quantify trilobite species age ranges and track morphological diversity changes in unprecedented resolution, illuminating evolutionary trajectories of structures like eyes and spines, with applicability to other well-preserved fossil groups. Select key publications include Holmes et al., 'Ontogeny of the trilobite Redlichia from the lower Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4 Ramsay Limestone of South Australia' (Geological Magazine, 2021); Holmes et al., 'The trilobite Redlichia from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte of South Australia: systematics, ontogeny and soft-part anatomy' (Papers in Palaeontology, 2019); Holmes et al., 'Contrasting patterns of disparity suggest differing evolutionary drivers during the Cambrian “explosion” of trilobites' (Palaeontology, 2023); and Bicknell et al., 'Biomechanical analyses of Cambrian euarthropod limbs reveal their effectiveness in mastication and durophagy' (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2021). A member of the Geological Society of Australia and Australasian Palaeontologists, he teaches courses such as ZOOL100 Life on Earth, enhancing UNE's stature as a palaeontology powerhouse.