It runs in the family: New extinct species from charismatic clades are more likely to be published in high-impact journals than those from non-charismatic clades

Abstract

The cultural landscape of paleontology is dominated by dinosaurs and a few other charismatic clades that are more likely to be depicted in media and to be recognized by the public. There is a prevailing belief among researchers that these biases extend to scholarly publishing - that certain clades enjoy a 'taxonomic advantage' that renders them more likely to be published in high-impact journals like Nature and Science. Given the importance of publishing in high-impact journals for career advancement, quantitative testing of this hypothesis can inform on potential biases in this area. I examined articles describing new species that were published between 2000 and mid-2026 in one of thirteen journals (n = 4,248 articles, 8,331 new species), ranging from high-profile, multidisciplinary titles like Nature to lower-profile, specialist titles like the Journal of Paleontology. Comparisons of the taxonomic composition of new species between journals revealed a positive correlation between a journal's prestige (approximated by its impact factor) and the relative proportion of new species that belong to charismatic clades. Avemetatarsalians and mammaliamorphs represent more than 50% of new species in Nature and Science but less than 15% of new species in the control group of paleontological journals. These results provide support for the perception that there is a bias between extinct taxa as it relates to publication in high-impact journals. Given the potential for researchers to accrue cumulative advantage through publishing in prestigious journals, bias in favor of charismatic clades creates the potential for opportunities and knowledge generation to become increasingly skewed and consolidated towards these clades, at the expense of less charismatic clades and the people studying them. This threatens the discipline's ability to continue to construct a holistic understanding of the full history of life that can be disseminated to the public. Further attention should be directed towards examining potential biases in paleontological publications as the primary currency in academia.