This special issue has its origins with a 2014 symposium organized by myself and my co-editors David W. Bapst, Graeme T. Lloyd and Nicholas J. Matzke at the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology meetings in Berlin, Germany. In the two years prior to 2014, there had been several interesting and important papers published [1] [2] [3][4] about estimating phylogenetic trees incorporating fossil taxa, and particularly involving Bayesian analyses. Some of these papers were written from a neontological perspective, and appeared in journals not often read by paleontologists. We convened our session with a simple idea: to get different types of researchers from both neontology and paleontology together to share work and ideas concerning phylogenetic analyses in paleontology. The session's success inspired my co-editors and I to propose a Special Feature for Biology Letters, to which we invited the session participants and other contributors. The Biology Letters short format is perfect for focused vignettes about the actual practice of phylogenetics with fossils.