Devonion fishies Elpistostege (close relative of the famous Tiktaalik) and couple of bothriolepis swimming by. Needs updating but still thinking this is one of my better paintings I have done

An unmasked woman just entered the bathroom as I came out of the stall and didn’t go in. After a minute, she asked me if I was masked because I was sick. There are at least 5 people hacking up their lungs at the boarding gate but they aren’t bothering her. Early COVID should have taught us better.

The first digital anatomical atlases of the chameleon skull, nervous system & cranial & hyolingual muscles are published, including lesson plans to bridge a gap between theoretical knowledge & hands-on analysis in comparative anatomy anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

After years of being curious but lazy, I finally got around to documenting what's inside the black walnuts in my yard. In the process I became obsessed with the strange wasp that hunts down the pupae of the resident flies. 🌿 #wasps #diapriidae #nature #diptera colinpurrington.com/2025/11/life...

This

Laville et al. - Synchrotron X-ray tomography sheds light on the phylogenetic affinities of the enigmatic thylacocephalans within Pancrustacea doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

After leaving #2025SVP, as always, I’m torn between sleeping and recovering for three full days and getting started on new collaborations! SVP is always so fun and inspiring!

#2025SVP ”SVP is not afraid of the word diversity. Thank you very much.”

“Hey, Krista, how was the …(can’t remember the word ‘conference’) science fair?”

crazy IG em_clarkson

Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics" guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Live birth in toads! Is a thing! Three newly described species of tree toads give birth to toadlets, ~40 or more at a pop and each just a few millimeters long. They were previously all lumped together as Nectophrynoides viviparus, until new analysis identified them as three different species 🐸🧪

I’m at the annual paleontology conference. Here’s how people today have described their work: “I basically study swamp monsters” “I’m a dinosaur orthodontist” “Dead bird bird watcher” #2025SVP

sure it gets dark at 4pm in fall here but everything looks like this for a few hours before then

A few weeks ago I attended the Olympic Peninsula Fungi Festival. I went as someone who is interested in most everything in the world, lives in a wet, fungi filled temperate rainforest, and is mostly ignorant about fungi. Here are some things I learned:

Just got on a flight where they scanned my face instead of my ticket. Pretty cyberpunk.

Diminutive fairy wombat poop. Tiny cubes under 2mm on each side. These are egg sacs made by a spider in the family Theridiosomatidae. They made yesterday’s hike special. Finding something I’ve never seen before is such a thrill. 🌱 #nature #macro #spider

The powers have conspired against me and my flight to SVP has been delayed by a day. Sad to miss the first bit!

Netflix has a new show about my boy James Garfield!!!! He’s the president I’m most confident had ADHD. I think he could’ve been one of the greats if he hadn’t been murdered/shot and then killed accidentally by doctors. So far I’m really enjoying it. It’s called Death by Lightning.

if you’ve had Szechuan peppercorns do you experience them more as a) tingly (like a vibration) or b) numbing (like super weak lidocaine) ~And~ are you colorblind (we‘d need to correct for base rates but let’s just try to crank the anecdata knob first; @elenatenenbaum.bsky.social this is for you)

This is my first Gilmore Girls rewatch as a person older than Lauren Graham was when the show started. I feel old. Also Rory is even worse than I remembered.

We got to meet the most unique little boy yesterday, he’s with our partner rescue. At first glance, he looks like a regular orange tabby. But take a closer look, & what seems like grease smudges is actually (drumroll)— small mixed tortoiseshell patches!! This little guy has 1:3000 XXY chromosomes.

Okay, Ezra is confirming that he's hearing D senators are actually plotting to cave to Trump and end the shutdown WITHOUT any extension of the ACA, just a promise of a vote later down the line. Call your senators, friends, NOW, and tell them NO DEAL without ACA funding! Find them here: reps.fyi

I closed 78 tabs please clap

it's pretty funny how peppers produce capsaicin so they get eaten and dispersed long distance by birds instead of puny walking mammals, but then some apes decided "oh hey pain is fun actually" and now the plants made it to every part of the planet

For those attending #2025SVP #SVP2025: if you have requests of tracks you would like to hear/dance to at the Saturday after party reply to this post & let me know & I will pass them on to the DJ.

congrats to everyone for thinking this through before signing very big contracts to put it on every student’s device at the school or university you run

This video is awesome, and this species is the samurai crab, legendary in Japan 🦀🦑 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikegani

Feeling some feelings about James Watson. Here’s a Watson I feel better about celebrating.

For #FossilFriday, please enjoy some very, VERY old evidence of parasitism, preserved in fossilized shells of brachiopods that lived ~500 million years ago in what's now southern China. These kleptoparasites—food stealers—built mineralized tubes on filter-feeding hosts & slurped up their food 🧪

(Top) sketched this one alongside other tetrapods some time back.

The 6-ish metre long Kem Kem crocodylomorph Laganosuchus represents a bizarre lineage known primarily from their elongated, flattened, U-shaped heads. Size comparison below ⬇️ #sciart #paleoart

The Dept of Biology at Loyola University. Chicago has an open lecturer position in Gender, Sexuality, and the Biology of Sex. The successful candidate will have a 50% affiliation with the Women's Studies and Gender Studies program and 50% Dept of Biology. www.careers.luc.edu/postings/34131

TIL: A million-year old fossil of a pregnant sea snail led me to the discovery that a small percentage of modern snails have internal fertilization, development & live birth. In family 'Viviparidae,' baby snails emerge looking like tiny versions of the adults. What to get for the baby shower?

Phylogeny of tinamous based on whole-genomes and fossils: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪 (📷Musher et al.)

I remain absolutely confused that people *ever* thought screwing with the abyssal sea floor would "get better" after mining.

Utrecht Paleogeography model in prep! We're integrating our detailed reconstructions of orogenic belts and lost subducted plates into one plate tectonic and paleogeography model. We'll launch the updated Paleolatitude.org soon, and more tools for geodynamic, paleoclimate, and paleobiology studies!

Something I’ve noticed is there seems to be a sort of pervasive assumption that the status quo has gravity. That there’s a natural, comfortable way things should be and that deviations from the normal state of the world will correct themselves in time. But as a paleontologist, I know this is false.

You are a Post-Padawan now!

Fun fact: Flying squirrels fluoresce under UV light. Here is one at my bird feeder in MN a while back. (I busted out a moth lamp for the photo.)

Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time

What was the hardest part of grad school for you? Was it having a kid, the thesis defense? I told them nope, it was being the only & the first. The only Inupiaq at UW Madison for most of my years there, one of 250 Natives on a campus of over 40K, the first Native to earn a PhD in my program🧵

Pretty stoked that our article got the cover of the latest issue of @journalofanatomy.bsky.social! Check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

This needs more attention: Zohran SPLIT the straights with Cuomo. ALL of his margin was from LGBTQ+ voters. Every Dem who ever said “we should abandon the transes” needs this shoved down their fucking throat with a ramrod.

*female* skin color

“Hey I lost my tire and I’d like to get a replacement” Mechanic: “what do you mean you lost your tire?” … “oh wow you lost your tire”

When asked by Stephen Colbert why he was wearing a mask in public, Tom Hanks said.. “I’ve had Covid enough in my life I don’t need to do that again. I’m wearing this for health reasons” More celebrities need to speak out like this.

Is this feeling hope? Hello, old friend, it’s been a while.

“Hey Honey, be on the lookout for packages today. I’m expecting a delivery of cow eyeballs” Yes, that’s a real text from my wife