Episode 62 launches this Friday! Join us as we chat with @sternarchella.bsky.social, Ichthyologist and professor of biosciences at Rice University. Dr. Evans chats with us about fish evolution, particularly through the lens of fish skulls. A fascinating discussion, fresh in your podcatcher Friday!

Join us!!! We’re hiring an Assistant Professor of Evolution! apply.interfolio.com/173889

Wing pelage is suggested to have a functional role in bats — and it’s not just to make them cuter. Check out the publication below to learn more! #academia #academicSky #PhDSky #bats #science

Super proud to share the first first-author paper from @ashockney24.bsky.social and our first official Rummel lab publication! Check it out here: nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Loved this write-up of our fieldwork in Tanzania this summer, led by grad student Annie Finneran and undergrad Caroline Pollan. I felt very lucky to join them to catch some bats there! news.rice.edu/news/2025/ba...

Went fishing for gar in Buffalo Bayou, didn’t catch anything but we saw this incredible alligator snapping turtle!

Another active night at Buffalo Bayou watching the bat emergence. The bats come out before sunset, and so do the predators, with hawks catching them mid-air and herons plucking them from their roosts

Every fish that we catch has a story, some are crazier than others. We caught this unicornfish during a night dive in Okinawa last year. The trip was memorable because we had to end the dive early when North Korea fired a missile in our general direction and we had to take cover

Kory Evans @sternarchella.bsky.social taking on Modularity promotes the evolution of complex biomechanical systems #JMIH25 #ASIHin3D

Our new REU student Darla found something interesting in one of her CT scans! Looks like this fish was halfway through eating a big snail and some coral rubble when @mwestneat.bsky.social caught it last summer in Okinawa!

Almost home from Tanzania and reflecting on a great trip. I got to SCUBA dive in the Indian Ocean for the first time and I saw so many new species for the first time. My favorite was definitely this gold bar wrasse that I saw in Zanzibar.

Safari is done. One of my favorite sightings was this Serval cat. Small cats are often reclusive and tough to spot but this one walked right up to us

Get your 3D glasses out for #3DThursday! And click the link below to see syGlass on the really big screen at the @mit.edu MIT Museum last week. (guys it's my first syGlass blog ...) 📝: www.syglass.io/blog/a-night... 🥼: Kory Evans @sternarchella.bsky.social , Rice University 🎥: syGlass.io #syGlass

Doing some safari stuff and we saw this amazing exchange between a cheetah and a hyena that was trying to steal a kill that it thought they had. There were 3 cheetahs here and the Hyena easily ran them all off

Found this little guy in our mist nets in the Udzungwa National forest a few night ago. I thought it was a delicate spiny reed frog but I could be wrong

Really nice write-up of our collaboration with San Jacinto College! We are working together to listen to 🦇🦇🦇around Houston. Shout out to @ashockney24.bsky.social for getting this project off the ground!

Our parrotfish have OnlyFins accounts down here in Coral City😉🚦🦜🐟 #stoplightparrotfish #onlyfins #parrotfishjungle #parrotfishcapitaloftheworld #strikeapose #lookbackatit #parrotfish #protogynoushermaphrodite #intermediatephase #coral #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity

How do fish swim together in a school? Why do orcas wear fish hats? What is the smartest animal in the ocean? Check out Marine Biologist Support with @sternarchella.bsky.social ! youtu.be/2YquYkNcF7I?...

Saw one of the greatest freshwater fishes of all time this morning in Tanzania. The Goliath tigerfish is a formidable predator with some of the largest teeth that you will ever see. There was a local fisherman selling them door to door

Just reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and was greeted by thousands of fruit bats flying over the city.

Made a Pokemon Snap reference to my class today and no one got it. This is the oldest that I have ever felt

Dr. KoryEvans and I were interviewed on the Gulf Streams podcast about #biodiversity! @ricesustainability.bsky.social @sternarchella.bsky.social #EarthDay2025 www.podbean.com/ew/pb-w2xfj-...

I am pleased to announce The Macroevolution Lab at Ohio State opens this August! We will be housed in the Museum of Biological Diversity 🐟🐠🐡

Got minor revisions on a manuscript and a personal best redfish today!

Hot take here, but I don’t really care that the wolves only have like 14 dire wolf genes. And I don’t care that they’re calling them dire wolves. It’s fun and objectively cool, and I’m counting as a win given our current ahem…climate

May I interest you in a cute gar scan on this dreary Wednesday morning? These fishes have the best weird toothy skulls and always have a bit of a grin on them

We had a truly spectacular emergence at Waugh Bridge last night! 🦇

Battle of the wings at Buffalo Bayou (the bat got away 😮‍💨🦇)

Two new studfish! Thanks to the Sandel Lab for letting me tag along :) www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Next up is morphological work to further explore species limits. CT scans by @sternarchella.bsky.social

Easy breezy beautiful cover girl!!

We got the cover of Nature Eco Evo for our anglerfish study!! Shoutout to our graduate student HoWan Chan for the slick image. Read to study here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Love the hawk vs bat drama that plays out every night in Houston

Welcome to the Bluesky account for Stand Up for Science 2025! Keep an eye on this space for updates, event information, and ways to get involved. We can't wait to see everyone #standupforscience2025 on March 7th, both in DC and locations nationwide! #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

Grad student Kate checking out some bats in a local colony. Glamorous fieldwork!

In the process of digitizing the fish prints from Okinawa and the results are stunning

I love the diversity of #fishfaces These are images from a collecting trip to Taiwan in 2006 (the first of three trips I have made to that beautiful island). #ichthyology #fishes #TeamFish

Check out my Rice University colleague Dr. Kory Evans on @scifri.bsky.social talking about anglerfish! Great work, @sternarchella.bsky.social !

Last week, a video of a rare black seadevil anglerfish spotted near the ocean surface made headlines because anglerfish typically live in very deep waters. Dr. @sternarchella.bsky.social joins us to discuss the video and recent research on anglerfish evolution.

I think someone was trying to paint over this message but they used transparent pant and just ended up highlighting it, and that’s bringing me joy today.

At this point I’m just gonna move my office to wherever these guys are

We've got a good one for you today! This is the skull of an Indo-Pacific Blue Marlin that we caught in Okinawa. This particular fish is special because it is both the largest fish that I've ever collected, and ever scanned. S/O to @jaimiagray.bsky.social for helping out with the scan!

Still thinking about this candy-bar-sized, deep-sea blorb hauled out of the forever night and into our hearts. 🧪🦑

Only 3 days left to submit an application to this summer's #REU - BLINKS program! We're excited to have so many awesome projects lined up.☁️ Diversity VALUED! Please pass this along and check out our website for project descriptions and application info: fhl.uw.edu/research/sum... 🧪 Please boost!

When I talked with @sternarchella.bsky.social, of course we discussed the brilliant @beetlemoses.bsky.social cartoon. Could a deep sea anglerfish even perceive a world bathed in sunlight? Let alone the lands beyond the surf? Or were its final moments searing white light and sensory overload? 🧪🦑

Did you see the deep-sea anglerfish that bubbled up to the surface? Did you wonder WHAT IN THE DING DANG HECK it was doing there? I talked to some scientists to find out everything I could! HT @sternarchella.bsky.social, @mbarinews.bsky.social 🧪🦑 www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Where I need to be rn

You are not powerless, and he is not unstoppable. Look at, and learn from, the funding freeze and how quickly he was forced to surrender.

I got some of my joy back

We are fortunate that we have a rich teaching natural history collection at UChicago, built by folks like Len Radinsky and Jim Hopson, and now by myself and Paul Sereno. Great resource for our students. Here is a nice loggerhead sea turtle skull, obtained back in the 70s by Radinsky I believe. 🦑🧪🌎