Our big squamate origins and early evolution review is now fully published as open access! with @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social and F. Burbrink www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

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....

Now in Evolution: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... This paper started when @3rdreviewer.bsky.social, Mike, and I had a lunch at which there was a lot of, "What do you mean when you say X?" Fun to spend time thinking about when terms get too muddy, and great work by Drew to pull it all together!

Recent paper from our lab on the puncture performance of hemipene spines in snakes! Some are like cat claws, others barely puncture. A single species can have many different spine morphologies and thousands of spines! 🧪 🐍 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

I'll also be looking to recruit an MS student to study the functional morphology and biomechanics of adhesion, friction, and/or locomotion in sea urchins, geckos, or anoles! Please share! @sicb-dcb-dvm.bsky.social @sicb.bsky.social

The November cover of Genome Biology and Evolution features @raularayadonoso.bsky.social @kenrokusumi.bsky.social @anthonygeneva.bsky.social et al., who studied how structural rearrangements and selection promote phenotypic evolution in Anolis. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf196 #genome #evolution

"The project that was terminated was on this hummingbird, the white-necked jacobin....I suspect that it has something to do with studying a species that doesn’t fit the binary." Researcher @jjinsing.bsky.social interviewed by @carlzimmer.com #birds #nature #science #fundscience #nonbinary 🧪

Ever seen a clear and stained little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus)? 🦇 I love how their modified forelimbs, with elongated phalanges that support the wing membrane used for flight. Look how big those fangs are! 🧪🎃

🥈 Second Prize – DevBio Art Contest 🎨
Hyloscirtus lynchi tadpoles captured in watercolor! 🐸 A tribute to this critically endangered Andean frog, showcasing its natural colors, unique hindlimb sacs & delicate morphology. 🌿 Painting by Sebastian Plata #DevBio #ScienceArt

Repeated gene losses have independently shaped colour diversity in marsupials. An ASIP deletion is associated with eastern quoll melanism and is convergent with the related Tassie devil, while MC1R truncation is found in the pale-yellow marsupial mole. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Paper out! We tested the ability of short-read pangenomes to capture variants for population genomics. Super excited to have been part of this project. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Republican support for science paved the way for my career as a biologist. To explain this, I prepared a blog post to accompany a recent Editorial published in @sicbjournals.bsky.social. integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/10/14/h...

Here, we use the jerboa and mouse to understand the temporal growth dynamics that establish adult vertebral proportion, the cellular drivers of differential growth, and candidate genetic mechanisms that determine and diversify vertebral proportion. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I was collecting #quail #embryos this morning and found an individual with albinism! Look at the lack of pigment in the retinal epithelium! Reminds me of finding a leopard #gecko embryo with the same condition during my PhD.

@a-weberling.bsky.social & I characterize oogenesis from initiation in the germinal bed to ovulatory follicles for the first time in the brown anole, a powerful reptile model for evo-devo & functional genetics! Full preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1🧵 Excited to share my first PhD paper, published in @dev-journal.bsky.social What if fish gills —often overlook —hold secrets about development, patterning, and function? We uncovered how early patterning shapes adult gill architecture. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/... #DevBio #Zebrafish

🐺 Happy to share our recent article, “The dire wolf resurrection that wasn’t” anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... Thanks to my awesome co-authors Annie Burrows, Adam Hartstone-Rose, and Mike Jensen-Seaman!

I am one of a growing number of voices encouraging the scientific community to engage with people and policymakers outside of our typical professional circles. Our professional organizations, including @sicb.bsky.social, also need to engage with new audiences by making their science accessible.

Here, the 'ballistic tongues' paper by Yu Zeng and team www.cell.com/current-biol... plus dispatch by Sam Van Wassenbergh www.cell.com/current-biol...

Shifting my research program to exclusively study "Bads"

Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.

New preprint from some of my postdoc work on lungs! Co-led with Kaleb Hill, we studied smooth muscle and epithelial development in lizard lungs. Stay tuned for more! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper is officially out! Ratfish have a second jaw on their foreheads - CT + histology show they’re real teeth, built from the same tissues and signals as oral teeth. www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...

Our new paper is out in Royal Society Open Science! The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole keratinized mouthparts to adult teeth doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

My feather cell type paper is finally out! doi.org/10.1111/ede.... We’ve packed a ton of stuff into this paper but I’ll go through some highlights in this thread!

Hey folks out there who ❤️ to #CTscan things and ❤️ museums! the @amnh.org is hiring a Laboratory Manager for their Microscopy and Imaging Facility, a.k.a. the CT lab 🧪 careers.amnh.org/postings/4550

🦖 Presmykaiushchiiasia (Reptilia) = Petrograd: Akademiia nauk, 1915-1916. [Source]

Keeping it local for world lizard day- Rhineura floridana, also known as the Florida worm lizard or, brilliantly, the thunderworm, is a truly bizarre and wonderful creature. Eyeless, burrowing and restricted to the sandy soils of the sunshine state. What a fabulous weirdo!

Sphaerodactylus geckos loom large in my mind (but sit small on my hand)

1/6 Preprint Alert Ever thought that humans & chameleons look alike? We follow chameleon development from fertilisation to oviposition & uncover the process through which they form an epiblast lumen that exhibits striking similarity to human embryos #devbio #evodevo www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New Comparative Anatomy Textbook! Completely free to read and open access! doi.org/10.59319/YHF...

Here it is! Please welcome the AMAZING Mirasaura grauvogeli, a NEW MARVELOUS Drepanosaur published in NATURE today! This astonishing reptile lived during the Middle Triassic in Europe and it possessed an amazing crest made of plume-like structures! I was commissioned to bring it to life #paleoart

So proud of my academic sibling @ecokatsully.bsky.social for defending her PhD today! Well done, Kat! To celebrate, here are some classy photos 🦋 🐛

Go work with Blair!

Close-up of the toepads of the diploid edition of North America's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis). You can tell this one is a male from the loose, gray skin on his throat.

🚨🐸 Frog Nerds Assemble 🐸🚨 Recently we published a paper on the phylogenetics and taxonomy of Australia and New Guinea's tree frogs, the Pelodryadidae. Link here: tinyurl.com/4udpmxsm What does this mean for you Litoria-lovers? There's a whole bunch more names to use! Let me explain ...

📢 The #BiodiversityHeritageLibrary is entering a bold new chapter – and we need your help! Today we release our official Call for Support. We’re seeking new hosts for BHL’s staff, infrastructure, and services. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/06/tran... #BHLTransition #ILoveBHL

Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research. about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...

So disappointing. Biodiversity Heritage Library has been a CRUCIAL resource for my work and countless others.

You want to apply #ATACseq in your emerging model organism, but you don't know where to start? Is #ATACseq the best method for my research questions? Search no more! We got you covered with our new review: doi.org/10.1002/jez.... Excellent collaboration with @gevol.bsky.social

Hell yeah, @mads100tist.bsky.social

Pretty cool seeing both my developmental staging series at the @devdynamics.bsky.social table and #Lepidodactylus itself in San Juan for SDB! #2025SDB #2025ICDB #devbio #GeckoEvoDevo #mourninggecko

Excited to share a new #OA paper in @journalofanatomy.bsky.social detailing evolution and development of hemibacula: bizarre mineralized elements in hemipenes of croaking geckos. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #GeckoEvoDevo #Aristelliger

Going to #ICDB2025? Check out my poster on Thursday in the "Development and Evolution" section! Many of you may know me as a lizard biologist, but I'll be chatting about some of my postdoc work on comparative amniote development. Come see yet another reason why birds are so cool and weird! #SDB

Decided there's not enough lizards in the #ColorsOfSkullAnatomy collection 🦎 So, new to the gang: Phyllurus platurus (southern leaf tail gecko). An Aussie lizard of course, and one of the 1st specimens I scanned at Florida Museum in 2021 www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/leaftail-gecko-skull-anatomy/

Head scales of the Sulcata tortoise, imaged with light sheet microscopy. Our new study in @cp-iscience.bsky.social reveals that their emergence is controlled by both chemical cues and mechanical forces. Read the full article here 🐢🔬🧪 www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Excited to share our new research in @cp-iscience.bsky.social! We reveal that tortoise head scales are sculpted through two distinct developmental processes - chemical signalling and mechanical folding 🐢🔬🧪 @lanevol.bsky.social @genevunige.bsky.social www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Millions of birds nest in the Arctic each year. But did you know they’ve been doing this since the Cretaceous? Can’t believe I finally get to share that our paper on the birds of the Prince Creek Formation is out in ‪@science.org (and on the cover)! 🧵 Art: Gabriel Ugueto ‪@serpenillus.bsky.social

New paper! Italian wall lizards have been introduced to urban areas across the world and do very well around humans.🦎 from a source population that has evolved with humans for millennia are more bold than 🦎 from nearby rural areas. Priming them for success in cities? academic.oup.com/jue/article/...