Taxonomy and phylogeny are two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they are always in agreement. I wrote a blog post on why the new Phylogeny Explorer in @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is such a big deal in that regard, and what's in store next for us. eliotmiller.weebly.com/blog/birds-o...

If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons: 1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress 2) Write to your congressional reps. 3) Write to [email protected] to request re-consideration;

Evolution of manakin plumage maturation now out early look @sse-evolution.bsky.social (Phylo-)Devo-evo, plumage, and social signaling Bonkers system that reshaped how I think about both development and evolution. doi.org/10.1093/evol...

We are thrilled to reveal the official logo for #AFOWOS2026! Will you be joining us in Rhode Island this summer?

I often use @rossbrooks.co.uk articles in my teaching materials and have been waiting for a book for years! Excited to see this happening, congrats!!

Excellent piece by Matz @heatshok.bsky.social and colleagues discussing the dire status of Caribbean reefs, and potential plans and policies that can be implemented if these reefs are to have any chance. Check it out in PNAS!

I guess all I'm asking for is a massive bracket for each genus -> family -> order where ornithologists around the world can vote for the objectively best bird, and the winners get to rep their lineage on the tree 😇

Why are flowers pollinated by birds typically red? Some flowering plants have a gene that both reduces the amount of UV light petals reflect (making them less visible to bees, the "wrong" pollinators) AND makes them redder and more visible to birds.

Call your reps to demand they: 1) Abolish ice (every day!) 2) Vote no whenever the "Make Elections Great Again" Act comes up. It's an atrocious set of restrictions on elections made to make voting harder. Fuck that! Don't let them hear the end of it. Remember. Squid can't use phones, so we have to.

Marcus McAllister ”Time to grow 01” 2025 - watercolor and crayon on paper - 20x20cm #workonpaper #drawing #SciArt #bird

Job Posting: San Diego Natural History Museum Curator of Ornithology workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...

Northern Shoveler on West Texas ice 🪶

Some new rubber stamp designs! 🐦✉️

Washington, DC. March 7th, 2026. Rally with us to Take Back Science! 🧪✊🔬💥 The stakes could not be higher: we're facing attacks from an administration hell-bent on dismantling our science and our democracy. We have to stand up and fight back! GET IN, DORKS! www.standupforscience.net/ma...

I'm hearing from multiple people that students who submitted ecology GRFP proposals are having those proposals rejected without review, despite ecology being listed as an eligible field. If this is a programmatic change, this is devastating. Ecology is the study of Earth's life support systems.

This is ... interesting, considering I got not one but two emails from NSF soliciting ecologists as GRFP reviewers

oh YEAH! Ornithology + the Yucatan in December??? Count me in for #IOC2026! If I haven't met you IRL, let's meet there!

Global shark and ray populations have declined sharply. A Review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity assesses global status, highlights drivers of decline, and outlines the regulatory, market-based and conservation actions needed to reduce mortality and reverse shark and ray biodiversity loss. 🔒

I suddenly went to feeling burnt out about conferences / being on the fence about attending a conference this summer to writing a symposium proposal and being on a workshop proposal in less than 12 hours

This drug improved the lives of multiple people in my family who have psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis and I'm so fucking mad . It's cheap. One dose of Skyrizi is tens of thousands of dollars, with Humira being thousands. It prevents crippling effects of different types of arthritis.

signal boost! i'm sure someone in my general network has some suggestions?

It’s important to me that y’all see this

Himalayan vulture sketch -3310 🎨🐡🪶 #art

Mr Flashy showing the many shades of iridescence he has at his disposal when attracting a mate. #birds 🧡

every time i see a white guy in their fifties radicalized by the twitter algorithm into racism and extremism i think about how it's a total failure of the youtube algorithm to instead radicalize him into home brewing, elaborate A/V setups, or DIY solar

Second PhD paper is out! We find: 1) aquatic and terrestrial salamanders have different limb bone adaptations, 2) complex life cycles promote different traits, 3) decoupling of external and internal bone traits increase diversity. Thread (1/8) and FREE link below! 🦎🧪 doi.org/10.1111/joa....

Are you (or do you know someone) recently graduated from undergrad looking to beef up your skills and experience prior to starting grad school/career? Do you like social drama and parakeets? Come join my team! I'm looking for two people to start very soon!! tinyurl.com/59rf8jcy

The people who are hosting the native plant posters this year now have a little group chat and they're all texting to report in from their neighborhoods roll-call style and it's thawing my cold heart a little bit.

Never meet your heroes? Well what if it’s a battle scarred, meat eating machine?! Yeah I’m talking about Big Al (MOR 693). As a kid watching The Ballad of Big Al, how could you not look up to this massive theropod?! Infected toe, broken ribs, weird vertebrae, a hole in the shoulder? What a legend!

I was gonna hold off on releasing these shirts, BUT they are sick as hell & I wanted to show you. Imagine a world... in which Goth Girls Gardened... GASP! You're living in that world RIGHT NOW. Bring the Goth into Gardening at SquidFacts.net Designed by the amazing @seaofdoom.bsky.social

Our Executive Producer, Meghan Modafferi, recently talked to @hankgreen.bsky.social about how Crash Course is made and how science works. Along the way they discussed the world of information, pseudoscience, and why we've never done a Crash Course on math. youtu.be/DpGU8NARX-s

Picked mine up yesterday - can confirm 10/10 mood brighteners

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is amazing, but y'all should know that it employs about 200 people to make those resources happen. Serving detailed biodiversity information takes significant resources, on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year.

In case anyone wants a little break, here are a few of my favorite facts that I learned in 2025, in no particular order. Some trees benefit from, and may even encourage, getting struck by lightning because it kills their nearby competitors nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Hi folks, the Asian Ornithological Conference will be happening from 14-17 Nov 2026 in Singapore. Please consider adding this to your conference schedule if you have bird research projects focused on the Asian region. Early registration opens 1 Feb, more info at aoc2026.sg

🚨NEW PAPER OUT🚨 The anatomy of bird lower jaw bones has been understudied...until now! Here, we examine avian mandibular anatomy, answering some and raising more questions about the phylogenetic affinities of key early crown-group birds. Read on! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Yesterday, my family group chat was abuzz about Minnesota and ICE... "What can we do??" I spent some time giving them advice, articles to read, encouraging them to find community where they live. There has never been a greater time to recruit people into your movement.

Some observations from walking through the city at 7am this morning: Philly friends, if the wall of snow blocking your car in, which is now covered in ice, reaches your chest - you have to _clear it_ before trying to get your car out of that spot

For me it was the sponge… what do you think? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Okay, 3 days left in January, 15 orders to reach my goal of 30. Can I make it? I don’t know but nothing will stop me from trying! If you like my art please push some buttons so the artsy queers who are looking to bring some whimsy in their lives see it! Shop: linktr.ee/thesunxix #art #illustration

finally got a proper good look at the handsome male American Wigeon who’s been hanging out on the river Clyde (they’re a rare vagrant blown off course from North America)

I’ve been working on these guys for 10 days and I think the front guy is nearly there. Biggest #watercolor painting that I have ever attempted.

Brb guess I’m changing my slides for tomorrow’s climatology class to just be photos of… an interplay of hot bodies?

People at this event know what’s up

In the new episode of Crash Course Scientific Thinking, we’ll learn how to interpret the statistics we see in our daily lives. And we’ll explore why we need stats to make informed judgments, be more precise about what we don’t know, and get closer to what we can know. youtu.be/Lw4oMXTEAkw

#Birbfest Day 27: Red-bearded Bee-eater. ✏️✨ I couldn't resist this fluffy fellow! A full-body graphite study of the Red-bearded Bee-eater (Nyctyornis amictus) with a curious head-turn. Too adorable not to draw. #ArtSky #Birbfest2026 #BirdArt #TraditionalArt #Sketchbook #LisabellaRusso #BeeEater

I have a free monthly email newsletter about birds and related topics and it's gonna go out next Wednesday. I think this month I'm gonna write about how weird birds' eyes are. So if you want something in your inbox that's NOT about current events, this is an option? buttondown.com/rheisman

This Earth Day, join HoneyReno Productions & SaS for Biodiversitease: an Earth Day Cabaret! Learn about native plants from a bombshell bumblebee. Hear about riparian restoration from a mantis in makeup. Don't dillydally. This will sell out. Get tickets while you can: Biodiversitease.eventbrite.com

Hey Philly! Tomorrow morning at 10am at city hall, city councilmembers Rue Landau and Kendra Brooks are going to be kicking off their Ice Out legislation and need our support. This legislation will make it harder for ice to operate here. Meet at the Northeast Corner of City Hall to back them up.