Back at the Beach -YAY! #AquaticModels

Cambrian Carnival

Based on available data for living species, there are 37,520 species of non-tetrapod fishes vs. 33,281 tetrapod species. 🤓 #TheMoreYouKnow Source for non-tetrapod fish species data: researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ich... Source for tetrapod species data: zenodo.org/records/1053...

Thanks @patyschneider22.bsky.social for a wonderful visit to @michiganstateu.bsky.social and a great talk in our #EEB seminar series! Check out her lab’s recent preprint on the four-eyed fish retina: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #EndlessFishMostBeautiful

Happy Birthday to Abe and Chuck! #OTD

As we count down to #DarwinDay, we're re-visiting some great pieces on why we teach evolution! "Evolution isn't just a story about where we came from. It's an epic at the center of life itself." https://ncse.ngo/why-teach-evolution-1#DarwinDay

Midwest: the best!

Congrats @jeffreyafarrell.bsky.social !!! He is doing some of the most important work bringing Dev Bio to the 21st century... (the other winners are pretty good too I hear)

I just learned the history, and current significance, of red knitted hats to resistance movements: www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n... Makes these gar stickers I received (years ago) from @drandrewthaler.bsky.social even more relevant today, especially here in Minnesota!

❤️

Why would Switzerland dissolve its Science Council? Saving no money and losing expertise which Swiss education, research and innovation need. swr-web.vercel.app/en/blog/stel...

And of course, the gang had to check out the new @msumuseum.bsky.social exhibit on fish X-ray vision diversity. All three main lineages of “fishes” on one wall, what more can you ask for? Ray, coelacanth, and yours garly represent. 🐟🐠🐡 #EndlessFishMostBeautiful

#Zebrafish 🐟 meeting klaxon🧨 The registration period for the 1st German Zebrafish Meeting (16-18 Sept) is open www.germanfishmeeting.org with Sessions on Development, Pharma, Behavior, Omics, and more. Deadline for Abstracts at the end of April. Hope to see y'all there! 🧪 (1/n)

Our project on molecular convergence in teleosts is published in MBE. This study involved analysing over 2 million genes, and combining multiple data modalities to uncover some surprising insights behind the evolution of adaptations in teleosts. Thank you @hfspo.bsky.social for the funding!

Our Fish EvoDevoGeno Lab @michiganstateu.bsky.social has its 10th anniversary today! 🐠🐟🧪🧬🔬 Thanks to all lab members - present & past, pictured or not - for making the last decade a success! & thanks to our partners in crime of the @brainyfishguts.bsky.social Lab, too! #EndlessFishMostBeautiful

#ImmigrantStoryoftheWeek 🔬 Meet Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, a Venezuelan molecular biologist whose curiosity was sparked by his grandfather’s ranch. His research reveals how organisms regenerate themselves, offering insight into treating human disease. Watch the full video: https://vilcek.co/3YPdH8W

It’s out! 🐟 We compared three regeneration superstars—axolotl, zebrafish, and Polypterus—to ask how animals regrow limbs and fins. We find shared core processes, and other programs fine-tuned by evolution in surprising, lineage-specific ways. tinyurl.com/mpftkn7y

A distinguished visitor in our Ancient Fish Facility today: @fishguy.bsky.social in da house!

I need to wash my car…

So 80 sticks or 8 binds: bsky.app/profile/gree... It’s hard to get even get half a stick of American eel for research these days…

OTD 1908 Willhelm Weinberg gave a talk to the Society for the Natural History of the Fatherland in Württemberg giving the population genetics equations GH Hardy would independently publish 5 months later. It was 35 years before his work was recognized in the Anglophone world. 🐋🌱🥢🧪 #EvoBio #HistSTM

Exciting genome news! For those interested, there is a prerelease of the Ensembl gene models for the new reference genomes GRCz12tu (GCA_049306965.1) and GRCz12ab (GCA_05204075.1) at ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/database... You can download gff and gtf files there as well as softmasked genomes.

When you meet your scientific nemesis at a conference...

So you're a medieval landlord, collecting property rent from your peasants in eels. How do you count them? Eels were usually counted in units called sticks (25 eels) -- possibly from the number of eels you can smoke on a stick at one time. 10 sticks of eels was called a bind. 🗃️🧪

08-Jan: Born on this day in 1823, the man who independently of Darwin came up with the idea of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace. Here’s a post I wrote about Darwin’s and Wallace’s friendship… friendsofdarwin.com/articles/dar... #HistSci

Alfred Russel Wallace born OTD in 1823. He said he shared with Darwin “an intense interest in … the variety [of living things] that catches the eye of the observer even among those which are very much alike, but which are soon found to differ in several distinct characters.” 🌱🐋🧪 #HistSTM #EvoBio

#ZebrafishFunFacts: Unofficially known as the Zebrafish Bible, "The Zebrafish Book" sought to standardize zfish husbandry in early days of zfish research. Originally published by Monte Westerfield, the book is now in its 5th edition. Previous editions are freely available: zfin.org/zf_info/zfbo... 🧪

New paper alert! ‼️

Also, Sam's looking for a postdoc! She's skilled in animal and microbe physiology, analytical chemistry, bacterial genetics, and bioinformatics. She’d like to keep studying symbioses but is flexible. If you have (or know of) postdoc opportunities, please find her and talk to her! #SICB2026

When at #SICB2026, check out Tony Zhou's @zzhou32.bsky.social talk on developmental multi-omics in the "living fossil" spotted gar on Monday. #EndlessFishMostBeautiful

Celebratory drink with @compbiologist.bsky.social to salute the new year AND to cheer for @yhbioinfo.bsky.social’s new article on cross-species comparison methods out in Nature Methods: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Motto for 2026: Yes, We coelaCANth! Thanks @drheathheckman.bsky.social for the nice Fishmas present!

Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle began #OnThisDay in 1831. The five-year trek around the world profoundly shaped his ideas about the natural world; he later said the journey was "by far the most important event in my life." #histsci

Happy Holidays and Merry 🐟-mas from the Braasch @fishevodevogeno.bsky.social Ganz @brainyfishguts.bsky.social and Thompson @xtremo-devo-lab.bsky.social Labs!

Happy Coelacanth Day!

I was today years old when I learned that there is a superb (freely available) documentary from 1961 on early zebrafish development by J.V. Durden. collection.nfb.ca/film/embryon... (1/2)

Germany hosts a world-leading fish research community, yet never had a Fish Meeting. That changes now 🐟 We are organizing the 1st German Fish Meeting to connect the community, support early-career scientists,discuss challenges facing basic research #2026GermanFishMeeting 👉 www.germanfishmeeting.org

A unique feature of gars is those distinctive armor-like scales! Unlike a typical fish’s overlapping scales, gars have interlocking “ganoid” scales that are made up of a material similar to the enamel on our teeth. The name “Lepisosteus” even means “bony scale” 🦴 #25DaysofFishmas

Looking forward to my trip to @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social this week. Thanks to @maxshafer.bsky.social for the invitation!

How do four-eyed fish see above & underwater? 🌤️🌊 Our new preprint reveals how Anableps rewired its retina for dual vision- evolution at work 👁️👁️ Kudos to @perezlouise.bsky.social @josanesousa.bsky.social @keylapruett.bsky.social + team! 🔗 tinyurl.com/3a8r9xy5

OTD in 1880, Charles Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants. D believed that plants are active agents in the world: “A radicle may be compared with a burrowing animal such as a mole, which wishes to penetrate perpendicularly down into the ground.” 🧪🌱🐋 #philsci #HistSTM 🦋🦫

🚨 We're hiring! 🚨 Our lab at the University of Málaga, Spain🇪🇸 is looking for a bioinformatician researcher for a postdoc position (1+1 years). Check the ad, and if you're interested, get in touch! 📅 Starting date early 2026, with some flexibility. 🙏Please, RT!

The #zebrafish sex determination locus must be somewhere in there! @jpostlethwait.bsky.social academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Part 6: For decades, the zebrafish has helped scientists unlock the mysteries of genetics, development, & disease. But the fish that power most discoveries have spent generations inside lab tanks. This video captures footage of zebrafish in their natural environment in Nepal. youtu.be/cCZhZpPALqw

👻 G-g-ghost? Nope, s-s-snailfish! 🤍 Meet the mesmerizing new addition to our Into the Deep/En lo Profundo exhibit, rough snailfish! These ethereal charmers live in the benthic zone, a scientific term for the seafloor.

New preprint up with collaborators Jianguo Lu, @mpodobnik.bsky.social, Uwe Irion, Braedan McCluskey, John Postlethwait and others. New Danio genomes, evolution and pigment pattern variation. Long time in the making www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Surprise #paddlefish cameo in The Lowdown S1E3. Great show, great fish! #EndlessFishMoarBeautiful

Model organisms as platforms for training scientific minds www.nature.com/articles/s41...

OTD in 1881, Charles Darwin published his last book, on earthworms. It reflected a long interest in animal minds: “One alternative alone is left, namely, that worms, although standing low in the scale of organization, possess some degree of intelligence.” 🧪 🌱🐋🦋🦫 #HistSTM #philsci #pschsky #cogsci