"After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe. Since there was no real knowledge of how the animal looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant" www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anth...

Wrote up a little self-promo profile for DSBSoc :^] Feel free to give it a read to find out a little more about what I actually do & how I ended up with the best PhD project in the world!

Wrote up a little self-promo profile for DSBSoc :^] Feel free to give it a read to find out a little more about what I actually do & how I ended up with the best PhD project in the world!

They're just making guys up at this point.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

I just spent literally the entire work day doing admin I'd been putting off for weeks I feel absolutely FANTASTIC

This is cool - I had no idea there were photos (and an X-ray!) of the original specimen of "Mirapinna esau" (actually juv. Procetichthys whalefish) on the internet. Such an odd beast that it was originally assigned to its own family! collections.snm.ku.dk/en/object/NH...

Made it back to Southampton and deposited my samples in the freezer 🫡😮‍💨 another cruise under the belt!

Excavations by Mola you say? I didn't even know they could hold a trowel...

I love my big PhD spreadsheet. Bury me with my big PhD spreadsheet.

Out to sea again, this time on the RV Tom Crean, which I haven’t been on in three years. Not thrilled at the 6m waves in the Rockall Trough at the moment, but I’m sure the fishes will be worth it!

Charlie Byrne’s 💕

Me whenever I post my silly ichthyological intrusive thoughts

Uh oh

There's a weird AI slop video plagiarising Dave Johnson's iconic telescopefish (Gigantura) photo going around. Completely coincidentally, I remembered yesterday that I found a G. chuni specimen in the Discovery Collections, Southampton last year. Here's what they actually look like!

Me when I got a lot to think about

Oh my god that's gnarly

This is a cool one

As a person who will calm themselves in stressful situations by reading Wikipedia pages about cool fishes this hits close to home

Oh yay!!!

Passiflora suberosa exhibits heteroblasty (different-shaped leaves on the same plant). The 2nd photo shows leaves from a single plant. It’s part of the evolutionary arms race with butterflies. It may prevent gravid female butterflies from forming a search image. #Passifloraceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Big if true

HELL YEA

Fun paper I've been helping with was submitted yesterday 🥳 If you like rare little weirdos watch this space 🐟

Lemon pig ....please... bring us good fortune this year (Nother new sticker design)

Honeyguides are natural-born killers - like cuckoos, they are brood parasites, and the first thing going through the mind of a honeyguide chick when it hatches from its egg is: MURDER royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🧪

Good luck ritual

Why I 🧡 the web. drawafish.com Just draw the fish. Trust me. 🐟

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok I asked a plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus) and it hummed loudly at 100Hz every night for a month as part of an elaborate courtship ritual that also involves bioluminescence.

Rastrelliger are so pretty but also every photo of them filter feeding is like 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲

Banded snake eel (a fish) in Gili - Lombok - Indonesia #gili #giliislands #lombok #diving #turtles #scuba #giliair #gilimeno #pets #ocean #sealife #marinelife #padi #banded #reef #eel #snake

Coryphaenoides are dogs I think

I had another dream last night about chancing across some rare fish to dissect 😦 if anyone has some dealfish going spare l’ll take them!

Evening routine of my neighbours: 17:00 - get home 17:30 - eat dinner 18:00-24:00 - six hours of uninterrupted yelling in courtyard time

Good lord what is happening in there

Take me on a trip, I'd like to go some day, Take me to New York, I'd love to see LA, I really want to come kick it with you, You'll be my marineregions.org/gazetteer.ph...

He's so real for this

1/8 For years, it’s been assumed that when fishes hover in open water, they’re just resting. Our new @pnas.org paper shows otherwise: hovering can double metabolic costs compared to true rest in near-neutrally buoyant fishes. Here’s what we found: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... a 🧪 🧵..

Just realised where the dorsal fin is on Centriscus and felt a wave of irrational anger pour through me

You ever just sit and think about the cut to credits at the end of Event Horizon where Funky Shit by The Prodigy comes in? I think about it a lot. Probably the coolest way to end a film.

Hiring a marine biology lecturer at @universityofessex.bsky.social! Permanent position. Deadline to apply= 20 Aug. We have aquaria, lots of mass specs/genomic facilities, field trips to Crotia, Indonesia, Scotland and a super collegial department. Pls share! vacancies.essex.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

I didn't know there were parasitoid copepods!

Me if I was an ARGO float

If you are an angler who uses forced perspective to make your catch look bigger than it actually is you are lower than a dog to me. Take pride in the fish you have, don't lie about the fish you want 😮‍💨

Way ahead of you NOAA

This was another of those cool fish that I was shocked I didn’t know about. Some of the most beautiful fins in the game!

Glaucus representation hell yea

Every so often I come across a big weird fish I haven't heard of that is so odd and delightful it feels like a gift from the universe to me personally. Anyway I somehow went 25 years without hearing of Gasterochisma, this big bizarro primitive tuna beast. Lovely stuff.