Common Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) Porto, May 2025 #birds

For #FossilFriday Priscacara sp., an Eocene fish from Wyoming. On display at the Museo Geominero in Madrid.

What drives the loss of migration in large long-lived birds? Andrade et al. combine genomics, census and tracking data of white storks, highlighting the role of developmental plasticity in driving fast responses to environmental conditions🪽 buff.ly/zIkvqRU @evopaa.bsky.social

Of course mainstream media keeps rolling over for Colossal, providing uncritical hype and coverage in exchange for exclusivity and “wow.” What Colossal is doing is wrong and they can’t even deliver what they promise. How many times do we have to go over this?

In the 1990s, >80% of Portuguese white storks were winter migrants. Thirty years on, a drastic shift in behavior means most individuals are now residents. Our new paper @animalecology.bsky.social combines census data, GPS tracking, and genomics to understand the loss of migratory behavior in birds:

'A single blurry photo sparked a national monitoring campaign. A few days later someone who had seen the picture on iNaturalist suggested that the insect might be of significance.' Never stop posting (terrible) pictures of bugs on iNaturalist folk! 🧪🐛🌿 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...