100 Greatest Bird Names, Day 4: #70 to #61 🧵 #70: Chaco Chachalaca Say this bird's name out loud. You're already happier than you were 8 seconds ago. Chachalaca comes from the Nahuatl word for “to chatter”. eBird transcribes their song as “bink, ka chee chaw raw taw.”

Random stuff I wish someone told me, a working class student with no family in higher education, early in my academic journey A THREAD 🧵 Academic CV/Resume is different from typical industry CV. With different format and priorities. Update it on rolling basis.

The City of Stirling is proposing local law amendments to recreational fishing in local lake reserves after a string of water bird deaths and entanglements due to recreational fishing of invasive carp. These reserves are important sanctuaries for urban water birds including black swans.

Het kan mensen, echt het kan:

Ecologists say thousands of hours of audio recordings have detected night parrot calls in south-west Queensland.

The Australian Mammal Society is pleased to announce a new Award - in honour of mammal and wildlife champion Barbara Triggs. The Bruno (Barbara Triggs) Award is named after one of Barbara's much loved Wombats - read more here: australianmammals.org.au/awards/thebr...

Meet kungaka – ‘the hidden one’. This ancient lizard could be the rarest reptile in Australia theconversation.com/meet-kungaka...

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

Every Australian should be able to identify a native Antechinus from a pest mouse. I've made this so it's really easy for any age to learn to tell them apart. Snap & percussion mouse traps kill them both. If you find an A. has been killed change to live catch mouse traps. @ausmammals.bsky.social

Hey Mammal Nerds! Got something mammal-y too good to keep to yourself? Share it with our members - details on image! 🐾

When we're stuck in front of the computer for too long our bird brains go weird places. 🪶

Breaking: APVMA suspends sale of persistent owl poisons in Australia! We have fought tirelessly for years and after meeting with them last week this is not an outcome we had anticipated! www.apvma.gov.au/news-and-pub...

Adios *Anilios*! Glad our phylogeny was somewhat helpful in synonymising @simonmaddock.bsky.social! mapress.com/zt/article/v...

*New short blog* - finally (with help) got around to getting a total estimate of Grok's climate pollution 🫠 - Once all fossil gas online, = to between half and all of Tesla's ANNUAL GLOBAL avoided emissions - Currently, 5x the emissions of Tesla's total manufacturing ketanjoshi.co/2026/03/02/m...

I have heard comments from other scientists calling taxonomy 'stamp collecting' more times than I would like to count. In Australia, the budget for taxonomy of all species in Australia is $2m per year. For everything.

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran... #BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Initially, many of the owl deaths had appeared accidental, as they had been struck by cars. But after conducting a series of $300 tests, it became clear a common product sold in supermarkets was to blame. au.news.yahoo.com/300-tests-sp...

In Current Biology! *Uncovering genetic hotspots in the Southern Ocean informs conservation action *Only 28% of genetic hotspots are protected *Keeping current & adopting proposed MPAs boosts hotspot protection @lausally.bsky.social @marine-omics.bsky.social authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we used genetic data from a suite of Antarctic marine invertebrates to map locations of genetic diversity hotspots, divergence and connectivity 🐙🦐🪱🧬 @lausally.bsky.social @janstrugnell.bsky.social arcsaef.com/story/scient...

To a first approximation, all Australian vertebrates are lizards. 🦎 But not just any lizards, Sphenomorphine skinks! With more than 280 species they are hyper variable. Now, Janne Torkkola has pulled together the biggest phylogeny of the group to date. Read for free: doi.org/10.1016/j.ym... 1/4

Curator Marine Invertebrate Zoology position advertised at the WA Museum, Perth. 🪸🪼🫙🔬 search.jobs.wa.gov.au/page.php?pag...

Supervising postgraduates is the best part of my job and when they are as talented as @shelbymiddleton.bsky.social and the team includes @kennytravouillon.bsky.social @planigale.bsky.social @annajmhopkins.bsky.social and Harriet Mills, it’s as good as it gets! Go well Shelby.

Random Delightful Fact of the Day - Eastern quolls go grey as they get older! A juvenile (~6 mths old) on the L, & a 4 yr old on the R (Worth noting that 4 yrs old is oooooold for an eastern quoll)

Join the fun at this link - australianmammals.org.au/membership

JOB ALERT! Collection Manager job going in Palaeontology at the Australian Museum in Sydney, Australia iworkfor.nsw.gov.au/job/collecti...

Complete Rainforest Elevational Gradient Reveals Unusual Diversity Patterns of Non‐Volant Mammals in New Guinea - Vejmělka - 2025 - Diversity and Distributions - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

UPCOMING WORKSHOP🚨 dartRverse: Harnessing the Force of R for Conservation Genomics Hands-on training in population genetics and conservation genomics using R and dartR 🧬🌿🦘🐟🐜 📆8–14 March 2026 @ ANU Kioloa Coastal Campus + online participation options Details here: cba.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

The Draft National Recovery Plan for the Ghost Bat is open for public consultation until the 10th March 2026. Head to to the DCCEEW website below to find out more consult.dcceew.gov.au/draft-nation...

“This feels like yet another attack on our research community that is already under siege” Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇

Perth Reached 39.0 Degrees At 1:32pm 🌡️ 40.0 At Gooseberry Hill, 39.8 At Pearce, 39.7 At Perth Airport, 39.5 At Millendon (Swan Valley) 39.2 At Jandakot, 38.4 At Swanbourne, 36.8 On Garden Island, 36.4 At Hillarys, 36.2 On Rottnest, 36.1 At Bickley & 35.2 At Mandurah 🥵 #PerthWeather #WesternAustralia

Very proud of our PhD student @nirjana-dewan.bsky.social for delivering an excellent talk at #AOC2025 on her white-tailed black cockatoo genomics work this morning! Looking forward to being able to share some nicely assembled genomes in the near future...stay tuned!

So exciting our lab won the Government Science project of the year for 2025! #WASciAwards #2025PremiersScienceAwards www.wa.gov.au/organisation...

I work on bats AND dasyurids, which symposium will I go to 🤔

Over five years after cameras were set up within a sprawling Western Australian landscape, an elusive “chuditch” has been filmed for the first time. au.news.yahoo.com/camera-captu...

🐘 There is more funding for elephant conservation than there is for all reptiles combined 🦎 (and the majority of reptile funding is for marine turtles). @achughes.bsky.social #LivingData2025 #DatosVivos2025

I'm increasingly tired of seeing ChatGPT writing style everywhere. It sticks out, especially high en-dash usage, poor similes, and supposed-to-be-clever "that's not just A, it's B" statements. Wikipedia has a nice list of AI "tells": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Tiny New Marsupial With a Tail Longer Than Its Body Discovered in Peru

As a previous staff member of this faculty I'm alarmed at the proposed forced redundancies! c.org/vWNX7G4Qkf

The latest Australian University wanting to diminish science capacity and training. At least 18 academic staff in the science faculty threatened with job loss. A petition to save science at #QUT Queensland University of Technology here www.change.org/p/stop-force...

@wamuseum.bsky.social advertising TWO science jobs. 1. A 5-year(!) Project coordinator in marine biodiversity search.jobs.wa.gov.au/page.php?pag...

A cautionary note on using STRUCTURE to detect hybridization in a phylogenetic context onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This #MarsupialMonday we bring you a trio of critters: the fat-tailed dunnart, the yellow-footed antechinus and the red-tailed phascogale.

🐭 Cryptic Kultarr 🏆 @kultarrcam.bsky.social studies hidden biodiversity in carnivorous marsupials, uncovering strong genetic and morphological evidence for multiple distinct species of kultarr across Australia🧬🏜️🐀 6/11 @reneecatullo.bsky.social @kennytravouillon.bsky.social @planigale.bsky.social

New paper in @funecology.bsky.social led by @felixpleiva.bsky.social. We present ShareTrait, a community-driven platform for standardising & sharing individual-level trait data in ectotherms to improve data reuse across studies. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365... #OpenScience #FAIRdata

Using this piece by @reallygoodwizard.bsky.social in my introductory lectures for my design students.

AMNH is hiring a #curator! We are searching for an “Assistant Curator in #Climate #Physics: #Atmosphere or #Ocean”! Join us! careers.amnh.org/postings/4579 #academicjobs #tenuretrack

Looking for a #PhD project (or know someone who is)? I'm currently recruiting for a student to work on #conservation and #PopulationGenomics of two freshwater #fish using whole genome and ddRAD data: more info in the flyer below! #PopGen #ConsGen #Biodiversity 🐟🧪🧬

It's wildflower season!

🏆 Octopus and Ice Sheet Team @marine-omics.bsky.social is awarded the Aspire Scholarship Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research. Learn more: youtu.be/8H3bCE6wfjM #EurekaPrizes @janstrugnell.bsky.social @lausally.bsky.social @nick-golledge.bsky.social