1yo - my mom chose plastic fossil fish to decorate my first birthday party; 4yo - hitting a quartzite wall with a hammer it falls over me (but I love it); 5yo - I watch Jurassic Park; 6yo - I find my first fossils; (continued)

BOLSONARO PRESO

The interplay of different structures of the vertebrate head is such a fascinating topic that I want to make my whole career be about it

I’m happy that sponges are back to their sacred place

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

..you're either writing or you're thinking about writing..all the time. ~ #itswhatwedo

It's irritating that they describe the effects of his racism as limited to causing controversy within science and reputational consequences for himself rather than giving an immeasurable boost, false veneer of legitimacy, and idiot-friendly prestige to modern scientific racism and eugenics.

Hoje é um dia histórico. Demos um passo decisivo para um país mais justo, com um sistema tributário que torna a contribuição mais equilibrada e reconhece o esforço de todos que ajudam a construir o Brasil. (+)

@friedmanlab.bsky.social @rodrigoichthys.bsky.social @fishfetisher.bsky.social I’m finding your GARS at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History! Hope you’ll share some for #GarWeek next week!

I'm telling my student the horrors of Brazilian academic job searches on Halloween and that seam fitting

Nanotyrannichthys is my suggestion if anyone is describing a small lizard fish (fossil or extant)

anaJEANSis x cladoJEANSis

My first book chapter should be out soon and I’m really looking forward to sharing it with everyone!

New preprint led by the brilliant @aleksandra-marconi.bsky.social on cichlid brain diversification, fgf8a signalling and regulatory divergence with TEs on the mix! All part of a wonderful collaboration with @ebablab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @camzoology.bsky.social

Today I wrapped a fish in a cut piece of a pool noodle and two bottle caps to then blast it with Xrays and get a model of its brain. Doing science is the best!

With Halloween fast approaching, I'm reminded of a time a few years ago the lab surprised me with costumes based on my past profile pics. Complete with actual elements of my wardrobe, supplied by my partner who was in on the act. (I'd spent the past week wondering where my clothes went.)

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Great spotlight on our recent @currentbiology.bsky.social paper! www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(25)01167-4

My unsolicited #eel fact for today is that there are ten species of Gulper Eels (Saccopharynx) while there is only a single species of Pelican Eel (Eurypharynx ).🐟 www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwD...

"...although analyses of extant phylogenies can estimate extinction rates and even suggest mass extinctions, they cannot imply trilobites ever existed or that sphenodonts (now represented only by the tuatara) were once as diverse as lepidosaurs (lizards and snakes)." #FossilFriday 🧪

New in @science.org, meet Acronichthys maccagnoi, a new species from Late Creatacous Canada that changes what we know about the origins and evolution of one of the most successful fish groups on Earth.

OK, head above water briefly and can say a few things about a paper that came out a few weeks ago in @royalsocietypublishing.org on Platysomus and kin.

A blood vessel in the brain for #FluorescenceFriday! Why am I looking at these in the microscope? (1/3)

Please help me get a job in a different country

Today I was looking at some diceCT scans and started to think: how many undescribed species we have inside the guts of museum specimens?

Just learned chessboxing is a thing and now I'm sad I lost the opportunity to be good at something

Cichlids are the worst part of the best clade but I highly vouch for working with Matt and Hernan!!

I absolutely love how this marvelous structure looks like in CT scans. Any guesses of what it is? clue: 🏓

A comprehensive survey of scientists across ecology, evolution, and marine science has revealed significant disruptions to federal research programs following executive branch actions that began January 20, 2025. www.firsthandaccounts.org/home

Excited to announce that the 1st paper from my postdoc is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Using a large dataset of 3D preserved fossils, we explore the diversification of jaws in early bony fishes. 1/15 www.cell.com/current-biol...

The world if scientists could focus on the actual science and public engagement rather than worry about funding/employment and having to write proposals all the time:

Trying to resist the urge of writing a book on fish prep and cooking from the viewpoint of an ichthyologist. Already get occasional emails from people asking about ike jime… might as well write about it 😂

Wake up, babe, a new fossil fish faceplant just dropped. 🐟🧪

No longer eligible for Forbes “30 under 30”

Quedan tres semanas para aplicar al Taller Suraméricano de Biología Evolutiva en Uruguay (nov 23-29) Todos los gastos pagos para estudiantes, gracias a la financiación del @sse-evolution.bsky.social @eseb.bsky.social @asn-amnat.bsky.social #CienciaCriolla Info aquí: sites.google.com/view/evosur2...

🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com! We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments www.nature.com/articles/s41... This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️

Devonian ray-finned fishes were not particularly species rich, particularly compared to their lobe-finned cousins. This implies early actinopts might've also been anatomically monotonous. But a deep dive into their jaw anatomy w/ µCT reveals subtle but important structural diversity.

A long-waited 🐟 paper is finally out! Ben Igielman and our stellar team of coauthors from around the world provide what is in essence a guide to all known diversity of ray-finned fish lower jaws from the Devonian period. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Um próximo passo que o Lula podia dar é um plano para repatriar nossos cientistas aqui nessa bagunça de volta ao Brasil. Um plano que realmente seja sustentável a longo prazo e beneficie a soberania científica brasileira

New from @gadusmo.bsky.social’s PhD thesis 👐🏼 with @dickmerrill.bsky.social, Jake Morris, Camilo Salazar and Carolina Pardo-Díaz ‘Repeated evolution of reduced visual investment at the onset of ecological speciation in high-altitude #Heliconius butterflies’ 1/n 🧪 academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Evolution of endothermy in marine fishes is related to competition with cetaceans. This incredible paper is a masterpiece of phylogenetic comparative methods and a future classic for marine biologists www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If universities anywhere are hiring an Evolutionary Biologist/Paleontologist please let me know! I'm on the market for Tenure Track positions!! You can find more about my research on fish evolution here: rtfigueroa.wixsite.com/my-site

A good first step in connecting brain structure and behaviour would be more data on brain structure. Few of us seem to be adding to that data, yet many researchers critique comparative data sets or reanalyze the same data 100x without actually contributing to collecting new or more data. 🧠🧪

Motivation is now extinct

Very proud! Iacopo's first paper is out! 🎉 ❓Is XCT scanning viable for decay experiments? ✅ YES! 📢 X rays from CT scans don't kill decay bacteria (but can have weird side effects) opening exciting new experimental application, esp imaging buried rotting carcasses! ☠️🐟☣️ dx.doi.org/10.1111/pala...

UC Davis researcher Michalis Mihalitsis used high speed video to show unexpected lateral jaw movements during feeding in #MorrishIdols and #surgeonfish www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congratulations Rodrigo! rackham.umich.edu/discover-rac... @rodrigoichthys.bsky.social

Anatomical and Molecular Characterization of the Zebrafish Meninges https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.646894v1

The Friedman Lab in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan seeks a technician to generate, curate, segment, and archive micro-CT data for extinct and extant cichlid fishes. www.indeed.com/viewjob?from...

Its an honor to be awarded the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award by the University of Michigan for my PhD work 🐟🧠 rackham.umich.edu/discover-rac...