Martin Stervander 🏳️‍🌈🇸🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏛️🦉🦤🪶

Raso Lark reintroduction proves a triumph After a small number of Raso Larks were translocated to Santa Luzia in 2018, the population has grown to as many as 1,000 individuals.

Translocation of Raso Larks to the island of Santa Luzia in 2018 after eradication of invasive cats has been spectacularly successful, with nearly 1000 individuals now. Great work by @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social partner Biosfera, and long-championed by Mike Brooke www.birdguides.com/news/raso-la...

I think this is a fair evaluation of the significance, dear sir.

Agreed! And I miss "working" with you. 😘

I appreciate this recognition. I'll be available come November, should the Nobel Prize committee want to get in touch.

Figure 1 from Stervander & Haelewaters (2020). It is ... undescribable ... because it does not make sense, since the paper is a scam to reveal predatory "scientific" publishers. Suffice to say, there are birbs, fish, mushrooms, and pizza in there, and it's oh so significant.

An actual "peer review report" from a journal on our paper. It reads: "1. The paper is well written and discussed about the innovative work about the species. 2. And also discussed about the traditionally bird- like morphology and inter-class taxonomic relationship. 3. The new thing has been discussed like some birds are more morphological similar to fish than others 4. The paper can be published in your journal."

It's 5y since my greatest scientific breakthrough was published w the great @dhaelewa.bsky.social in OFOAJ! It truly marks a paradigm shift! 🤣

Need a break from the world? Read about fishy #birds + fungi + pizza at doi.org/10.19080/OFO... — and background at tinyurl.com/4ayknbty!

🪶🧪🐦🐟🍄‍🟫 #Scam

Shawn, Allan, Rosie, and a Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)

#Thanksgiving 🦃 with our amazing volunteers in the bird collections of National Museums Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿! 😉

Do you live nearby and would like to join? We're capturing data from all our #birds. Well, now's your chance! Don't wait...

careers.nms.ac.uk/job/800113

#museum #ornithology 🪶

Thank you, Matthew! Glad to hear about your experience too.

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

Ha ha, that'd be pretty cool too. ;-)

I've been silent a while, as I've struggled to keep up with *most* things, due to accumulated stress from hubby's 5-month unemployment, teenager+school+drama, challenging relatives & whatnot. #Birding gives me relief when #MentalHealth is so-so: recent Sabine's Gull (Xema sabini) = golden band-aid!

A good 6 hours and 6 minutes left to apply! Don't be shy.

Whelks overwhelm and consume lobsters YouTube video by Christie Wilcox

The most chilling science video ever shot
www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...

Exactly!

Nope!

Great news, the new application deadline is 31 August. 9 more days for you all to spread the word or/and submit your application for our position as Assistant Curator of Vertebrates!

Again, in reality this should be a longer-term position despite what the ad says.

Happy to chat/answer questions!

I am very pleased to note confirm that the application deadline has now been extended to 31 August. We look forward to your applications!

#EOU2025 #ornithology folks and friends liking #birds and #mammals, this is the position I just highlighted. Join us! Cool collection and very active continuous preparation of new specimens. Deadline soon...

Happy to chat with anyone curious today!

I think we might have enough Ravens not to have to incorporate you in the cupboards... 😉

Yours truly and our mounted Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) specimen

The bird collection store, busy with visiting researchers, mounts, and in the background our volunteers who capture data from the specimen labels. It's not always this packed, but we do have a fair number of volunteers and visitors.

Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) in trays in the cabinets. The collections spaces are pretty new, fresh, and functional, which is not always the case for museum collections...

A tray of African raptor eggs to illustrate the breadth of the bird collection, which holds som 70K skin specimens, 60K egg clutches, and 10K skeletons.

Join us as Assistant #Curator of Vertebrates @ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿NMS! Large collections of #birds & #mammals + very active specimen prep = cool place! The ad doesn't say, but I say there's a good chance of prolongation beyond 1y. Hurry up and apply/spread the word: careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553!

🪶🧪 #museumjobs #job

UK to recognise state of Palestine in September unless Israel holds to ceasefire Cabinet agrees to support Middle East roadmap at emergency meeting called amid humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Either you recognize a state or you don't. If you do, that sovereignty shouldn't be any less, depending on a third party. This is like telling someone you're their friend unless their neighbor stops parking in their driveway. Where's the integrity? Where's the spine? #KeirStarmer #palestine #israel

Are you an early-career biologist or ecologist who would benefit from an invited seminar? Would you like to come to UMaine next fall or spring to give a talk? Leave a brief comment with some info about what you do. I'm co-hosting our seminar series again, and am filling out our rosters.

1. Here's a fish swimming upstream. Nothing unusual about that.

What's unusual is that this particular fish is *dead*. Vortices in the water as it flows past the fish cause the fish's body to flex, maintaining orientation and actually propelling it forward.

(D. N. Beal et al 2006 J. Fluid. Mech.)

Thanks, Steve!

Tease no longer, Alan! bsky.app/profile/ster...

I hope that you with your inclinations don't get too disappointed that it is a new family that is no longer around.

The cover of Volume 1 of Avian Systematics, now published (continuously) by Aves Press.

Finally, I must shout out to the journal Avian Systematics and EiC Trevor Worthy + wizard Steven Gregory. I've learned tons about nomenclature in the revisions and edits and the process has been fast and good.

No fees + Open Access, the journal just moved to www.avespress.com/avian-system....

Illustrating Bird10K by reusing my old collage of Elementaves bird species, arranged following the classical elements, from bottom to top, of water, earth, air, and fire. All images with CC0 license, unless otherwise stated. Water: Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti), Common Loon (Gavia immer). Earth: Indian Nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus) [Hari K Patibanda, https://flic.kr/p/2oM6rs3, CC BY-NC 2.0], Tasmanian Nativehen (Tribonyx mortierii). Air: Common Swift (Apus apus), Stripe-tailed Hummingbird (Eupherusa eximia). Fire: Sunbittern (Eurypygia helias) [Jean Ogden, https://flic.kr/p/2puQRv2, CC BY 2.0], White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus).

I ran this side project for @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social w great collabs: Gerald Mayr (Dr Bones & Rapid-write) and Chen Guangji & Feng Shaohong (of #B10K #Bird10K, saving the day when supposedly public data was not so public).

Special thx to Piotr Gryz for cave rail pic!

Figure 3 of Stervander et al. (2025): https://www.avespress.com/uploads/downloads/212/file/AS_2_8_PDFA.pdf. Here, the one and only Gerald Mayr describes the differences in bone morphology between cave rails, rails, flufftails, and sun grebes (Heliornithidae). Figure caption: Humeri (A‒E, cranial view), tarsometatarsi (F‒H, dorsal view), and hypotarsi (I‒M, proximal view) of the Rallidae (A, F, I), Heliornithidae (B, J), Sarothruridae (C, K), Nesotrochidae, fam. nov. (D, G, L), and Aptornithidae (E, H, M). A, Aramides cajanea (right side); F, I, Aramides saracura (right side); B, J, Heliornis fulica (all left side); C, K, Sarothrura pulchra (C: right side, K: left side); D, G, L, Nesotrochis steganinos (from Olson, 1974: figs. 1 and 2; D: left side, G, L: right side); E, H, M, Aptornis defossor (all right side). Abbreviations: fdl, sulcus/canal for tendon of musculus flexor digitorum longus; fhl, sulcus for tendon of musculus flexor hallucis longus; fp2, sulcus/canal for tendon of musculus flexor perforatus digiti II; fpp2, sulcus/canal for tendon of musculus flexor perforans et perforatus digiti II; flx, processus flexorius. The scale bars equal 10 mm in A‒H and 5 mm in I‒M; the scale bars for N. steganinos are approximate and based on measurements given by Olson (1974).

...so we described Nesotrochidae fam. nov., the cave rail family! They are (were) distinguished by a number of osteological characters, not least that the humerus has a large and ventrally protruding processus flexorius.

Voilá: Nesotrochidae Stervander, Chen, Feng & Mayr, 2025!

Artistic rendition of an adzebill from New Zealand, by Nobu Tamura, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aptornis_BW.jpg under CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en). These beasts are markedly different from flufftails and forest rails as well as cave rails.

This fully supported topology presents three options: merge family Aptornithidae (adzebills) with (1) Nesotrochis or (2) that + current family Sarothruridae (flufftails)—or (3) award the cave rails family status as Nesotrochidae.

#1–2 seem unreasonable given the marked distinctness of adzebills...

Phylogenetic tree from Figure 2 of Stervander et al (2025): /https://www.avespress.com/uploads/downloads/212/file/AS_2_8_PDFA.pdf. Caption: Dated phylogeny based on 9,615 base pairs mitochondrial DNA across Gruiformes, with charadriiform outgroups (in grey). With full posterior probability (PP = 1.0), the Cuban cave rail Nesotrochis steganinos Olson, 1974 is the sister taxon of the adzebill family Aptornithidae Bonaparte, 1856, from which it diverged 36.7 Ma. Their most recent common ancestor diverged from the flufftail family Sarothruridae Verheyen, 1957 at 42.9 Ma. Some key nodes are annotated tip-side of the node with the estimated and the 95% highest posterior density for divergence time. Nodes used for time calibrations are marked with asterisks and the calibration density distributions coloured in peach. All nodes shown have PP = 1.0 except one within Sarothruridae labelled with the PP value in bold italics on the root-side of the node. In the geological time scale, Pli = Pliocene, Ple = Pleistocene. Clade colours correspond to Figure 1 and Oswald et al. (2021). This tree is based on a single BEAST run comprising 100 million generations, with 13% burn-in and mean node heights. For other trees, see Data Availability.

Dated Bayesian analyses of 9,615 base pairs coding mitochondrial sequence, in 16 partitions w optimised substitution models, didn't result in the unresolved polytomy of Oswald et al. (2021). Neither was Nesotrochis sister with Sarothruridae, but split as sister from Aptornithidae 37 Mya!

Painting by John Gould of the Forbes's Forest Rail (Rallicula forbesi), CC BY 0.

—so we generated new mitogenomes for Madagascar Forest Rail (Mentocrex kioloides) and Forbes's Forest Rail (Rallicula forbesi), neither of them rails, but members of the flufftail family (Sarothruridae)!