My department at CSU Northridge is hiring a vertebrate functional morphologist! We've got a great EEB group, and we're looking for someone to carry forward a tradition of enriching organismal courses and community-engaged research. App review starts March 15
csucareers.calstate.edu/mob/cw/en-us...
The new computational model for jaw mechanics in piranhas is called PiranhaLever, available for download on my GitHub github.com/mwestneat/Pi.... Along with various other models for biomechanics and morphometrics. All Mac apps, install the dmg and skirt your security demon 😎
Piranha bite force and tooth stress are fantastically high for their size! Check out our new paper on computational modeling of the cranial muscles and bite mechanics of the amazing piranhas. #biomechsky 🐟🧪🌿
link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007...
Four incomplete fossil fish specimens on a black background. The specimens preserve scales, vertebrae, spines, and so on, and are dark gray on lighter gray to mustard-colored slabs.
Remarkable. Report of a Brazilian spiny-rayed fish dating to the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous, preceding the oldest known acanthomorphs by ~20 million years. Gondwanacanthus extends the roots of one of today's most prominent vertebrate radiations: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Neil will be an excellent NAS President to meet today’s challenges and develop a vision for the future. He is supportive at multiple levels of science and administration, from students to faculty, has an instinct for fostering awesome research, and will engage in the fight to keep US Science great.
Neil H. Shubin has been elected as the next NAS President! A leading evolutionary biologist and science communicator, Shubin will succeed Marcia McNutt on July 1. The Academy also named Cherry Murray as International Secretary and elected new councilors. Read more: www.nasonline.org/news/2026_pr...
Good idea! Gotta say Dave Jablonski, Sue Kidwell, and Neil Shubin here in Chicago, plus others! And hi to Cathy and Jim. All super kind and supportive- maybe wholesome too 😃
Proud graduate of this awesome course in 2000- Highly recommend!
New @jexpbiol.bsky.social paper alert! The grips of hawks and owls on their often struggling prey are strong! Check out our new paper led by Alex Clark and with @linnealungstrom.bsky.social. Alex with the cover photo 🧪🌿🦉
#Biomechanics #AerialFishes
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
A box of food donations for local food pantries in south Chicago
We are doing a food drive across multiple Departments and programs at UChicago. Our box in Culver Hall for Organismal Biology and Anatomy is now greatly overflowing 🤙 To the food pantries soon!
NSF is open again!
A few comments:
*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.
*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.
*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.
Halloween graveyard with Cubs playoff hopes and White Sox whole season deeply grieved.
Happy Halloween! We are THE haunted Harper Ave block in Hyde Park, and will serve candy to thousands of South Side Chicago kids tonight! I have a bunch of cool skulls out in the yard but the baseball graveyard is the most popular. 😆
Seems like the L flag was bad luck. Brewers are now 0-3 after using it to celebrate their opponents loss. Oops.
Fig. 3 Modularity hypotheses for cranial bones of Thalassoma lunare. Each color represents a different module. The operculum represents the preopercular/opercular series. See Table 1 for a description of the functional and developmental patterns that underly each hypothesis.
ICB
From the Evan's lab!
Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational #Modularity in the Lunar #Wrasse Skull
by
Hugi,& @sternarchella.bsky.social et al
doi.org/10.1093/icb/...
Evans lab
koryevans.weebly.com/people.html
Our killer team of @mfarjo.bsky.social, Ryan Isdonas, Andrew George, and @mwestneat.bsky.social found:
🐠head/body shapes are related to diet
🐠fishes have pairs of high/low aspect ratio propulsive fins (caudal/pectoral)
🐠caudal fins have the highest evolutionary rates & covary with body/pectoral fins
So excited to see our paper on #phylogenetics and #morphometrics integrated with feeding #ecology in the surgeonfishes by @linnealungstrom.bsky.social get posted, her first in a series on their incredibly cool biology. 🐟🦑🧪🌎🌿
No better reason to join Bluesky then to say the first chapter of my PhD is out as a preprint! New surgeonfish phylogeny, ecomorphological relationships, evolutionary shape correlations-with NEW method to accurately account for phylogenetic covariation among shapes!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Headline photo of Chicago skyline with note about award for being the best big city.
Seems worth noting this award in light of the present circumstances. Get the troops out of our fair city please, perhaps after they enjoy a great Malnati’s pizza!
Science news article about 2nd year grad students being unceremoniously dropped from the GRFP eligibility with no explanation or warning:
www.science.org/content/arti...
Join us! We are hiring a new #curator at the #AMNH in #Vertebrate #Zoology careers.amnh.org/postings/4600 #academicjobs #tenuretrack
Drone observations reveal white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) dorsal fins are highly flexible and possible investigatory structures
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🧪🌎🦑🦈🐠
Aren't they lovely? Congratulations to my great colleague Bud Freeman, this is the culmination of over a decade of work!
www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...
Harvard wins an important case
It’s a start, congrats to our Harvard colleagues!
www.cnn.com/2025/09/03/p...
I'm aware that the President likes to go on television and beg me to call him to ask for troops.
I find it strange, as Chicago doesn't want troops.
I also have experience asking him for assistance – just to have the rug pulled up from underneath me when execution meets reality.
Phylogeny of Aneides and Plethodon with animal photos
Phylomorphospace showing body shape variation
Morphospace of toe bones and box lots showing estimated gripping force
Representative SEM images of salamander feet
Excited to share the first paper from my PhD!
We looked at what traits help Aneides salamanders excel at climbing using museum specimens, CT scans, SEM, and more! No claws or toe pads, so how do they do it? In short, with long limbs, big feet and grippy toes! 🦎🧪
DM for PDF
doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
Great, thanks for using it!
Red and white fish muscle with bright white tendons
Ever wonder how the axial locomotor system is arranged into segmented myomeres of red and white muscle in a large pelagic surgeonfish? Well, now you know! 🐟🧪🦑
I’m proud to announce my first first-author paper of my Ph.D! We described and modeled the muscle architecture of a pangolin’s tongue using DiceCT and 3D modeling approaches. Each model is available on the Holliday lab Sketchfab.
academic.oup.com/icb/advance-...
sketchfab.com/holliday/col...
A bignose unicornfish, dark fish with yellowish fin edges, vertical bars on the body, and double scalpel blades at the base of the tail.
Naso! Great genus of surgeonfishes, sporting the vicious cutting scalpel blades at the base of their tail. Here is a better color photo of that bignose where you can see the tail blades.
🐟🦑🧪🌎
