Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 2h

Opportunity to manage one of the world's great herpetology collections and join the outstanding community of museum folks here at U-M! 🐍🦎🐢🐊🐸

Christopher Dick @chrisdick.bsky.social · 2h

Michigan's #UMMZ Reptiles and Amphibians Collections Manager position is now open. Join a great museums group and help manage the world's second largest herpetology research collection. Please share! careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Res Museum Collection Manager | U-M Careers

careers.umich.edu

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 14h

School of Pteraspis in a diorama at the KU Natural History Museum for #FossilFriday

Models of jawless fishes swimming in a diorama.

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 2d

Great spotlight on our recent @currentbiology.bsky.social paper!

www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(25)01167-4

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Dr. Brendan Anderson @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social · 4d

Rutgers is looking for a vertebrate paleontologist: www.higheredjobs.com/details.cfm?...

Assistant Professor in Paleontological Vertebrate Evolution - HigherEdJobs

Jobs in higher education. Faculty and administrative positions at colleges and universities. Updated daily. Free to job seekers.

www.higheredjobs.com

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 5d

Showing off the @ummnh.bsky.social Fish Collection for ID Day! #TeamFish

Emily standing at a table filled with fish specimens

Fish specimens on a tray. From left to right: pike, seahorse, monkfish, bamboo shark

Preserved fish on a table. Top is a large swordfish skull. Bottom are left to right: porcupine pufferfish, burrfish, batfish

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 5d

Great paleo showing at today's ID Day at the U-M Museum of Natural History!

Group of smiling people squinting in bright sunlight standing in building atrium in front of large pterosaur model.

Three people sitting behind a table with assorted specimens, including partial bison skull. Large window behind table shows a university campus in bright sunlight.

Photograph of building atrium taken from second floor. Large pterosaur is suspended from ceiling, with tables covered in specimens along the walls of the first floor.

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Z. Jack Tseng @tsengzj.bsky.social · 12d

New preprint: Brawn before bite in endemic Asian mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction. #Paleontology #Mammals #Extinction

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

TLDR: S. China mammals diversified dentally, tracked environment, then leveled up bite mechanics all within the first 10 m.y. post K-Pg.

Brawn before bite in endemic Asian mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction

The first 10 million years (Myr) following the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction marked a period of global greenhouse conditions and dramatic rise of placental mammals. Because ~80% of known...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

KhaiChung (KC) @khaichung.bsky.social · Aug 5

So excited and grateful to receive R24 NOA from NIH ORIP to create an integrated #zebrafish omics, histology and microCT 3D atlas!

Looking forward to an exciting work with Dr. Postlethwait of U of Oregon, who is the co-PI of the grant.

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Juan Liu @liujuan.bsky.social · 7d

Excavated from the Pisces Point locality of Scollard Formation in Alberta, Canada, ~67 million years old, Acronichthys maccognoi, newly reported in @science.org, was recovered from ancient water body that flipped seasonally between fast-flowing channels and quiet, still pools.

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 8d

Another fish gig!

Justine A Smith @justineasmith.bsky.social · 8d

Job Alert! Assistant Prof of Fish Ecology at
@wfcbucdavis.bsky.social, with a focus on freshwater and anadromous coldwater fishes. This is a wonderful and supportive place to work. Please share with your fishy friends! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07351

Assistant Professor of Fish Ecology

University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ucdavis.edu

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

David Clark @clarkeocrinus.bsky.social · 15d

This is the only "complete" crinoid in my collection, from holdfast to crown.

It's easy to see why they are sometimes called sea lilies, even though they are animals related to starfish and sand dollars.

This is Abatocrinus gallatinensis from the Mississippian Lodgepole Fm of MT.

#FossilFriday

Crinoid with "feathered" arms, long stem and holdfast root system.

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 8d

Congrats!

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Juan Liu @liujuan.bsky.social · 8d

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.

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 9d

Check out this rare faculty-curator position at OU:

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 9d

🚨We're hiring! The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is seeking a tenure-track split position as Assistant Curator of Ichthyology and Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences. Please retweet & share with colleagues! 🐟🐠🧪

Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/174674

A job ad with multiple images, including the exterior of the museum, a view of collections (jars on shelves), and pictures of some cool, tropical fish but I don't know enough about fish to describe them other than to say they're pretty colors of yellow and blue/green

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Abbabadook 🎃 @abbiestev.bsky.social · 11d

If any of you fine folks are planetarians in (or want to be in) mid-Michigan, the Abrams Planetarium is hiring a full-time-staff position for the first time in 11 years!! Come work with the astro, scicomm, and informal ed folks at MSU!! 🔭 🧪 (reskeets welcome) careers.msu.edu/jobs/educati...

Educational Program Coordinator II - East Lansing, Michigan, United States

Position Summary The program coordinator will maintain the planetarium, present live shows, and create new planetarium visualizations. In addition, this position will assist customers, assist in educa...

careers.msu.edu

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 10d

And giving tours is definitely one of the highlights of this gig.

Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 10d

Always fun to get a @friedmanlab.bsky.social tour of @ummnh.bsky.social research collections. A new one for me was a whole preserved elephant bird egg.

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Peg Yacobucci @pegyaco.bsky.social · 10d

Our paper on perceptions of punctuated equilibrium - including suggestions for how to teach about this essential evolutionary concept - is now available online! doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Taking the temperature of punctuated equilibrium on its semicentennial | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core

Taking the temperature of punctuated equilibrium on its semicentennial

doi.org

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Kory Evans Ph.D @sternarchella.bsky.social · 11d

New paper alert!!!🚨 in our new study we find that Antarctic icefishes added a new module in their skulls during their adaptive radiation special shout out to @mayaranevesbio.bsky.social who led this project!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

Braasch Lab @ Michigan State University @fishevodevogeno.bsky.social · 13d

Hello #fish 🐟 🐠 researchers and PIs of tomorrow! We would be excited to sponsor you for an Ecology, Evolution and Behavior (EEB) Presidential #Postdoc Fellowship application @michiganstateu.bsky.social. Application deadline is Nov 10, so get in touch soom!

#EndlessFishMostBeautiful

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 13d

Deeply unfair 😐

Reposted by Matt Friedman

Silvia Pineda-Munoz, PhD - Climate Ages @climateages.bsky.social · 13d

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid ended the dinosaurs

But their disappearance didn’t just change life, it changed the land

Without them, forests spread, rivers stabilized, and Earth’s landscapes flipped

We’re the ecosystem engineers now
What world will we leave behind?
🧪
buff.ly/4KhsAJk

Dinosaurs Didn’t Just Disappear; They Took Entire Landscapes With Them

When dinosaurs vanished, forests spread, rivers stabilized, and Earth’s landscapes flipped Let’s travel back in time. We’re now at the end of the Cretaceous period,...

climateages.com

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 13d

Alas, I don't think that'll happen. Their braincases are too "open plan": not much mineralized beyond the occipital arch and bits of the otic capsules 😔

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Reposted by Matt Friedman

John P. Friel, Ph.D. @friel.bsky.social · 14d

Two new species of African suckermouth catfishes just dropped! Say hello to #Chiloglanis kinsuka from the lower #Congo River at the Kinsuka rapids below Pool Malebo, and #Chiloglanis wagenia, from the Wagenia Falls at Kisangani, more than 1600 km upstream.🐟🧪

digitallibrary.amnh.org/items/3ad0dd...

Dorsal, lateral, and ventral views of Chiloglanis kinsuka, new species, holotype, AMNH 283315, 69.7 mm SL, female, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, Kinsuka Rapids. Photo by T.R. Vigliotta. Scale bar equals 0.5 cm. Inset photo, lower right: coloration in life, AMNH 268960.

Dorsal, lateral, and ventral views of Chiloglanis wagenia, new species, holotype, CUMV 95972, 45.4 mm SL, male, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Orientale, Lualaba River at main portion of Wagenia Falls. Photo by T.R. Vigliotta. Scale bar equals 0.5 cm.

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 14d

All that and more came out of a single (slightly underwhelming looking) Carboniferous fish skull. I suspect (read: know) that many early ray-fin heads will hold other kinds of surprises, so I’m going to keep on scanning. OA paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Tongue-bite apparatus highlights functional innovation in a 310-million-year-old ray-finned fish | Biology Letters

Gill-skeleton modifications for processing prey represent a major source of functional innovation in living ray-finned fishes. Here we present the oldest actinopterygian tongue bite, derived from the ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 14d

Platysomus also shows how the tongue bite was built bit-by-bit, starting with the several separate plates in the “tongue” of our specimen, to consolidated plates in later species, to truly massive, robust plates in Bobasatrania.

Cladogram depicting steps associated with the origin of the robust tooth plates of Bobasatrania, plus other evidence linking this group with Platysomus.

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