Jack Stack
@jackstack.bsky.social
Trophy husband, PhD vertebrate paleontologist. 0 time rank 1 wow PVP player. I also write about the history of fishes: https://fishhistory.substack.com/. He/him
Whiskers
November 25, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Whiskers
Excerpts from the lost notebooks of Alfred Romer
Thingieichthys
November 25, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Excerpts from the lost notebooks of Alfred Romer
Can’t a particle get a little motion?
November 25, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Can’t a particle get a little motion?
Yeah, no. I spent ten years studying and working for this title. Ten years of low pay and hard work to become an expert in my field. As my namesake and grandfather (the first Dr. Jack Stack) would say, my first name is doctor.
November 24, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Yeah, no. I spent ten years studying and working for this title. Ten years of low pay and hard work to become an expert in my field. As my namesake and grandfather (the first Dr. Jack Stack) would say, my first name is doctor.
Me reading papers
November 24, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Me reading papers
A lot of good stuff in here, particularly the annoyance with paleoanthropology. Don't get me started on my experiences with anthropologists at the Penn Museum.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, see Rant #7 here
(Felsenstein Lab) Some rants and diatribes
felsenst.github.io
November 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM
A lot of good stuff in here, particularly the annoyance with paleoanthropology. Don't get me started on my experiences with anthropologists at the Penn Museum.
Fun fact, this method is a descendant of phenetics, or numerical phylogenetics. Although we don’t use strictly quantitative characters anymore, phenetic methods live on in geometric morphometrics and hierarchical clustering. Methods that are inaccurate for their original use can be valuable!
8) I used the Teleost Anatomy Ontology to analyze my characters, giving us a pseudo phylogenetic tree. This shows that most of our characters are from the head, and that scale and fin characters separate out. Essentially, we need to think of our character set of having at least three partitions.
November 23, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Fun fact, this method is a descendant of phenetics, or numerical phylogenetics. Although we don’t use strictly quantitative characters anymore, phenetic methods live on in geometric morphometrics and hierarchical clustering. Methods that are inaccurate for their original use can be valuable!
Is this some sort of psychological test?
If you can tell me what this is I will maybe give you 1 billion dollars #fossifriday.
November 22, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Is this some sort of psychological test?
Pretty much the situation.
Every ray-finned fish from the Carbonifeorus looks the same as every other fish from the Carboniferous aside from the animals that look different.
November 21, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Pretty much the situation.
Reading about Pennsylvanian fishes, absolute horror show from my master's advisor dissertation (Michael Gottfried, 1993).
November 21, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reading about Pennsylvanian fishes, absolute horror show from my master's advisor dissertation (Michael Gottfried, 1993).
The worst part of Bluesky is having to reblock the four living horsemen of evil pseudoscience. Always four there are…
Hide JP Rushton’s ex-wife’s threads
Ignore JP Rushton’s ex-wife’s posts
Do not reply to JP Rushton’s ex-wife
Ignore JP Rushton’s ex-wife’s posts
Do not reply to JP Rushton’s ex-wife
Recommend everyone block this racist lady whose whole raison d’être is NOT returning stolen Indigenous remains. Don’t engage, she came over here because she misses disrespecting you.
November 20, 2025 at 1:26 AM
The worst part of Bluesky is having to reblock the four living horsemen of evil pseudoscience. Always four there are…
Thank you so much!
I am so proud to see Jack's work out: bringing paleoichthyology into the world of ontological phylogenetics. This work comprises some of the most thorough comparative anatomy I've seen, and is a testament to Jack's dedication to transparent, replicable, and translatable science. Way to go Dr Stack!!
Very excited to share my exploration of the phylogenetics of early ray-finned fishes, out today in the Anatomical Record! Really busy day but I’ll have more info shortly.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
November 20, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Thank you so much!
Writing letters of recommendation has to be the best part of the job for me. Nothing better than talking about the amazing students I get to work with.
November 19, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Writing letters of recommendation has to be the best part of the job for me. Nothing better than talking about the amazing students I get to work with.
Reposted by Jack Stack
New at Tetrapod Zoology .... The Life Appearance of Glyptodonts, a remarkable group of giant and anatomically amazing group of extinct armadillos tetzoo.com/blog/2025/11... #mammals
The Life Appearance of Glyptodonts — Tetrapod Zoology
For some time now I’ve been interested in what the glyptodonts – a group of highly modified, large or gigantic armadillos – looked like when alive….
tetzoo.com
November 18, 2025 at 5:52 PM
New at Tetrapod Zoology .... The Life Appearance of Glyptodonts, a remarkable group of giant and anatomically amazing group of extinct armadillos tetzoo.com/blog/2025/11... #mammals
I learned about Coccolepids by accident while looking for information on Hulettia, and stumbled across Morrolepis, which is a “palaeniscoid” that lived alongside Jurassic dinosaurs. Shout out @paleojim.bsky.social for describing it.
15) But wait, there's more! I included some other problematic taxa that look out of place. Like Coccolepis here. Coccolepis, and coccolepids, are Jurassic-Cretaceous fishes that look startlingly like Paleozoic actinopterygians. But, there is a debate as to their relationships.
November 18, 2025 at 5:13 PM
I learned about Coccolepids by accident while looking for information on Hulettia, and stumbled across Morrolepis, which is a “palaeniscoid” that lived alongside Jurassic dinosaurs. Shout out @paleojim.bsky.social for describing it.
Reading about Permian ray-finned fishes and I would like to speak with the manager. Who gave Dorypterus the permission to be like this? From Westoll (1931).
November 18, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reading about Permian ray-finned fishes and I would like to speak with the manager. Who gave Dorypterus the permission to be like this? From Westoll (1931).
How did I forget Gloria Arratia!
27) The work of Lance Grande, Eric Hilton, Willy Bemis, Matt Friedman, Sam Giles, Brian Choo, Adriana López-Arbarello, Toni Bürgin, Guang-Hui Xu, Mike Coates, Cecile Poplin, Richard Lund, Kathryn Mickle, Zhiwei Yuan, and Thodoris Argyriou, to name just a few, made this possible.
November 18, 2025 at 4:50 AM
How did I forget Gloria Arratia!
Thread on today's paper, which is 3/4 from my dissertation on the evolution of fishes and using morphological data for phylogenetic analyses. Come with me, on a journey on phylogenetics and fishes.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
An ontological morphological phylogenetic framework for living and extinct ray‐finned fishes (Actinopterygii)
The ray-finned fishes include one out of every two species of living vertebrates on Earth and have an abundant fossil record stretching 380 million years into the past. The division of systematic kno...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Thread on today's paper, which is 3/4 from my dissertation on the evolution of fishes and using morphological data for phylogenetic analyses. Come with me, on a journey on phylogenetics and fishes.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
My mentees and I are cooking up some fun papers, can’t wait to share what’s next for weird fish paleontology.
November 18, 2025 at 3:36 AM
My mentees and I are cooking up some fun papers, can’t wait to share what’s next for weird fish paleontology.
Reposted by Jack Stack
Reposted by Jack Stack
Easy choice if you're a deer deciding where to buy a house
November 17, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Easy choice if you're a deer deciding where to buy a house
Essay on my phylogenetics paper that looks at my next steps as a researcher and paleontology in the 21st century.
open.substack.com/pub/fishhist...
open.substack.com/pub/fishhist...
I see dead fishes
Making a history of fishes for the 21st century
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Essay on my phylogenetics paper that looks at my next steps as a researcher and paleontology in the 21st century.
open.substack.com/pub/fishhist...
open.substack.com/pub/fishhist...
@kacorn.bsky.social gets her own thank you post for her support and guidance during this project.
Very excited to share my exploration of the phylogenetics of early ray-finned fishes, out today in the Anatomical Record! Really busy day but I’ll have more info shortly.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
An ontological morphological phylogenetic framework for living and extinct ray‐finned fishes (Actinopterygii)
The ray-finned fishes include one out of every two species of living vertebrates on Earth and have an abundant fossil record stretching 380 million years into the past. The division of systematic kno...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:33 PM
@kacorn.bsky.social gets her own thank you post for her support and guidance during this project.