RC Hoover

Check out our new paper on clingfishes led by @fishtide.bsky.social!

Summer courses at Friday Harbor Labs have launched many scientific careers. Including mine. I was more reluctant to leave at the end of the course than other students.

I promise you will have fun and learn more than you can imagine.

fhl.uw.edu/courses/cour...
🧪

#SICB2026 spotlight on the
Cannon Beach tide pool trip of the Convergence lab
( @rchoover.bsky.social , Emily Olson, Kassi Price, Brian Whelan)
@kassthefish.bsky.social
www.kassandraford.com/people
& read more about the tide pool
www.cannonbeach.org/things-to-do...

My first PhD dissertation chapter has been published! Let me know if you need a copy.

Complete species-level phylogeny of Madagascar’s tufted-tailed rats, Eliurus (Rodentia: Nesomyidae) reveals hidden diversity
doi.org/10.1093/zool...

And please enjoy this sonnet I wrote to summarize it:

Cartoon version of me pondering why fishes are so awesome. There are fossil tetraodontiformes and jars of fishes next to me.

A tiny pufferfish and a large chunky pufferfish on a scale.

Cartoon tetraodontiform fishes. There is a mola mola, pufferfishes, boxfishes, triggerfishes, a filefish, and a cowfish.

I got cartoonified!! Check out this awesome video summary of my past PNAS paper on body size evolution in response to paleoclimatic changes in tetraodontiform fishes!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC2s...

Read the study here: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

RC Hoover Oral and pharyngeal Jaw shape across diets and ontogeny in prickleback fishes (Stichaeidae) RC Hoover- RC is a PhD candidate examining head, skull, and tooth shape in a group of elongate fishes from the Pacific Northwest. His work uses CT scans, geometric morphometrics, and diet to explore the evolution of morphology.@rc_hoover https://www.kassandraford.com/people

#SICB2026 spotlights-
meet
@rchoover.bsky.social
who presented on
Oral and pharyngeal Jaw shape across diets & ontogeny
in prickleback fishes (Stichaeidae)

RC's work uses #CT scans, geometric #morphometrics, and diet to explore the #evolution of #morphology
www.kassandraford.com/people

@biologycarly.bsky.social ‘s #books have arrived !!!🙌
At th #SICB2026 SICB journals booth

See why @rchoover.bsky.social gave this one a must read review

integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/c...

@rchoover.bsky.social & Brian Whelan
are more than stoked to be at #SICB2026! Always great to have you two with us!

A Pacific spiny lumpsucker, swimming and snacking at the Seattle Aquarium

#MarineLife #Fish #Cyclopteridae #ColorADay #OrangeSun #PugetSound #PNW

I’m delighted to share my first ever book chapter is out now!
I goal with this piece is to provide a detailed but approachable review of ray-finned fish brain anatomy, anatomical diversity and evolutionary patterns.

www.sciencedirect.com:5037/science/chap...

ICB's
Carly Anne York: Bravely following her curiosity- a #book review
by R.C. Hoover #PhD Candidate

"Carly presents the serious discoveries of silly #science in a witty and easy to understand way..."

integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/c...

#biology #nonfiction

YouTube video by FishEvolutionLab-Edu The Library of Life - Dahiana Arcila, Ricardo Betancur-R., Ben Frable

Great video highlighting the value of natural history collections and the importance of preserving them for generations to come

Fossil evidence for trait diversification in an adaptive radiation - Scientific Reports Adaptive radiation is an important process for the origin of functional and ecological biodiversity. Understanding how, when, and why adaptive radiations occur is a long-standing interest in evolution...

Using fish teeth fossils from lake sediments, we found the haplochromine cichlids diversified quite rapidly and the entire food web evolved within just the first three millennia after the formation of modern Lake Victoria (which started refilling ~ 17k years ago). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ohio State news piece on our deep-sea fish body shape study:
news.osu.edu/how-fishes-o...

This is figure 1, which shows a three-dimensional rendering of Chamaeleo calyptratus Chamaeleonidae (UF: Herp: 191369).

A paper in Scientific Reports shows that chameleons have evolved a longer, coiled optic nerve that is likely to provide “slack” to reduce tension on the optic nerve during the extensive rotations characteristic of the chameleon eye. go.nature.com/3JTSgQ1 #evosky 🧪

Simple print of a black prickleback and seaweed

Simple rubber stamp of a black prickleback and seaweed

Printing stamps!

Hemipene from a water snake with spines segmented to illustrate diversity of shape within one species, some are like claws, others more needle like

Recent paper from our lab on the puncture performance of hemipene spines in snakes! Some are like cat claws, others barely puncture. A single species can have many different spine morphologies and thousands of spines! 🧪 🐍

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

🦀 Ever heard of a body-snatching barnacle? Meet Sacculina, the parasite that turns crabs into zombie parents. It takes over their bodies, shuts down reproduction, and even makes male crabs care for its eggs. Nature’s version of mind control is way creepier than fiction. 💀 #HappyHalloween

A science communication activity where visitors match fish jaws to what they eat.

I love working at a museum because that means I get to create fantabulous SciComm activities 🐟🐡 Visitors will have the chance to match 3D printed living and extinct fish jaws to what they think the fish eats, based on jaw and tooth shape.

Deep Antarctic waters hold geometric communities of fish nests Scientists found thousands of patterned fish nests in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, boosting calls for marine protected areas.

I was recently interviewed by @sciencenews.bsky.social about the discovery of new Antarctic #fish nesting in the fragile Weddell Sea in #antarctica. This time it was the yellow fin notie Nototheniops nudifrons nesting, likely in groups!
🧪 🌎 🇦🇶 🐟 🧊
www.sciencenews.org/article/anta...

Congrats @danielgeldof.bsky.social on defending your Master's today. It's been wonderful having a CT expert and poacher enthusiast in the lab. Well done.

A zebrafish on white background and a closeup of the zebrafish eye and face

Interested in automated length and morphological measurements? Check out our new app and preprint!

🧪🐟🦑
ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Collections Study Grants Collections study grants provide financial assistance for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to study the collections of the University of Washington Burke Museum (UWBM).

New Collection Study Grants for students and postdocs to come visit the @burkemuseum.bsky.social! Applications due 12/15/25. www.burkemuseum.org/collections-...

Parallel shifts in differential gene expression reveal convergent miniaturization in fishes | PNAS Body size variation in vertebrates is a complex polygenic trait, tightly correlated with numerous aspects of a species’ biology, ecology, and physi...

Why are some species smaller than a paperclip while others grow longer than a school bus? How is body size evolution governed in animals? Out now in @pnas.org we tackle these longstanding questions through a genetic lens using my favorite group of fishes as our model!! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

👻 G-g-ghost? Nope, s-s-snailfish! 🤍

Meet the mesmerizing new addition to our Into the Deep/En lo Profundo exhibit, rough snailfish! These ethereal charmers live in the benthic zone, a scientific term for the seafloor.

Bellator militaris — the horned searobin. Just like other armored searobins, they possess modified pectoral fin rays used to walk and detect food on the seafloor.

This specimen is TCWC 6818.17 available on MorphoSource.
www.morphosource.org/concern/biol...

🦑 🌊 🧪

Congrats! Can't wait to read it!!!

Phylogenetic relationships and the evolution of fin and body shape in the surgeonfishes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.09.680739v1

Ana amazing beach seining crew caught lots of critters. Spiny lump suckers, silver spotted sculpins, 2 species of surface, pipefish and many more!

Curator of Birds - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page Apply to Curator of Birds at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.

The Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social is delighted to seek a new Curator of Birds. With more than 200,000 specimens, including the world’s largest collection of bird skeletons, ROM's bird collection is the largest in Canada and one of the world's largest.