William B. Ludt, PhD

Great opportunity to work with a fantastic community of museum evolutionary biologists at the LSUMNS!

While scanning some fishes yesterday I came across this Bonytail Chub collected near Blythe, CA in 1933. You can't find this species in Blythe anymore, nor in the rest of California as it is critically endangered. Museum collections like @nhm.org showcasing yet again our changing planet 🐟🐠

Save the NSF The National Science Foundation is one of the world’s premier funders of basic science research (i.e. the fundamental di...

"Save The NSF" - a little blogpost I wrote to amplify the #SaveTheNSF mission.

The National Science Foundation is one of the world’s premier funders of basic science research; proposed federal cuts would derail how we do science in the U.S.

aguidetoacademia.blogspot.com/2025/07/save...

Fish time capsules prove plastic’s long reign Tucked away from the exhibit halls of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (NHMLA), where visitors crowd around T. rex skeletons and a 10.8 pound gold nugget found in the Mojave desert, lies an u...

A nice writeup by @caseagrant.bsky.social on the historical microplastic work we're doing @nhm.org along with @nhmlagems.bsky.social, @jessdflores.bsky.social and @jazminenoamie.bsky.social. Take a look if you're interested in what we've found so far! 🐟🧪

caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/fish-ti...

Being part of @prosanta.bsky.social's lab was a large, and formative, part of my academic upbringing. Glad I got see so many past and present lab members at this year's #JMIH25 meeting

And that’s a wrap on #jmih25! Great posters were presented by @realfishdoc.bsky.social, @jessdflores.bsky.social, @romanferraro.bsky.social and others from the @nhm.org Dept of Ichthyology. Overall a good time in St. Paul, MN!

This will be a great resource for future studies on neotropical fishes! 🐠🐟

We're hiring! 🎉

The KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum is seeking applications for a full-time Museum Education Coordinator. Application reviews begin Monday, June 9, 2025.

To apply or learn more about each job, click the link ➡️ rockcha.lk/xvx

I'm thrilled to announce that the Entomology department at the NHMLAC is hiring a full-time collections manager! 🪰🐜🕸️🦋 I'm biased, but the museum is a great place to work, and our department is full of fun, thoughtful people. Job description and information for applying are here:

shorturl.at/iRqOB

Even the most minuscule ants like this Strumigenys elongata get huge under the SEM. Courtesy of Giar-Ann Kung, Los Angeles, CA, 2009. © Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

There are hidden worlds all around us, too small to see with our own eyes. Ahead of this weekend’s annual #BugFair, explore those hidden worlds and the behind-the-scenes research made possible with this fantastic equipment in the Scanning Electron Microscope Lab! bit.ly/NHMSEM

Think you know everything about fish feeding? Check this out! So cool to see this paper come out by @mikemihalitsis.bsky.social and colleagues

Really cool paleo work by NHMLA's very own @jvelezjuarbe.bsky.social!

Coelacanths having a great week! First a new live sighting of the Indonesian species, and now this fantastic work on their musculature by Aléssio Datovo and the late Dave Johnson

As the school year comes to a close I always try to get the whole lab together before students leave for summer. Super grateful for this group of hard working employees and students that truly represent the positive impact that federal funds can have on lives and careers. I can't thank them enough!

Stumbled across our Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, in the collections earlier today. Look at that weird pelvic fin!

Proud advisor moment seeing @jessdflores.bsky.social give her first conference talk and @jazminenoamie.bsky.social give their first conference poster yesterday at the SCAS conference

So cool!

3D model of jawless fossil fish

Check out the latest paper on a jawless fossil fish, and this time we were able to recreate a full 3D model! Thank you Lisa Schnetz, @nitroshutter.bsky.social, @gilespalaeo.bsky.social, @euphanerops.bsky.social et al. for having me on this
@nhm-london.bsky.social #fossilfish #CTscan #palaeotology

Graphical abstract for "The Diffusion Diaries: Diffusible Iodine-Based Contrast-Enhanced CT for Vertebrate Natural History Specimens", showing the number of scans : "252 scans of 205 specimens from 7 natural history collections" a plot showing how staining time increases with mass, log-transformed (bottom left), a pie chart showing the Tissue Condition scores (TCS) recorded for all specimens (bottom middle), and a screenshot of a lab protocol for diceCT'ing museum specimens (bottom right)

Cover image for Integrative Organismal Biology, showing cross sections through a fish, a tenrec, a frog, and a lizard at the bottom of the image, and a 3D rendering of each animal at the top of the image (colored in teal, grey, yellow, and pink, respectively)

🚨New publication alert!🚨 A big one! It might just be my *biggest* one: doi.org/10.1093/iob/... IMPORTANT THREAD! From the moment Dave Blackburn set me loose at the Florida Museum, I had a marvelous time using diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced CT (diceCT) to create anatomical datasets 🧪1/6

@jazminenoamie.bsky.social, not *Janine*.

All this work has been done by these two excellent early career researchers, @jessdflores.bsky.social and Janine Gallardo!

It’s Earth Day at @nhm.org today! If you’re around, come by and learn about the microplastic research we’re doing using fish specimens from our collection. This important work details microplastic consumption across 8 decades in CA! Funded by @caseagrant.bsky.social and @opc-california.bsky.social

I love coming across old documents like this publication written by Vic Springer in 1973 for the ASIH. The world has changed a lot in the last 52 years, and yet many things that Vic wrote about may still seem familiar to any ichthyologist on the job market today

Congratulations, Liz!

Check out this month's Editor's Choice author interview featuring @jordynneal.bsky.social and Dr. Allison Bronson: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/editors-...
Read more about their exciting research on shark skeletal labyrinths here:
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Blobfish: 'World's ugliest animal' is NZ's fish of the year Known as the world's ugliest animal for its lumpy appearance, the blobfish makes a stunning comeback.

World's ugliest animal?! Say it isn't so. They're gorgeous! 🐟🐠🦑
www.bbc.com/news/article...

It's not every day that we get to open up the megamouth/coelacanth tank, so when we do get that chance @realfishdoc.bsky.social and I make sure to document the alcohol level and concentration.

What a cool 3D printed model! I love that the esca glows too

Pokémon style cards featuring fishes found in Texas, including orangethroat darters, Guadalupe bass, longear sunfish, alligator gar, and channel catfish

My lab made Pokémon cards featuring Texas fishes for our Darwin Day exhibit

This is a pretty cool opportunity if you're an undergrad looking for research experience!