Tom Near

FYI #AncientSky - the upcoming release of Caitlin C. Gillespie's "Women and Resistance in the "Annals" of Tacitus" is happening soon. And, it can be on your bookshelf, if you do not resist your excitement and head to the @cornellupress.bsky.social site: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

This is fantastic! Congratulations!

Honored that #NearLab work on fish phylogenetics is recognized with this award, in particular our work on Black Basses (Micropterus) that includes the famous Largemouth Bass

New from the #NearLab, Chase Brownstein chasedbrownstein.bsky.social takes the lead on Phylogenomics and the origins of sharks.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Acanthomorph teleosts (spiny-rayed fishes) comprise nearly one third of all living species of vertebrates. This important study describes a new fossil taxa that pushes the group back 20 million years in the geologic record!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The non-cryptic, cryptic species! Love it!

Cryptic species are widespread across vertebrates Abstract. Many species delimited by morphological data contain two or more species that are distinct based on molecular data (i.e. cryptic species). Crypti

A very interesting and well-executed study.

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won’t end For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are calling for a more harmonious approach.

For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. A feature in Nature describes how some researchers are calling for a more harmonious approach. #evosky 🧪

From 1,750–2,000 m deep, we collected one of the rarest deepsea fishes out there: a one-jaw eel (family Monognathidae). Only ~100 specimens of this group are known worldwide and we hold the largest collection (~46), most just a few inches long… The one we collected though, 6 inches or 154 mm!

New paper story time. 👁️🐟🦴🩻
Here is your gormless jawless relative Jamoytius:
[1/8]

Estimates of molecular convergence reveal multiple genes with adaptive variation across teleost fish Abstract. Molecular convergence, where specific nonsynonymous changes in protein-coding genes lead to identical amino acid substitutions across multiple li

Barua, @marcrr.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy et al. searched for convergent substitutions in teleost fishes, detecting convergence in 89 protein-coding gene families across 143 genomes. Functional experiments support functional roles of convergent genes.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag015

#evobio #molbio

#science #inspiration #stem #childhood #passion #yalecollegevoices #podcast | Darice Corey, MBA An early fascination can shape a life's work. For Thomas Near, it started with a secondhand microscope and a mom who brought home lab slides. That early exposure, even amidst chaos, sparked a lifelon...

My first microscope!

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Outstanding...making it into my skull lecture in ichthyology!

New paper describing a replicated movement study aimed at understanding movement across culverts in Louisiana. Fish movement is hard.
doi.org/10.1002/rra.70017
#fish #ecology #movement #culvert

Starting off 2026 the right way, new from the #NearLab w/dartersdanjmac.weebly.com taking the lead on genomic and phenotypic species delimitation in North American endemic darters

The asynchronous rise of Northern Hemisphere alpine floras reveals general responses of biotic assembly to orogeny and climate change The asynchronous rise of Northern Hemisphere alpine floras was shaped by general responses to orogeny and climate change.

How have mountain building and climate change shaped alpine biodiversity over millions of years? Check out our new study in Science Advances! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Macroevolutionary changes in gene expression response to an immune stimulus across the diversity of fishes Abstract. Our understanding of the vertebrate immune system is dominated by a few model organisms such as mice. This use of a few model systems is reasonab

A postdoc in my lab, Ben Flanagan, just had a really nice paper come out in MB&E @official-smbe.bsky.social comparing transcriptomic response to a standardized immune challenge in 14 phylogenetically diverse species of ray-finned fishes
academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

There are 8 million fish in a World War II bunker outside New Orleans. More arrive soon. Hidden in a World War II bunker near New Orleans, Tulane stores more than 8 million preserved fish — and the collection is still growing.

Great news article about the Tulane University Biodiversity Research Institute's Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection and our recent accessions of specimens from the DEEPEND Consortium and the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Huge congrats to my mentee @pfschwarz.bsky.social on her first first-author paper! Three-way secondary contact and mosaic hybridization in darters. Plus a bonus comparison of ddRAD vs lcWGS. @fishgenomes.bsky.social @tjnear.bsky.social #fish #evolution #genomics
doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Mosaic tri-lineage secondary contact shapes diverse genomic outcomes in darters Abstract. Speciation does not always lead to complete reproductive isolation, which can result in hybrid zones with gene flow. In freshwater fishes, second

I am very excited to share our new paper with my amazing co-authors and mentors @dmacguig.bsky.social @fishgenomes.bsky.social @tjnear.bsky.social . We investigate a secondary contact zone in #darters. track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...

Challenges & Solutions in Converting Phylogenies to Taxonomies in Ray-Finned Fishes (Actinopterygii) YouTube video by Lead Line Down

Perhaps tangential, but in this video I point out the growth of redundant group names in the taxonomy of ray-finned fishes,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q66l...

A phylogeny showing the resolution of this lonely family...

Here are just a few of the many fish I painted this year (not to scale). It's fun to stick a bunch of them together into a collage and see some of the incredible diversity of body shape and color patterns. Merry Fishmas!

🐡🐟🐠

New from #NearLab The role of ecology in allopatric speciation of darters in the Central Highlands, USA

shorturl.at/YEmxH

Multifaceted impacts of an innovation on dental diversity in an adaptive radiation of cichlid fishes Abstract. Evolutionary innovations bring species into new ecological zones by opening ecological opportunity. However, innovations can have varied effects

New paper out now! We show that innovations can have varied effects on a phenotypic evolution, determined by the interaction between external ecological context and internal changes to organismal structure. Read here: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Adaptive radiation of pelagiarian fishes at the K/Pg boundary led to rapid diversification of mandible morphology Abstract. Mandibles represent a key evolutionary innovation that has enabled jawed vertebrates to adapt and diversify in response to a range of food source

New paper! Here we look at shape evolution of the mandible in Pelagiaria, a group of open-ocean fishes that includes tuna and mackerel. We find that shape disparity accumulated rapidly at the origin of the clade at around the K/Pg boundary... academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

We are fish: A crash course in ichthyology My dad was always good at pointing them out whenever we visited the beach, or a lake, or just passed by a stream on a […]

Female deep-sea anglerfish...final answer!

yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/12...

Congratulations to UMMP Associate Research Scientist Miriam Zelditch on the release of the third edition of the indispensable "Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists" (a.k.a. the green book)! #FossilFriday

Painting the phylogeny of life An evolutionary biologist invites readers to travel back in time to meet humanity’s distant ancestors

Wonderful new review of The Tree of Life in Science by Yan Wong.

"This mix of the uncertainty of research, the excitement of new discovery, and the importance of solving “science’s greatest puzzle” is what makes the book such a delight"
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...