Michele Johnson 🦎

Assistant Professor Online applications must be received before 11:59pm on: September 14, 2025 If a date is not listed above, review the Applicant Instructions below for more details. Available Title(s): 270-NN_FACULTY -...

WSU biology is hiring a vertebrate ecologist! wsu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/WSU_Jo...

Photo of the top of a name badge, featuring the logo for three ABS 2025 meeting with the Baltimore skyline, an oriole, and a Maryland blue crab. The lanyard has a pin that says "I'm WayFAB/ Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior" and a blue cancer (mesothelioma) ribbon.

Today at #ABS2025, I participated in the early career workshop: Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior. We discussed networking, time management, collaborations & research, receiving wisdom from faculty & sharing advice. Highly recommend to other postdocs/early faculty (or SIGNAL for grad students)!

Eco/Evo friends: Where would you recommend submitting a manuscript that is a short article at the intersection of community ecology and animal behavior?

Coral snake in leaf litter beside a paved trail

Coral snake moving toward forested area

It was a lucky day on the greenway in San Antonio this morning!

And we don't think the sizes of sperm or testes are influencing the phylogeny, but rather the reverse - that phylogeny is influencing testis structures and sperm size in anoles.

Thanks for checking it out! And not a dumb question. But, I don't think testes' structures could "define" a phylogeny as you suggest - they aren't directly involved in the evolution of isolation the way genital structures often can be.

I can't beat @lizardmichele.bsky.social description of this new paper, so I won't try! 😅

Image of an Anolis testis cross-section underneath a 1 mm × 1 mm grid. The callout box highlights a trace of a seminiferous tubule and its lumen, and a closer look at the cell types identified under each grid point (lumen, epithelial, or interstitial space).

New paper alert! 🦎

Lizard sperm come in many varieties.
Is that due to testicular properties?
Only yes, we concluded
With phylogeny included
Because sperm and testes evolve neutrally.

See the full story w @arielkahrl.bsky.social, Hannah Hall, Bela Carson in Biol J Linn Soc: doi.org/10.1093/biol...

Oh, the pain on my timeline. 💔 I'm so very grateful for your service.

Cruz-Led Investigation Uncovers $2 Billion in Woke DEI Grants at NSF, Releases Full Database

Ted Cruz "investigated" NSF and released a database of over 3,400 grants that promoted "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda." 110 of the grants listed are funded through IOS or DEB programs.

www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-...

Universities tend to be in blue cities and towns. Because when you learn about how wonderful and different the world is, it changes you. You have empathy. You have compassion. You understand other points of view and learn from world history.

Until yesterday, I was the Program Director of an HHMI-funded initiative to transform my institution's intro STEM courses so that all students could succeed in those courses. This is shameful.

How am I doing? Well, today I learned that they don't do annual optometry exams at the dentist's office. Oops.

If anyone has the resources to resist, its HHMI. Ending this program with no notice and literally scrubbing evidence it ever existed from the website is shocking and dosappointing

Hi, I'm Earyn, and I'm a lizard scientist! I created a game to teach people about lizards and increase the representation of Black women as herpetologists. #findthatlizard is a Where's Waldo-esque game where there is a lizard camouflaged in its environment. Your challenge is to find it. Will you? 🦎

Find and contact elected officials | USAGov Use USAGov’s Contact Your Elected Officials tool to get contact information for your members of Congress, the president, and state and local officials.

It is very easy to call your representatives’ offices. They have to log your calls and the call numbers are meaningful. You don’t even have to try to convince anyone; just call and tell them your concerns. They are there to represent you. Let them know what that means. www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

I wrote a piece on how cool this new ruff paper is. Total endocrine game-changer! Congrats to the authors on a rad discovery. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Today I asked a student how an interview went, and they said, "I think it was pretty good, but it could have been better, and now I'm really tired."

I think that might just sum up almost everything I work on?

SCIENCE IRL: Community SciComm mini-grant Skype a Scientist is offering $300-1,000 mini-grants to support boots-on-the-ground science communication. The Science IRL mini-grants will support projects that put either 1) important science messa...

I am extremely excited to announce that for the first time ever, Skype a Scientist is offering mini-grants to support IRL science communication!!

Communicating science out in our communities is critical. We want to enable others to get their projects off the ground!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

It's so true!! And brilliant coauthors make the work more fun. 😊

Sophie with her poster on lizard brain evolution

Sofia with her poster on lizard tooth damage

Florie with her poster on gene expression in lizards as a function of artificial light at night.

Four smiling scientists at the end of a very successful conference

So proud of my amazing undergrads!! #sicb2025 🦎 See you all in Portland?

SICB logo

#SICB is looking for nominees to important society-wide positions: #SICBSecretary #SICBProgramOfficer #SICBMemberAtLarge. As one of this year's #NominationsCommittee I'm interested in your ideas! Please DM, email, or find me in Atlanta #SICB2025

All three of my lab's #SICB25 posters have now been sent for printing, and I'm officially on holiday break. See y'all in Atlanta! 🦎🧠🦷❤️

Bioart, courtesy of the NIH. All images are in the public domain and available for download as high-quality SVGs.
bioart.niaid.nih.gov

“Women’s attrition rates were also higher at less prestigious school”

boy oh boy do I have thoughts on this

Pinatas of every color and size and shape, filling a large room.

San Antonio pinata stores do NOT mess around.

I've been thinking a lot about grading equity and STEM courses, and it's become clear to me:

Giving consistently low grades across a course is a faculty power play.

Anole Annals Your source for the latest on Anolis lizards.

Anole Annals is now on bluesky! Follow us (and check out our blog anoleannals.org) for all anole research, news, and more!

@holyanole.bsky.social @arielkahrl.bsky.social

Anole biologist starter pack! 🦎