Andrea Rummel, Ph.D.

The hairiest! Good spot

Wing pelage is suggested to have a functional role in bats — and it’s not just to make them cuter. Check out the publication below to learn more!

#academia #academicSky #PhDSky #bats #science

We think that wing pelage may be important from a thermoregulatory standpoint during roosting, and likely has some biomechanical effect during flight.

After looking at the front and back of a lot of bat wings on field trips, in museum collections, and using existing images of bats in flight, we found that body mass and various aspects of bat ecology are related to the presence of fur on the wing. Here's @ashockney24.bsky.social at TAMU's BRTC.

Bats have relatively naked wings - i.e., they are furless - but that's not entirely true. We decided to look across the diversity of bat species to determine which bats had fur on their wings, where on the wings bats tend to have fur, and speculate as to why there is variation in wing pelage.

NYAS Publications Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight, and while they retain the furry coat of other small mammals, their wings, the primary flight surface, are generally thought to be hairless. We ass....

Super proud to share the first first-author paper from @ashockney24.bsky.social and our first official Rummel lab publication! Check it out here: nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hi! I work on bat flight biomechanics and physiology and other aspects of bat biology - would love to come talk about bats!

A bat is being released back into the night.

Loved this write-up of our fieldwork in Tanzania this summer, led by grad student Annie Finneran and undergrad Caroline Pollan. I felt very lucky to join them to catch some bats there!

news.rice.edu/news/2025/ba...

A young possum in Sarah’s trash can sitting on a bag of trash

Possum in my trash can I REPEAT! Possum in my trash can.

A swainson's hawk with a bat in its talons flies through the air.

A night heron sits on a branch with two bats in its beak.

A swarm of bats flies through Houston after leaving their roost at Waugh Dr and Buffalo Bayou

Another active night at Buffalo Bayou watching the bat emergence. The bats come out before sunset, and so do the predators, with hawks catching them mid-air and herons plucking them from their roosts

Read here: www.sanjac.edu/about/news/2...

Really nice write-up of our collaboration with San Jacinto College! We are working together to listen to 🦇🦇🦇around Houston. Shout out to @ashockney24.bsky.social for getting this project off the ground!

We had a truly spectacular emergence at Waugh Bridge last night! 🦇

Swainson’s hawk attacks a Mexican free tailed bat in front of a building and trees in central Houston

Battle of the wings at Buffalo Bayou (the bat got away 😮‍💨🦇)

Cover image of Nature Ecology and Evolution showing a micro-CT scan of an anglerfish looking generally menacing

We got the cover of Nature Eco Evo for our anglerfish study!! Shoutout to our graduate student HoWan Chan for the slick image. Read to study here www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Nice bat emergence in Houston the other night, with a red-shouldered hawk on the hunt.

Colleges must stand up to the new segregationists (opinion) In rushing to comply with Trump’s executive actions, universities support a segregationist agenda, Subini Annamma and David Stovall write.

“We believe this rush to comply is a sign that universities are willing to become an institutional wing of the new segregationists.”

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Grad student Kate checking out some bats in a local colony. Glamorous fieldwork!

Why The Internet Was Captivated By A Hideous Fish A video of a gloriously creepy anglerfish inspired tears and poetry online. But why was this deep-sea dweller near the surface at all?

Last week, a video of a rare black seadevil anglerfish spotted near the ocean surface made headlines because anglerfish typically live in very deep waters.

Dr. @sternarchella.bsky.social joins us to discuss the video and recent research on anglerfish evolution.

list of banned keywords

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

The Rummel Lab is almost ready for move-in! What a view 🥹

Army Blackhawk helicopters are crashing into passenger planes at DCA while the Secretary of Defense is on Fox News ranting about DEI

This isn't mine at all, but the Magic School Bus TV cartoon, which inspired untold millennials including myself, originated as an NSF grant 🧪

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

A business card sized piece of paper looks like an iPhone. It looks like the screen where someone is calling. A horseshoe crab is on the line for you. This is stuck in a street pole

Helloooo? Horseshoe crab is that you?

NSF PRFB POSTDOCS:

Pull the remainder of this funding cycle’s stipend, all remaining research funds, and all remaining travel funds (if you have them). Do it before 5PM today. Per instructions from multiple NSF POs.

If you’re not already on the PRFB slack, DM me and I’ll send you an invite

I’m an NSF panel reviewer that was scheduled to meet today. Just got notice that all NSF panels were canceled today. I reviewed some innovative proposals in support of students. Devastating if these scholars don’t get to do this work. For the love of science & students I hope this is just a delay.💔

Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology (BRC-BIO)

Looks like the following programs in #NSF BIO have been 'archived':
BRC-BIO - new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
BIO-LEAPS - new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
PRFB - new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Micro-CT scan of a beautiful rainbow runner that was caught offshore in Okinawa, Japan last month. These species are pelagic generalists that use speed to catch their food. Note that triangular pointy head... thats for speed.

Live image of a rainbow runner, photo credit:Reef Fishes of the Indo-Pacific. Book by Matthias Bergbauer and Manuela Kirschner

The world is not fun right now. But! we are finally scanning the fishes that we caught in Okinawa last month and added a particularly special one to the dataset today. This is a rainbow runner. Its a common pelagic fish that has eluded us for years somehow. Its really pretty in life and as a scan.

That was my fav but the walk sign was the better sled!

Houston showing up to the snow day with the most creative sleds: