Thomas Schwaha

I’m happy to share some plugins I’ve been developping this summer: "Channels and Contrast" and LUTs Manager!
I can’t find new bugs and ideas by now so I need your help to please test them in your machines and report bugs, feedbacks and ideas! forum.image.sc/t/looking-fo...

A photo of a dead crustacean in ethanol. It is covered by small zooids

A close up of Triticella zooids. Thei have a long "stalk" and then you have the autozooid.

Today's cool museum collection discovery: Bryozoans growing on crustaceans!

I believe this ctenostome belongs to the genus Triticella, which is known to grow on specific groups of marine invertebrates 🦐

#bryozoa #nordigbryo #marineinvertebrates

Marine and Brackish Bryozoans from the Southern Bight of the North Sea This book is a reliable reference for professional bryozoologists and keen amateur naturalists studying northern European bryozoans, including 200 species.

Last month, the English version of Hans de Blauwe's great book on North Sea bryozoans was released. Find excellent information on local species and identification keys.
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

#bryozoa bryozoologists! It’s official!! We are hosting Larwood 2026 in Oslo!! 1-3 June: mark and save on your calendars and spread the news!! @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social

Save the date! Next Larwood meeting (European bryozoan conference) in 2026 will be in Oslo from 1st-3rd of June! Hosted by @lhliow.bsky.social Hope to see you there.

Read about invasive #bryozoans in Norway by @malihr.bsky.social www.nhm.uio.no/english/rese... and other supercool finds in her documentation of our #Artsdatabanken funded project NorDigBryo! www.nhm.uio.no/english/rese...

3d scans of different boring bivalves! They are quite varied in forms. One irregular and ornamented, one oblong, one circular with a conical appendage

Boring bivalves are actually quite interesting! The ability to bore into rock has evolved multiple times in bivalves. @spissatella.bsky.social found that boring bivalves have a greater variety of forms than their non-boring counterparts! (220)

📊 new paper! The natural phenomenon of upwelling, which normally occurs every year in the Gulf of Panama, failed for the first time on record in 2025...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
[most co-authors not on bluesky except @javsdiaz.bsky.social @jonscibulski.bsky.social]...

New life cycle hypothesis of the bone-eating worm Osedax having sexually predetermined larvae. Schematic drawing of Osedax development with sexually determined embryos developing into sexually determined larvae, female larvae having a gut, male larvae lacking one. Drawings are not scaled.

New addition to the spectacular life cycle of Osedax worms: sex of O. japonicus is genetically (not environmentally) determined since larvae show both morphological and transcriptomic signatures of gender. Might help us explain male dwarfism rdcu.be/eCHBe
@alicerouan.bsky.social @NorioMiyamoto

The ectoparasitic seal louse, Echinophthirius horridus, relies on a sealed tracheal system and spiracle closing apparatus for underwater respiration - Communications Biology Morphological and experimental analyses of seal lice reveal a unique spiracle-closing system and exclude plastron use, suggesting cuticular and pigment-based respiration with limited tracheal oxygen s...

and the second here:
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Host-parasite coevolution leads to underwater respiratory adaptations in extreme diving insects, seal lice (Lepidophthirus macrorhini) - Communications Biology Seal lice survive deep-sea dives by closing spiracles, reducing oxygen use, and breathing through their skin. Genomic data suggest they store oxygen via haemoglobin, showing insects can adapt to extre...

In two independent collaborations with two different labs (Leonardi-lab Argentinia, and Gorb-lab Germany) new data on different seal lice and their adaptations for underwater respiration. See more here:
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#FossilFriday Jabba the Zooid. This teratological zooid in a colony of the bryozoan Tornipora reminds me of Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars. Cretaceous, Campanian, Archiac, SW France.

Join the best invertebrate event of 2025!
The official website for the 6th International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology (ICIM6) is now live! Check it out:
icim6.com
Thank you Felipe and colleagues for hosting this!

great morphology meeting of the dzg last week in kiel

Phylogenomics of the rarest animals: a second species of Micrognathozoa identified by machine learning royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

It is amazing to see so many #Morphologists attending #Morpho25 in Kiel. The renaissance of #Morphology is continuing

Holotype of Patagurus rex, dorsal view. Photos by Arthur Anker. This is a strange hermit crab, shown naked. Its carapace is shaped like 2 triangles stuck together, hardened with several lateral projections. Unlike other hermits that have a long, curved abdomen, this one is tiny, perhaps 1/3 the length of the carapace. The carapace is whitish/pinkish, claws red, walking legs red and white striped.

Dorsal view of the Patagurus holotype again (always the holotype because there are no other specimens). This time you see a small bivalve, the mussel Gregariella, covering the pleon in a sideways fashion.

Similar to the last photo, except the bivalve is popped off (but in the image) and the crab is seen slightly more anteriorly, so its mouthparts are visible

P is for Patagurus, a hermit crab known from only ONE SPECIMEN EVER!

Instead of a snail shell, it wears a bivalve to cover its tiny abdomen. Is this how hermit crabs gave up their houses in carcinization? 🤔 (see king & coconut crabs, ALSO hermits)

#CrabAZ 🦀🧪🦑

www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/arti...

Next trip, Thailand, sampling freshwater bryos

Was great to have @cblei.bsky.social in Vienna for this weeks departmental seminar!

Applications for Unitas Malacologica Travel Grants to attend the World Congress of #Malacology in São Paulo, Brazil from August 4-8 2025 are now open! unitasmalacologica.org/projects.html

first of 2025.Taiwan. Great to be here working on a variety of bryoans. Also great to meet @yjluo.bsky.social during my stay, thanks! Looking forward to some nice collaborations!

Ecology of endolithic bryozoans: colony development, growth rates and interactions of species in the genus Immergentia - Zoological Letters Boring bryozoans dissolve calcium carbonate substrates, leaving unique borehole traces. Depending on the shell type, borehole apertures and colony morphology can be diagnostic for distinguishing taxa,...

zoologicalletters.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
On the final day of 2024, first data on growth rates from boring bryozoans of the genus Immergentia. Great work from Mildred Johnson and other colleagues.

Recurrent evolution of breathing microtunnel system in terrestrial operculate snails (Gastropoda: Caenogastropoda: Cyclophoroidea) Abstract. The Cyclophoroidea are a group of land snails possessing an operculum that seals the aperture when the snail withdraws its body into the shell. S

New publication on gastropod respiratory tunnels.
academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...