Andrew J. Crawford

Alt EN: Image shows a large green and brown American bullfrog partially submerged in bright green duckweed, with only its head and eyes above the water. Text on image: “Inform invasive species management. Sequencing invasive amphibians, like the American bullfrog, helps track introductions, spread, and rapid adaptation.” Alt ES: Imagen de una rana toro americana grande, verde y marrón, parcialmente sumergida entre lentejas de agua verde brillante, con la cabeza y los ojos sobre la superficie. Texto en la imagen: “Informan la gestión de especies invasoras. Secuenciar anfibios invasores, como la rana toro americana, ayuda a rastrear introducciones, expansión y adaptación rápida.”

Alt EN: Image shows a smooth, legless caecilian lying on wet soil and leaf litter in a forest floor setting. Text on image: “Fill major gaps in the Tree of Life. Amphibians remain underrepresented in genomic databases. Sequencing them strengthens phylogeny and comparative research across vertebrates.” Alt ES: Imagen de una cecilia lisa y sin patas sobre suelo húmedo y hojarasca en el suelo del bosque. Texto en la imagen: “Llenan grandes vacíos en el Árbol de la Vida. Los anfibios siguen poco representados en las bases de datos genómicas. Secuenciarlos fortalece la filogenia y la investigación comparativa en vertebrados.”

🧩 From #salamanders with some of the largest, most complex genomes to #invasive species like the American #bullfrog, #amphibian genomics is pushing #sequencing forward — while filling major gaps in the #vertebrate Tree of Life.🧬💻

Big thanks to @crawfordaj.bsky.social for helping shape this post! 🧬✨

Dems scapegoating again rather than taking a good long look in the mirror. Or looking at data 📊
like # of Dems that voted Green vs # of Dems that voted Republican in Florida in 2000. Dig it. 🪏

Time to publish responsibly: DAFNEE, a database of academia-friendly journals in ecology and evolutionary biology Abstract. The current economics of scientific publishing reveal a profound imbalance: academia pays prices far exceeding the actual costs of publication. R

Responsible publication of your research!

To help you do this @nicolasgaltier.bsky.social and coauthors have put together a handy database of academia-friendly journals, DAFNEE. You can read about it in their article recently published in @jevbio.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Emailing details now …. 🙏🏻🐸

Reeeeaaallllyy …. 🤩
Wanna illustrate a new species (MS in prep) currently in USNM (Suitland) ???
🤩👐🙏🏻🐸

a cartoon character says hi diddly ho neighborino while waving ALT: a cartoon character says hi diddly ho neighborino while waving

Dear Harry,
Long time listener, first time solicitor.

Yes to F 2025 T-shirt 🙏🏻

a cartoon of homer simpson and marge simpson sitting in a theater with the words give that man the $ 10,000 ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson and marge simpson sitting in a theater with the words give that man the $ 10,000

1995: “Man Getting Hit by Football” (S6, E18).

2025: “Man kicks self in groin with mocap”

How far we’ve come in 30 years.

Human-AI interactions in 2025 summed up in 5 seconds. 🤣

What further wonders await us in 2026? 🥹

@parismarx.com

That’s still true today … depending on what country you live in ;-)

AI … I’m not all that intuit.

I’ll show myself out 🚪

… plus all-steel dashboard and no seatbelts.

As my old friend w a ‘56 Belvedere used to say:

In case of accident, just wipe it down and sell it the next guy.

“Dictador” (or ‘dictator’ in English) brand rum from Colombia— this variety is labeled ‘Orange’.

Could it be that the popularity of the Orange Dictator brand is falling sharply?

🍹 cheers.

Rudolf Meier paraphrases a post from @rdmpage.bsky.social : as ~ 2/3 of the records in GBIF are birds, @gbif.org is primarily a Global Bird Information Facility. To correct this bias, we need to focus on the “ugly” biodiversity. 🪰 🪱 🪳 🦟 @mfnberlin.bsky.social #LivingData2025 x.com/rdmpage/stat...

A gran day out: The salt mines and natural history museum of Nemocón, Cundinamarca, Colombia.

#LeShow

@harryshearer.bsky.social
Apple podcasts seems to think Le Show is every 2 weeks 🙃

Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’ Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage

Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci

That was paper #1 of Prof. David B. Wake’s ‘reader’ for his famous class on Evolution at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
👍🏽

Drawing: Dante goes astray in a dark wood (Gustave Dore, 1870).

“Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

— Dante Alighieri (Longfellow translation)

704 years on, I suspect this opening connects with more people than ever.

(1/2) 🧬 The African BioGenome Project 🌍 is training the next generation of genomics experts through groundbreaking, hands-on workshops across 50 African countries—laying the foundation for innovation and discovery across the continent.
🚀📖 Read the 2025 publication: go.nature.com/40INiek

That frog in the photo is the famous Red-eyed Tree Frog (_Agalychnis callidryas_) from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica — yet no one (!) is currently working on a reference genome 🧬 for this 🐸. However, we have a group of researchers trying to make this happen. If you’d like to help out, DM me. 🤗

Damn the fascist and complicit GOP.

“We've gained notoriety
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.”

Farewell to the master satirist and lyricist.

🕊️… ☠️

¿Named in honor of the flying Luck Dragon 🐉 in Never-ending Story?

The call for sessions is open now!
September 2025: Call for abstracts
December 2025: Early bird registration opens.

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

The legendary Janzen & Hallwachs on the collapse of insects. “It’s the same sheet, same lights same place, looking over the same vegetation. Same time of year, same time of the moon cycle, everything about it is identical... There’s just no moths on that sheet.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Inscripción — XIII CLH

Registration, abstracts, and symposium proposals now open for:
XIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Herpetología
23-27 Feb. 2026, in spectacular Costa Rica 🇨🇷
🐍🦎🐸🐢🐊
www.herpcr2026.com/inscription
¡Pura vida, Mae!

@sajherpetology.bsky.social @arc-trust.bsky.social
#Amphibians #Reptiles

Check out this recent publication from EBP all stars @crawfordaj.bsky.social sky.social @solenne-correard.bsky.social sky.social and @cmazzoni.bsky.social

¿Quién se beneficia de la información genética de nuestra biodiversidad? Entrespecies Pódcast · Episode

Dig the latest episode of the podcast “Entrespecies” from Gabriela Supelan and El Espectador newspaper about Digital Sequence Information 💾🧬ℹ️, Benefit Sharing, #COP16 and the #CaliFund, featuring Yours Truly, but in Spanish. _Espero que lo disfruten_.

open.spotify.com/episode/5GgZ...

Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest Suspensions affect accounts spreading information about the widespread demonstrations.

No surprise: Musk takes the side of autocracy in Turkey.