Mark Westneat 🐟

A box of food donations for local food pantries in south Chicago

We are doing a food drive across multiple Departments and programs at UChicago. Our box in Culver Hall for Organismal Biology and Anatomy is now greatly overflowing 🤙 To the food pantries soon!

NSF is open again!

A few comments:

*Please be patient.
During a shutdown NSF employees cannot open computers or respond to emails.

*Merit review will continue. However panels won’t resume until after Dec 8th.

*POs remain excited and committed to advancing science and the scientific workforce.

Halloween graveyard with Cubs playoff hopes and White Sox whole season deeply grieved.

Happy Halloween! We are THE haunted Harper Ave block in Hyde Park, and will serve candy to thousands of South Side Chicago kids tonight! I have a bunch of cool skulls out in the yard but the baseball graveyard is the most popular. 😆

Seems like the L flag was bad luck. Brewers are now 0-3 after using it to celebrate their opponents loss. Oops.

Fig. 3 Modularity hypotheses for cranial bones of Thalassoma lunare. Each color represents a different module. The operculum represents the preopercular/opercular series. See Table 1 for a description of the functional and developmental patterns that underly each hypothesis.

ICB
From the Evan's lab!
Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational #Modularity in the Lunar #Wrasse Skull
by
Hugi,& @sternarchella.bsky.social et al

doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

Evans lab
koryevans.weebly.com/people.html

Our killer team of @mfarjo.bsky.social, Ryan Isdonas, Andrew George, and @mwestneat.bsky.social found:
🐠head/body shapes are related to diet
🐠fishes have pairs of high/low aspect ratio propulsive fins (caudal/pectoral)
🐠caudal fins have the highest evolutionary rates & covary with body/pectoral fins

So excited to see our paper on #phylogenetics and #morphometrics integrated with feeding #ecology in the surgeonfishes by @linnealungstrom.bsky.social get posted, her first in a series on their incredibly cool biology. 🐟🦑🧪🌎🌿

Phylogenetic relationships and the evolution of fin and body shape in the surgeonfishes Patterns of evolutionary change in the fin and body shapes of fishes are strongly related to dietary ecology and locomotor mechanisms, and associations between shapes affects ecomorphological relation...

No better reason to join Bluesky then to say the first chapter of my PhD is out as a preprint! New surgeonfish phylogeny, ecomorphological relationships, evolutionary shape correlations-with NEW method to accurately account for phylogenetic covariation among shapes!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Headline photo of Chicago skyline with note about award for being the best big city.

Seems worth noting this award in light of the present circumstances. Get the troops out of our fair city please, perhaps after they enjoy a great Malnati’s pizza!

‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry The announcement comes months later than usual, leaving many would-be applicants stranded

Science news article about 2nd year grad students being unceremoniously dropped from the GRFP eligibility with no explanation or warning:
www.science.org/content/arti...

Join us! We are hiring a new #curator at the #AMNH in #Vertebrate #Zoology careers.amnh.org/postings/4600 #academicjobs #tenuretrack

Drone observations reveal white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) dorsal fins are highly flexible and possible investigatory structures Drones are becoming increasingly useful in their ability to observe wildlife. They have been especially useful in documenting marine animals such as sharks. Here we present novel aerial drone observa....

Drone observations reveal white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) dorsal fins are highly flexible and possible investigatory structures

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🧪🌎🦑🦈🐠

Two new species of Micropterus (Centrarchidae) endemic to Atlantic Slope river drainages in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, U.S.A. | Zootaxa

Aren't they lovely? Congratulations to my great colleague Bud Freeman, this is the culmination of over a decade of work!

www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Harvard wins an important case

It’s a start, congrats to our Harvard colleagues!

www.cnn.com/2025/09/03/p...

I'm aware that the President likes to go on television and beg me to call him to ask for troops.

I find it strange, as Chicago doesn't want troops.

I also have experience asking him for assistance – just to have the rug pulled up from underneath me when execution meets reality.

Phylogeny of Aneides and Plethodon with animal photos

Phylomorphospace showing body shape variation

Morphospace of toe bones and box lots showing estimated gripping force

Representative SEM images of salamander feet

Excited to share the first paper from my PhD!

We looked at what traits help Aneides salamanders excel at climbing using museum specimens, CT scans, SEM, and more! No claws or toe pads, so how do they do it? In short, with long limbs, big feet and grippy toes! 🦎🧪

DM for PDF

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Philippines Declares New MPA in Biodiversity-Rich Siquijor Waters New York, NY, August 13, 2025—In a historic milestone nearly 18 years in the making, the Philippines has officially designated Bitaug Marine Protected Area (MPA), now the largest MPA in Siquijor and c...

#OceanOptimism newsroom.wcs.org/News-Release...

Great, thanks for using it!

Red and white fish muscle with bright white tendons

Ever wonder how the axial locomotor system is arranged into segmented myomeres of red and white muscle in a large pelagic surgeonfish? Well, now you know! 🐟🧪🦑

3D Muscle Architecture of the Tongue of the White-bellied Pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) Reveals a Muscular Hydrostat Synopsis. The tongues of pangolins are among the more derived of other mammalian ant-eating specialists, extending nearly a body length to capture food. Pa

I’m proud to announce my first first-author paper of my Ph.D! We described and modeled the muscle architecture of a pangolin’s tongue using DiceCT and 3D modeling approaches. Each model is available on the Holliday lab Sketchfab.

academic.oup.com/icb/advance-...

sketchfab.com/holliday/col...

A bignose unicornfish, dark fish with yellowish fin edges, vertical bars on the body, and double scalpel blades at the base of the tail.

Naso! Great genus of surgeonfishes, sporting the vicious cutting scalpel blades at the base of their tail. Here is a better color photo of that bignose where you can see the tail blades.
🐟🦑🧪🌎

Bignose Unicornfish! Yep, Naso vlamingii, a very nice specimen for our research, collected with permit. They have 2 wicked sharp scalpel blades on each side of their tail base, but are they venomous? We will know soon!
🐟🦑🌿🧪🌎

The lined surgeonfish, with beautiful blue and yellow lines on the body and orange pelvic fins

The regal angelfish, with stunning blue, orange and white bars and a bright yellow tail

Acanthuriform fishes! Research goals on Moorea are focused on morphology and evolution of defensive spines and backbones of surgeonfishes, angelfishes, and butterflyfishes. We have a scientific permit to collect specimens, and here are 2 beauties, Acanthurus lineatus and Pygoplites diacanthus. 🐟🦑🧪

Early morning fish market, stringers of fish between grad students Linnea and Olivia.

Local Moorea fish markets are interesting, with stringers hung (and often taxonomically sorted!) on the side of the road. Gotta get there early- these were mostly gone by about 5:30 am. Some good specimens for Linnea and Olivia’s research! 🐟🧪🦑🌎

Dark bird with a red butt on a green fence

The Red-Vented Bulbul stopped by my cottage on Moorea. You can just see his red ass! 🧪🌿🐦‍⬛

Not sure, some parts look simple, other faces fairly technical

Shark’s Tooth Peak, the dramatic volcanic backdrop to our research on marine fishes here at the CRIOBE marine lab. 🧪🐟🦑

Doing some work at the CRIOBE marine lab on Moorea with some students. This place is fantastic, the staff are so great, efficient and helpful, and the access to the water is easy and fun. A few posts from Opunohu Bay to come!

Congratulations Armita! I look forward to your great #biomechanics research and teaching, you will have so many students 😃.

Super cool scan, interrupted his meal 😆