Julia Sigwart

[New Paper] reporting 8 distinct mollusc eggs from abyssal and hadal depths of Aleutian Trench is now out in Progress in Oceanography! With a potential Dumbo Octopus egg + at least 5 snail eggs!
OPEN ACCESS: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With @sigwartae.bsky.social @oceanspecies.bsky.social

🚨🔬 Job alert! 🔬🚨

3 vacancies for technical assistants in marine invertebrates at Senckenberg (Frankfurt). Digitisation, collections care, and new species! Deadline 15 July
www.senckenberg.de/en/career/jo...

Giving different chatbots the prompt "draw a chiton wrapped around a ball" - ChatGPT is like a lazy student. Other chatbots are out of their depth and kind of panicking with the assignment.

Vote for the 2025 International Mollusc of the Year! Choose from five amazing finalists. Your vote helps sequence the winning genome. Cast your vote by March 31: https://moty.senckenberg.science

Really sad to report that our friend and colleague Richard Fortey passed away this morning after a short battle with cancer. We’ll all miss his wit and wisdom. Here he is checking out a dino footprint we found while filming together on the Isle of Wight

“I think [bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world." - Susan B. Anthony

On yer bike for International Women's Day!
💜🚲💜🚲💜
Video in German but English subtitles (full documentary)

Chiton fashion = win

limpet pin available on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/listing/1700688457/opihi-cute-enamel-pin-hawaiian-blackfoot

Limpets are the BEST gastropods. This is not an opinion, it is evolution. Limpets evolved more than 50 times: they are important. People in Hawaii already know this.

You can daydream about seeing them here
www.waikikiaquarium.org/experience/a...

and vote for it here
moty.senckenberg.science

The Dorado Octopus is a newly discovered deep sea octopus from Costa Rica that doesn't have a scientific name yet! You can read about the discovery here
schmidtocean.org/scientists-d...

and vote for it here
moty.senckenberg.science

Glaucus atlanticus is like a living Pokemon.

It is NOT in the deep sea, Glaucus lives on the surface, but it still got the cover of this ridiculous book of "deep sea girls". Which was published here
www.php.co.jp/books/detail...

and you can vote for it here
moty.senckenberg.science

Arctica islandica is one of the oldest (non-colonial) animals, they easily live more than 500 years, and still look amazing. It got a write up in "Mollusc World" (this is a real magazine) that you can read here
conchsoc.org/MolluscWorld...

and vote for it here
moty.senckenberg.science

Xenophora conchyliophora (not the auto-correct "xenophobia" - boo!) is an ace decorator. I have never seen one alive. In their natural habitat they are INVISIBLE.

You can play with a 3D model of a similar species here
sketchfab.com/3d-models/xe...

and vote for it here
moty.senckenberg.science

We all need something to cheer us up ... so let's meet some molluscs!

moty.senckenberg.science
@cgreve.bsky.social @oceanspecies.bsky.social @sgn.one

This is an insult to molluscs (and they will outlive us all, so be careful!)

VOTE NOW! Mollusc of the Year 2025

Arctica islandica - world’s oldest mollusc
Cellana exarata - Hawaiian limpet
Glaucus atlanticus - blue dragon
Muusoctopus sp. - Dorado Octopus
Xenophora conchyliophora - shell / collector

YOU decide - we do its genome
moty.senckenberg.science
@cgreve.bsky.social

@oceanspecies @sgn.one

New open access paper with Kasia Voncina, who designed new primers to successfully get COI barcodes from old chitons in museum collections

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Evolutionary history of molluscs was contentious for decades due to conflicting genetic data vs morphology and fossils. Our tree resolves previous controversies; also provide key insights on what the ancestral mollusc looked like!

@oceanspecies.bsky.social @sgn.one @sigwartae.bsky.social

Here is the mollusc tree. (We fixed it, you're welcome.) 😇 @sgn.one @oceanspecies.bsky.social @kmkocot.bsky.social
@squamiferum.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The multipleye and Sigwart labs at the Soleil synchrotron in Paris

Thanks to the teams at the Soleil Anatomix and DISCO beamlines for hosting us and @sigwartae.bsky.social @oceanspecies.bsky.social this week! We learned lots of new tricks and are looking forward to working through the data together soon! There are always fun new ways to look at old chitons 💛

We actually had a big group discussion about the grammatical construction of the species epithets, because we are serious taxonomists.

Meet our new fossils: Punk and Emo (their real names)
New Silurian aculiferans that look like nothing else; the anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, non-conformist molluscs
out now in Nature

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@sgn.one @oceanspecies.bsky.social @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

Deadline extended until 22 Jan!
Nominate your under-appreciated molluscs now 🐌🐌🐌

Inside out Monoplacophora: revisiting Neopilina galatheae Lemche, 1957 using µCT scanning Abstract. Neopilina galatheae Lemche, 1957, first collected in the 1950s, was presented as a critical species for understanding animal evolution, particula

Do you like monplacophorans? Of course you do. Want to see one on the inside in 3D? Well check this out

@oceanspecies.bsky.social @sgn.one
academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

A friend in a different city (same time zone) texted me at about 2 pm new year's eve -- and for a hot second I thought, "is it already night time there?"
Soon.
Happy new year!

Nominate your favourite mollusc for

International Mollusc of the Year 2025
🐌🦑🐚🦪🐙🌀

A public vote decides the winner from 5 finalists and we sequence its genome!

Just fill in this nomination form by 7 January
docs.google.com/forms/d/1MRn...

@cgreve.bsky.social @oceanspecies.bsky.social @sgn.one

Weird Species #5: Deep sea brains – Xenophyophores Weird Species · Episode

A festive gift for your ears!

Check out the new episode of my podcast "weird species" with Dr Lisa Levin ... aka Deep Sea Brain aka Xeno, Warrior Princess!

open.spotify.com/episode/6PDa...

@oceanspecies.bsky.social @deepstewardship.bsky.social @dsbsoc.bsky.social @sgn.one

Community scientists digitized over a quarter-million items and records at the Field Museum Volunteers and members of the “Collections Club” of the Field Museum provide a blueprint for how community scientists can help researchers around the world.

🤩 At the #Collections Club community #scientists initiative at the #FieldMuseum, volunteers have processed over 300,000 #scientific #specimens, records & objects to make valuable #data accessible to #researchers worldwide. 👏

More about the latest paper in our #journal via the @pensoft.net blog 👇

Nominate your favourite mollusc for

International Mollusc of the Year 2025
🐌🦑🐚🦪🐙🌀

A public vote decides the winner from 5 finalists and we sequence its genome!

Just fill in this nomination form by 7 January
docs.google.com/forms/d/1MRn...

@cgreve.bsky.social @oceanspecies.bsky.social @sgn.one