The world's most comprehensive db of biological collections is ours at NCBI. Which means it's yours, too, and it now has a new home and updated interface. Check the accuracy of your institution's metadata and write us if updates are needed! ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2026/08/11/b...

BioCollections: Connecting Sequence Data to Physical Specimens - NCBI Insights

NCBI’s BioCollections is a curated database of metadata for institutions that house specimens, cultures, and other biological materials. These institutions include museums, herbaria, stock centers, an...

ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Proving yet again that reality can be stranger than Sesame Street, here is Solenostomus snuffleupagus, a new species of hairy ghost pipefish from coral reef habitats in the southwestern Pacific, courtesy of Short & Harasti, sequences now in GenBank. www.doi.org/10.1111/jfb....

It’s all fun and games until the fish go away www.noaa.gov/news-release...

NOAA rescinds regulation prohibiting commercial fishing in Atlantic monument area

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service today rescinded a regulation that prohibited commercial fishing within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument boundaries. This action was...

noaa.gov

New mormyrid alert! Gnathonemus marqueti is described from the Lufira basin of D.R. Congo and G. brevicaudatus is revalidated in this new article by Mukweze Mulelenu et al. in Zool. J. Linn. Soc. doi.org/10.1093/zool...

Cool story about the waterfall-climbing abilities and adaptations of Parakneria thysi in D.R. Congo by Kiwele Mutambala et al. in Scientific Reports. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A great week for e-fish papers! In this one Poon & Crampton show that electric eels predators suppress their low-voltage electrolocation EODs when hunting weakly electric gymnotiform prey which in turn suppress theirs to hide from the eels. Cool stuff! doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

New e-fish paper: Lineage Diversity and Craniofacial Disparity of Navajini (Gymnotiformes, Apteronotidae) in Deep River Channels of Tropical South America from Allen, Fisher & Albert in Evolutionary Biology. doi.org/10.1007/s116...

Lineage Diversity and Craniofacial Disparity of Navajini (Gymnotiformes, Apteronotidae) in Deep River Channels of Tropical South America - Evolutionary Biology

The Navajini is a clade of Neotropical electric fishes specialized to inhabit deep river channels in the lowland Amazonian, with species that exhibit high craniofacial disparity and a highly conservat...

doi.org

Today at GenBank: sequences from a new snailfish (Cottoidei: Liparidae) Careproctus argosgeorgiae from the Falkland Plateau, southwestern Atlantic, courtesy of Villarroel-Perez & Chernova, published in Zootaxa. doi.org/10.11646/zoo...

Today at GenBank: sequences from Decodon erythroleukos, a new deepwater species of hypsigenyin wrasse (Teleostei: Labridae) from the western Pacific Ocean, courtesy of Kenai et al. in J. Fish Biology doi.org/10.1111/jfb....

Bryconaethiops mocquardianus (Thominot 1886) resurrected from synonymy with B. microstoma Günther 1873 in an interesting new paper on the biogeography of this genus of Alestidae (Characiformes) in Central Africa by Melo et al. in J. Biogeography doi.org/10.1111/jbi....

Wow, more 'myrids described in "Review of the southern African slender stonebashers, genus Heteromormyrus Steindachner 1866 (Teleostei: Mormyridae), with description of six new species" by Mutizwa, Kadye, Bragança & Chakona, open access in J Fish Biol. doi.org/10.1111/jfb....

On the teeth of the Spotted Ratfish www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...

This Deep-Sea Fish Has Teeth on Its Forehead—and It Uses Them for Sex

Researchers suggest the rows of pointed structures on the heads of spotted ratfish are true teeth, offering the first known example of teeth located outside the jaw

smithsonianmag.com

Who knew such cuteness was lurking in the eastern Pacific abyssal zone? This is the bumpy snailfish, Careproctus colliculi n. sp., described by Gerringer et al. in Ichs & Herps., sequences now in GenBank. doi.org/10.1643/i202...

Can speciation leave essentially no phylogenetic signal? A fascinating study of the Caribbean hamlet (Hypoplectrus: Serranidae) radiation by Helmkampf et al. in Science. www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Postdoc position (24 mos) in Bioinformatics for Integrative Taxonomy at MNHN, Paris. Develop software tools for taxonomy research. Apply by Sept 7: https://recrutement.mnhn.fr/front-jobs-detail.html?id_job=1294&id_origin=0 #postdoc

Chargé de recherche bioinformatique appliquée à la taxonomie intégrative (F/H) @ Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle

Muséum national d'Histoire naturellerecrute !

recrutement.mnhn.fr

Today at GenBank: sequences from the types of Synodus lautus sp. nov. from "A new species of Synodus from southern Japan, with a redescription of Synodus usitatus Cressey 1981 (Teleostei: Aulopiformes: Synodontidae)" from Furuhashi & Motomura in Ichthyol. Res. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Today at GenBank, sequences from the type series of new species Scorpaenopsis gigas (Scorpaenidae) from the Indo-West Pacific, courtesy of Matsumoto & Motomura, published in Ichthyological Research. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Today at GenBank: sequences from the holotype of Labeo niariensis sp. nov. from the Niari River of R. Congo, courtesy of Liyandja & Stiassny in J. Fish Biol. (open access) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Landscape Evolution Drives Continental Diversification in Neotropical Freshwater Fishes of the Family Erythrinidae (Teleostei, Characiformes) Conde-Saldaña et al. @gymnotus.bsky.social 2025 Journal of Biogeography doi.org/10.1111/jbi.... Shows connection between evolutionary history and geology.

Very proud of this paper led by @lsu.bsky.social students where we examine what ‘Unexplored’ means in a natural history context - we recommend ‘biodiversity blindspots’ instead for places that lack digitized public data Paper here peerj.com/articles/185... Video abstract youtu.be/QZ8wUrgJEao

What ‘unexplored’ means: Mapping regions with digitized natural history records

YouTube video by PeerJ

youtu.be

Turns out the Snail Darter, which halted a TVA dam’s construction in the first major test of the Endangered Species Act, was never a distinct species. All species descriptions are hypotheses open to testing.

Ben Keck@tnfishes.bsky.social · 2y ago

Snail Darter = Stargazing Darter! Here's our paper synonomizing the Snail Darter with the Stargazing Darter. Our work leading to our 2011 phylogeny of darters identified many undescribed species and some, like this, that might suggest synonomy is in order.

Hey mormyrophiles: Something just made me very happy and I want to share it with you. ChatGPT makes graphing single and multiple EOD waveform files produced by Mormyroscope and taking data from them super easy! Read about it here: mormyrids.efishgenomics.com/en/node/666

Fishes of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The Cruelty Is the Point open.substack.com/pub/yaschamo...

The Cruelty Is the Point

A blowup on Bluesky reveals what drives those who are most keen to say that they stand for the oppressed.

open.substack.com

Quoted in this @nytimes.com article about a revolutionary expedition to Peru and the discovery of some neat new species to science including a blob-headed armored catfish www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/s...

A Mouse That Swims and Dozens More Species Are Discovered in a Peruvian Jungle

A 38-day expedition in the remote Alto Mayo region, where development threatens wild habitats, turned up one previously unknown animal after another.

nytimes.com

Two postdocs available to study cryptobenthic fishes Simon Brandl's postdoc in Texas, with an emphasis in ecology static1.squarespace.com/.../Postdoc_... Luke Tornabene's postdoc in Washington, with an emphasis in systematics static1.squarespace.com/.../Pursuit+.... #ichthyology #TeamFish

Tagliacollo et al. mine GenBank for 51 markers for 5,984 taxa and produce a "Time-calibrated phylogeny of Neotropical freshwater fishes" in Frontiers in Bioinformatics. A testament to the value of the database I help maintain for biodiversity studies. frontiersin.org/journals/bio...

JRS Biodiversity Foundation funds great projects across Africa. Check out their 2024 highlights. jrsbiodiversity.org/reflections-... December 18, 2024 at 8:32 AM Everybody can reply

Reflections on JRS' Exciting Biodiversity Achievements of 2024 - JRS Biodiversity Foundation

It has been another amazingly busy and successful year for JRS! During 2024 I was privileged to engage with our outstanding grantees and personally monitor fieldwork progress through 21 site visits an...

jrsbiodiversity.org

Advertisements for the special issue in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese ... please encourage folks from the Global South to submit a manuscript to this special issue.

Pharyngeal jaws in fishes not a "key innovation" in this new comparative phylogenomics study. "The macroevolutionary dynamics of pharyngognathy in fishes fail to support the key innovation hypothesis" Borstein et al. 2024 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The macroevolutionary dynamics of pharyngognathy in fishes fail to support the key innovation hypothesis - Nature Communications

Key innovations are traits that trigger the rapid evolution of new species occupying novel niches. Fresh genetic evidence reveals that the modified throat jaws of some fishes, thought to be a textbook...

nature.com