Dr. Karly E. Cohen
@karlycohen.bsky.social
Postdoc and lecturer at University of Washington Friday Harbors Labs looking at the tools organisms use to interact with the world |She/Her https://www.karlye-cohen.com
The Pacific spiny lumpsucker, an inefficient swimmer but a highly efficient suction cup. The pelvic fins have evolved into a strong suction disk on the belly, giving it the ability to anchor itself to substrates. Plate-like structures called "tubercles" provide defense against predators.
Bonus content 🐡: jaimigray.github.io/lumpsucker-v... play with the model using an online 3D viewer I built. Special thanks to my bud @karlycohen.bsky.social for catching this little lady straight out of Friday Harbor 🩵
Priority deadline (Feb 16) for this years Fish Class at Friday Harbor is coming up quick! Get your applications in for what will be an amazing summer filled with great science, people, and tools! Financial aid is available!! @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social @karlycohen.bsky.social
Summer fish class at Friday Harbor Labs 🐟 5 weeks, field + lab, real projects. Open to grads, postdocs, and undergrads. Financial aid available. Apply: February 16, 2026 Reach out to @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social or @karlycohen.bsky.social with questions! Details in the flyer ⬇️
There are a few courses that shaped the trajectory of my career. This is one of them. Take it if you can!
Dr. Karly E. Cohen@karlycohen.bsky.social · 7mo agoSummer fish class at Friday Harbor Labs 🐟 5 weeks, field + lab, real projects. Open to grads, postdocs, and undergrads. Financial aid available. Apply: February 16, 2026 Reach out to @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social or @karlycohen.bsky.social with questions! Details in the flyer ⬇️
Fun opportunity for early career individuals at Friday Harbor Labs. Everyone I know who has taken or been involved in this course has a great time. Highly recommend.
Dr. Karly E. Cohen@karlycohen.bsky.social · 7mo agoSummer fish class at Friday Harbor Labs 🐟 5 weeks, field + lab, real projects. Open to grads, postdocs, and undergrads. Financial aid available. Apply: February 16, 2026 Reach out to @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social or @karlycohen.bsky.social with questions! Details in the flyer ⬇️
Early students must take this!!
Dr. Karly E. Cohen@karlycohen.bsky.social · 7mo agoSummer fish class at Friday Harbor Labs 🐟 5 weeks, field + lab, real projects. Open to grads, postdocs, and undergrads. Financial aid available. Apply: February 16, 2026 Reach out to @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social or @karlycohen.bsky.social with questions! Details in the flyer ⬇️
Summer fish class at Friday Harbor Labs 🐟 5 weeks, field + lab, real projects. Open to grads, postdocs, and undergrads. Financial aid available. Apply: February 16, 2026 Reach out to @cmdonatelli.bsky.social @fishguy.bsky.social or @karlycohen.bsky.social with questions! Details in the flyer ⬇️
Have you read ICB's issue 6 yet? with Applied #ecoimmunology in #wildlife health and #conservation & authors @schulzscience.bsky.social @karlycohen.bsky.social Cohen @thomsanger.bsky.social Sanger @cmdonatelli.bsky.social Donatelli Stacy Farina and more! academic.oup.com/icb/issue/65/6
Check out this really fun interview I got to work on with Mitch Borden on one of my favorite fish, the spiny lumpsucker! www.knkx.org/science/2025...
Toothy armor, suction cups: Pacific spiny lumpsuckers persevere in Puget Sound
The small, clumsy fish isn’t the strongest or fastest creature living in Puget Sound. But it has developed other tools to survive in rough waters.
knkx.org
Check out this really fun interview I got to work on with Mitch Borden on one of my favorite fish, the spiny lumpsucker! www.knkx.org/science/2025...
Toothy armor, suction cups: Pacific spiny lumpsuckers persevere in Puget Sound
The small, clumsy fish isn’t the strongest or fastest creature living in Puget Sound. But it has developed other tools to survive in rough waters.
knkx.org
NSF GRFP solicitation is finally up. Life Sci deadline extended to Nov 10 but 2nd year grad students no longer eligible www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
nsf.gov
Behold the Gloriously Weird Spotted Ratfish. It Has Teeth on Its Forehead for Sex
Behold the Gloriously Weird Spotted Ratfish. It Has Teeth on Its Forehead for Sex
Researchers have finally traced the origin of the spotted ratfish’s bizarre forehead teeth, which are used for mating
scientificamerican.com
New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish have rows of teeth on top of their heads, in addition to those in their jaws. They use these teeth to grip females while mating. @karlycohen.bsky.social More: www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
New species alert! A Pascua goby from the Coral Sea. This genus now contains four species. Two from the Eastern Pacific and two from Australia, with more than 5,500km separating them. Lots of fun describing my second new species. #TeamFish #Fish doi.org/10.3390/fish...
Behold the gloriously weird Spotted Ratfish. It has teeth on its forehead for sex. The teeth line a cartilaginous appendage called a tenaculum that in males can be erected and used to grasp a female during mating 🧪
Dr. Karly E. Cohen@karlycohen.bsky.social · 11mo agoNew paper is officially out! Ratfish have a second jaw on their foreheads - CT + histology show they’re real teeth, built from the same tissues and signals as oral teeth. www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
Super excited to share our new paper, out today @pnas.org 'Teeth outside the jaw: Evolution and development of the toothed head clasper in chimaeras' @karlycohen.bsky.social 👻🦈 🦷 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Teeth outside the jaw: Evolution and development of the toothed head clasper in chimaeras | PNAS
Chimaeras (Holocephali) are an understudied group of mostly deep-ocean cartilaginous fishes (Chondrichthyes) with unique characteristics that disti...
pnas.org
Coolest fish is a ratfish and they have teeth on the head for mating. @karlycohen.bsky.social's most recent with a great Ray Troll piece of art. 🧪🐡 www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
Article link here! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Teeth outside the jaw: Evolution and development of the toothed head clasper in chimaeras | PNAS
Chimaeras (Holocephali) are an understudied group of mostly deep-ocean cartilaginous fishes (Chondrichthyes) with unique characteristics that disti...
pnas.org
Dr. Karly E. Cohen@karlycohen.bsky.social · 11mo agoNew paper is officially out! Ratfish have a second jaw on their foreheads - CT + histology show they’re real teeth, built from the same tissues and signals as oral teeth. www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
New paper is officially out! Ratfish have a second jaw on their foreheads - CT + histology show they’re real teeth, built from the same tissues and signals as oral teeth. www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
This common fish has an uncommon feature: forehead teeth, used for mating
New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish, a shark-like species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, have rows of teeth on top of their heads,...
washington.edu
The incredible @shirel.bsky.social fills the room tonight for the FHL teaching us about how manta rays feed
Of course there would be no paper w/o my co-authors @fishyologist.bsky.social, Allyson Evans, Thaddaeus Buser, @calliehcrawford.bsky.social, @emilykane.bsky.social, and Matt Kolmann. HUGE thanks to NSF for funding, @fishguy.bsky.social for the FHL fish class, & Scripps and OSU for their fish.
One reason I love this project is because of how many different tools and techniques we used. Field collections, high-speed feeding videos, CT scans of the jaw bones and muscles, scanning electron micrographs of the teeth, and lip histology....truly a tour de force of fun science.
New fish paper! We found that Clinocottus globicpes eats anemones (weird!) using a novel wrestling behavior + strong jaws that likely started as adaptations for tearing algae. It also has thick skin that protects it from stinging cells. @jzoology.bsky.social 🐟🧪 DM for PDF. doi.org/10.1111/jzo....
How could I forget to tag @karlycohen.bsky.social!!!
Hey look! Glowing fishes evolved over and over again. Lots of color of glow. @emilycarr.bsky.social led a team that included 5 FHL folks @jmhuie.bsky.social @lampichthys.bsky.social and @karlycohen.bsky.social. The oldest glowy fish is an eel at 100MYA. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes - Nature Communications
Biofluorescence is widespread in fishes. Here, the authors compile data on biofluorescence presence across teleost fishes and demonstrate that it may have originally evolved in eels 112 million years ...
nature.com
So excited to see this paper out! @jmhuie.bsky.social and I began looking at glowing fishes during the pandemic. @emilycarr.bsky.social turned it into amazing science! A great story about the evolution of glow www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes - Nature Communications
Biofluorescence is widespread in fishes. Here, the authors compile data on biofluorescence presence across teleost fishes and demonstrate that it may have originally evolved in eels 112 million years ...
nature.com
Jack Rosen's paper on biting fruits and seeds is out in @royalsocietypublishing.org Interface. 3D models of pacu and piranha jaws cutting different prey. Pacus are 'better' at fruit. Maybe eating seeds drove the evolution of frugivory from piscivory. 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
