Tessera

@mrsroygbiv.bsky.social

Jess Popescu @jesspopescu.bsky.social · 5mo ago

CHAMPION⛵ #2026MMM EMOJI BATTLE: 🐋🆚🐊: 🪄🪸/🌕🌊🆗/🐋🩹🗡️/ 🐊🤨🏊🏾‍♂️/🦈🔁🤱🏼🙂‍↔️/🦈🐊💀🙂‍↕️/ 🐋🤨👉🏼💀/🐊🙅🏾‍♂️🍽️🥶/👶🏼🔁🐊/ 👶🏼👉🏼👃🏼🐊/🐊💥👶🏼🐳/🐋👶🏼😡/ 🐋🔜🐊⤵️/🐋🫧🐊😵‍💫/🐋💥🐊/ 🐊🏊🏾‍♂️👋🏼/🏆🐋

Eduardo Amorim @cegamorim.bsky.social · 5mo ago

There are many ways to get animal DNA! In a preprint (not yet peer-reviewed), scientists have shown that instead of invasive biopsies, they can generate whole genomes for humpback whales by non-invasively sampling their exhaled respiratory vapor or ‘blow’! #2026MMM doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.08.710374

(A) Geographic locations of non-invasive blow sampling (green dots) and invasive biopsy sampling for blow sampling validation (yellow dots) of humpback whales in Canada. (B) Image from a drone sent for blow sampling of a humpback whale. Scarring on the back of the whale was used for checking individual identification. (C) The drone used for blow sampling of humpback whales with custom attachments for holding a sterile petri dish for sampling. (D) An example of a blow sample from a humpback whale after collection by a drone but before processing by scientists.

Eduardo Amorim @cegamorim.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Sales‑Oliveira et al. (2023) found that croc chromosomes are conservative maintaining similar karyotype structures & diploid chrom numbers for ~100 MY! Most Crocodylinae (including Nile Crocodile) maintain the ancestral number of 2n = 32 (16 pairs) #2026MMM doi.org/10.1007/s004...

A Representative ideograms of three main karyotypes (2n = 30/32/38) observed among the true crocodile species analyzed in the present study showing Zoo-FISH results after using CSI-1, OST-1, OST-4, and OST-19 probes, and the 18S rDNA distribution. Arrows indicate the 4 main chromosomal rearrangements involved in karyotype differentiation from a putative ancestral 2n = 32. B Ancestral state reconstruction of diploid chromosome number using maximum parsimony. The phylogenetic relationships were adapted from Oaks (2011) and Colston et al. (2020), C. halli was added manually, & its position requires confirmation. Karyological data were collected from Cohen & Gans (1970), Kawagoshi et al. (2008), Hekkala et al. (2011), Srikulnath et al. (2015), Oliveira et al. (2021), Olmo and Signorino (2022), and this study (in bold). The colored circles represent different 2n, while the black diamonds indicate the species with unknown 2n. Ambiguous data (marked with an asterisk) are addressed in the “Discussion” section of the paper.

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The Championship Battle of #2026MMM: Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) vs. Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)! #2026MMM

Mama Humpback with baby swimming above her A WHOLE NEW WORLD!!!

Crocodile on a rock looking like he is riding a magic carpet and /or Hippo- A WHOLE NEW WORLD!

@mrsroygbiv.bsky.social · 5mo ago

So excited for tonight! The entire Roy family has the croc as the #2026MMM champ 🤞

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Katie Hinde@mammalssuck.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Are you ready? #2026MMM

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Are you ready? #2026MMM

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Jess Popescu @jesspopescu.bsky.social · 6mo ago

#2026MMM FINAL R😮AR EMOJI BATTLE 🐊🆚🦡: 🪄🌳/🦡👃🏼🦎/🦡🧗🏾‍♂️🌳/ 🐊🐊🍽️💀/🐊😑🔊🐊/🦡🦷🦎/ 🦡🦎⤵️💀/🐊👄🐊/🐊 💀💥🦡/ 🇦🇺🐊🤷🏻👋🏻/🦡🍽️🐛/🐊🍽️💀/🏆🐊 🐋🆚🐂: 🪄🇺🇸/🐋🤏🌊/👶🏼🚫🍼/ 🐋🤰🏼🔴😩/🐂🏊🏾‍♂️📐🐋/🐋🔄🐂/ 🐂🗡️🐋🩻/🐋⬇️🐂/🛘🕳️🔜🌅/ 🐋👶🏼🐂🏊🏼‍♀️/🐂🏊🏾‍♂️🏖️/🐋🍼👶🏼/🏆🐋

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

NILE CROCODILE with take on HUMPBACK WHALE in the #2026MMM CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE on WEDNESDAY!!!! Until then, be well! Good night, & good luck!

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Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Is the auroch DNA truly gone from the world? Pereira et al found that modern Anatolian, Levant, Irani, and Balkans cattle share DNA to various degrees with extinct Armenian, British, and Moroccan ancient aurochs. A small amount of auroch DNA still lives today doi.org/10.1126/scie... #2026MMM #RIP

The test for genetic admixture D(gaur, aurochs; ancient group1, ancient group2) reveals asymmetric affinities of aurochs genomes with pre-4000-yr-B.P. cattle populations. Levantine cattle show reduced genetic sharing relative to other populations with the Armenian (Gyu2) and British (CPC98) aurochs but more with the Moroccan aurochs (Th7). Balkan cattle show asymmetric affinities with the British aurochs.

Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The extinct auroch had at least three subspecies, and all three contributed some ancestry to modern cattle. For example, Cai et al found East Asian cattle descend from West Eurasian cattle originally but then later admixture with the extinct East Asian auroch doi.org/10.1038/hdy.... #2026MMM

The best fit of genetic data to a population graph of Eurasian aurochs and Sahiwal, obtained from qpGraph, involves a gene flow from Near Eastern aurochs into Holocene East Asian aurochs.

Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Every year, humpback whales make long treks btwn where they breed & where they feed. Maternally-inherited mtDNA from >1,800 humpback whales suggest that animals annually return to where they were born to breed themselves & where they fed w/their moms early in life #2026MMM doi.org/10.3354/meps10508

(a) Geographic locations of humpback whale genetic sampling in the North Pacific. (b) Geographic locations and mtDNA haplotype frequencies for humpback whales across 8 breeding regions and 10 feeding regions. 28 mtDNA haplotypes were identified for humpback whales in the North Pacific. Colors correspond to the 3 haplogroup designations from previous studies where A-types are colored maroon (A+) and yellow (A-), E-types are colored green, and F-types are colored blue.

Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A chromosome-scale genome for the honey badger doesn't yet exist. Only available genome is in 2,068,312 pieces. Honey badger don't care. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/datasets/gen... #2026MMM #RIP

Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Although honey badgers have a dominant male, genetic analysis revealed that subordinate males fathered about half of cubs. journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.1... #2026MMM

35 mm slide; color. African lion cub with Honey Badger. Garst, Warren, 1922-2016, photographer

Elinor Karlsson @elinork.bsky.social · 6mo ago

How related are Nile crocodiles across Southern Africa? Van Asch et al. (2019) used STRs & mtDNA to examine phylogeography & genetic diversity. Primary differentiation across east/west & secondarily across major river systems #2026MMM doi.org/10.1371/jour...

STRUCTURE bar plot showing the distribution of Nile crocodile populations. The most likely number of population clusters, K = 2 (based on ΔK, representing the upper hierarchical level) and K = 5 (based on all other estimates, giving a more “localised” regional evaluation of population structure). [OR-BNP-Nam: Okavango River system—Bwabwata National Park–Namibia, OR-OD-Bot: Okavango River system—Okavango Delta—Botswana, OR-OCR-Nam—Okavango Crocodile Ranch—Okavango River—Namibia, LK-Nam–Lower Kunene River—Namibia, LS-N-Mal–Lower Shire River (North)—Malawi, LS-S-Mal–Lower Shire River (South)—Malawi, Limpo-SAf–Limpopo River—South Africa, KZN-SAf–KwaZulu-Natal—South Africa].

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

TONIGHT IS THE CLASH OF THE DIVISION CHAMPIONS! #2026MMM

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Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

WOW!!! WHAT A NIGHT!!!! Your #2026MMM FINAL ROAR: HONEY BADGER #MightyMustelid AUROCHS HUMPBACK WHALE NILE CROCODILE!!!! See you MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!!! Until then, be well! Good Night & Good Luck!

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Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Severe declines of lion populations have been documented over the last century. Curry et al. (2020) used microsatellites & mtDNA to show a significant diversity ⬇️ in the nuclear genome & more structure (less gene flow) in modern compared to historic lion pops. doi.org/10.1093/molb... #2026MMM #RIP

Admixture plot showing different tiers of lion structure across continent. Each line represents an individual, and each color represents the ancestry likelihood of that individual. Dfiferent rows show results when data is clustered into different numbers of groups.

Jess Popescu @jesspopescu.bsky.social · 6mo ago

#2026MMM ELITE TR8️⃣ EMOJI BATTLE 🦡🆚📿: 🪄🌳/🦡🙄🌳/🦡💥📿/ 📿🙂‍↔️🔊/📿🫦🦡/🦡🤷🏻‍♂️🍽️📿/🏆🦡 🐮🆚🐂: 🚣🏼🏹🐮/🪄🏜️/🐮🐂🥵/ 🏹🫀🩸/🐂➡️👥🐮/🐮☁️👀/🏆🐂 🐋🆚🦛: 🪄🪸/🦛🏊🏾🪨/🐟✂️🦛/ 🐋🔊👶🏻/🦈🔜🦛🩸/🦈🍽️🦛/🏆🐋 🐊🆚🦁: 🪄🇺🇬/🦁🦁🏊‍♂️/🐊👂🦁/ 🦁😱↩️/🐊🍽️🦵🏻🧫/🦁🦁👋🏻/🏆🐊

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Genomic work from de Manuel et al. revealed deep divergence (~70,000 years) between northern (including Asia, west, & north Africa) and southern (including south, east, & central Africa) lion lineages. Post split, these lineages have experienced gene flow. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... #2026MMM

Sample map (A) and phylogeny (B) of lion lineages. Phylogeny distinguish sourthern and northern lineages with the cave lion as a distant outgroup. Tree is rooted on the leopard (Panthera pardus). Values correspond to bootstraps.

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Fernino et al. (2013) studied DNA from trypanosomes affecting S. Am & African crocodilids (including Nile Croc). Results = SA & Afr croc trypanosomes show relationships consistent w/ 4-5 MY croc dispersal across Atlantic & then host switch to infect alligatorids! doi.org/10.1186/1756... #2026MMM

Phylogeographical analysis of South American alligatorid and African crocodilid trypanosomes: Phylogenetic relationships and geographical origin of trypanosomes from South American alligatorids, African crocodilids, and tsetse flies. ML phylogeny based on gGAPDH sequences (810 characters, –Ln = −10359.469307) from the trypanosomes nested into the Crocodilian clade (GenBank accession numbers are on Table 1), and trypanosomes from other hosts (GenBank accession numbers are within parenthesis on the tree). Numbers at nodes are bootstrap support >50% (P/ML) or Bayesian posterior probability > 0.25, derived from 500 replicates.

@mrsroygbiv.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Student had a lot of questions about what role the mold will play in this battle #2026MMM

Katie Hinde@mammalssuck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

FINAL BATTLE OF THE NIGHT: 1-seed Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) vs. 2-seed Lions (Panthera Leo) #2026MMM

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

FINAL BATTLE OF THE NIGHT: 1-seed Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) vs. 2-seed Lions (Panthera Leo) #2026MMM

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Hippo DNA shows that they expanded across Africa in the Pleistocene when overflooding created a large network of lake and river systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Lack of geographical clustering in the haplotype network = recent population expansion. #2026MMM #RIP doi.org/10.1038/sj.h...

A statistical parsimony network showing relationships between hippopotamus mtDNA haplotypes from eastern and southern Africa. Haplotypes are represented as circles and squares for ancestral ones. The minimum number of steps connecting parsimoniously two haplotypes is indicated as a thick-black square, and a filled-small circle represents an extinct or missing haplotype that might have not been sampled. The size of the square or circle and pattern assigned correspond to the haplotype frequency and population, respectively, and numbers in haplotypes correspond to the number of individual sharing the haplotypes.

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The enamelin (ENAM) gene is associated with tooth development in vertebrates. H. gigas harbors inactivating mutations in this gene, similar to birds, turtles, pangolins, & baleen whales, and analyses show signals of positive selection in the stem dugongid lineage. #2026MMM doi.org/10.1016/j.ym...

Time-calibrated phylogenetic tree of mammals highlighting the Sirenia (blue shaded box), including the extinct Steller’s Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), dugong (Dugong), and manatees (Trichechus). Divergence times (in millions of years) are shown at key nodes with red circles marking calibrated points. Sirenians cluster with elephants (Loxodonta, Elephas) and hyraxes (Procavia, Heterohyrax) within Afrotheria. Within Sirenia, Hydrodamalis and Dugong form a close lineage (dugongids), separate from manatees. This evolutionary context helps interpret genetic changes such as the loss of enamel-related genes (like ENAM) in the Steller’s Sea Cow and their evolution within Afrotheria.

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The extinct auroch was domesticated into modern cattle, but some modern cattle breeds are more genetically similar to the auroch. Park et all found modern British and Irish cattle are more similar to a 6,750-year-old British auroch than the other Eurasian breeds doi.org/10.1186/s130... #2026MMM

Geographic contour map of the genetic relation of the extinct aurochs genome admixture with European cattle breeds. Irish and English breeds are more admixed with the ancient auroch individual than any other breed in Europe.

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The extinction of Steller’s sea cow may be more complex than we thought. Ancient DNA reveals Steller’s Sea Cows were already in long-term decline before humans reached the Bering Sea, suggesting fur traders didn’t *start* the extinction, they just finished it. #RIP #2026MMM doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Figure with four panels illustrating the genomics and history of the extinct Steller’s sea cow. (A) Artistic reconstruction of 18th-century sailors from Vitus Bering’s 1741 expedition butchering sea cows on a shoreline. (B) Map of the Bering Sea region showing the species’ former Late Pleistocene range (yellow), archaeological sites with sea cow remains (red circles), and locations of the last known populations (blue circles). (C) Photograph of a pars petrosa of the petrous bone, used for ancient DNA extraction. (D) Graph of effective population size through time for Steller’s sea cow compared to dugong, woolly mammoth, and Lena horse, showing long-term population decline in the sea cow prior to the more recent extinction. Source: Sharko et al. (2021) Nature Communications.

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Humpback whale 🧬 harbors clues about it's past. 🧬 patterns suggest that like its whale relatives, humpback whales had ⬆️ effective population sizes a few million yrs ago relative to today. It’s #️⃣s were approx stable 1 million➡️ ~30,000 yrs ago and then ⬇️ by 2/3 #2026MMM doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap987

Reconstruction of historical effective population size (Ne) for all baleen whale genomes analyzed (humpback whale is colored in pink). Generation times (g) for each species are listed next to each species’ name. Light brown shading corresponds to interglacial periods (IG) in the Pleistocene and Holocene and gray shading corresponds to the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT) and the Plio-Pleistocene transition (PPT).

Anne Stone @acstone.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Cetaceans & hippos are close relatives & some genes contribute to their aquatic adaptations. Cetaceans have 461 genes under pos selection while hippos have 64. The genes that evolved after the 2 groups split are involved in lipid metabolism, brain & muscle function. #2026MMM doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Protein–protein interaction networks for 105 protein-coding gene products tested in both cetaceans and the hippo that were found to be under positive selection in cetaceans. Inset: protein–protein interaction networks for 20 protein-coding genes found to be under positive selection in the hippo. Nodes are labelled with the standard protein names, and the thickness of each connection represents the strength of support. (a) Highlights proteins involved in the circulatory system (red) and (b) highlights proteins involved in muscle (yellow) the nervous system (blue) or both (yellow with blue).

@mrsroygbiv.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Okay please let the hippo win 🙏🏻 #2026MMM

Lara Durgavich@ldurgavich.bsky.social · 6mo ago

NEXT UP: 1-seed Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) vs. 3-seed Common Hippo (Hippopotamus amphibius) #2026MMM

A mother humpback whale and her calf swim just below the water's surface.

Brian Tanis @tanisbp.bsky.social · 6mo ago

NEXT UP: 1st-seeded Steller's Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) vs. 3rd-seeded Aurochs (Bos primigenius) #CowVsCow #2026MMM #ExtinctionIsForever #EliteTrait

Picture of an articulated Steller’s Sea Cow skeleton on display at the National Museum of Natural History. The photo is taken from slightly below and off to the side so you can see the length of the vertebral column and the many robust ribs along its trunk. Watermark reads: Family-Dugongidae, Hydrodamalis gigas, D.G. Huckaby, American Society of Mammalogists – Mammal Images Library

Woodcut print of an Aurochs made by David Kandel from Sebastian Münster's La Cosmographie printed in 1550. The illustration is of a very thick-bodied aurochs with short but stocky legs. The head holds massive wavy horns twice the length of the snout. A long hairy beard dangles from the animals chin. A powerful thick neck with extra folds of flesh supports the head. The woodcut shows a town and mountains in the background.