With my upcoming departure from the University of Michigan, I've found myself deep in the job hunt process. Moving back to Canada from the U.S is certainly something I'm really looking forward too. If any 🇨🇦 labs (especially in Alberta) are searching for a µ-CT expert, please let me know!

New in @science.org ...since our first discoveries of early tetrapods, they have been thought of as "amphibians" characterized by aquatic larvae. But is this true? For the first time, we report exceptional fossils of stem tetrapod babies that upend this paradigm. 1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Direct development of stem tetrapods across the fin-to-limb transition

Modern amphibians are characterized by an aquatic larval stage that ends abruptly with a period of widespread tissue remodeling (metamorphosis) upon transition to terrestrial adulthood. A transient la...

science.org

Absolutely *amazing* microCT scan of a little croc skull chunk from the "Mesaverde" Formation of Park Co., Wyoming. (short thread) 🧪🐊🦴

After 7.5 years, I'm leaving my role as the UMMZ µ-CT lab manager at the end of July. This has been the most productive, and fulfilling period in my scientific career so far. I'm proud to say I've trained over 20 students, contributed to several publications, and generated over 12,000 µCT datasets.

I do my research for close to $0. Morphosource.org - free CT scans Meshlab - 3D object measurement Slicer - CT scan processing(segmentation) Morphology J- geometric morphometric analysis Zotero-citations Blender-3d object manipulation/coloring

New paper! How weird could Permian animals get? Turns out, pretty weird. Meet the stem tetrapod Tanyka amnicola from the Pedra de Fogo Formation of northeast Brazil royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data! 🧵👇 #FossilFriday #CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated

a close up of a dinosaur 's head with green eyes

Alt: a close up of a Spinosaurus head with green eyes from Jurassic Park

media.tenor.com

Emily Troyer@fishfetisher.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Someone should do a review to see what taxa descriptions most commonly get published in those top journals

Looks like it's that time of the year to pull this out again (with updated speen art) #FossilFriday #TemnospondylsDidItBetter

I'm glad my choices have lead me to a career in Natural History Collections and Museums in general. That's all, that's the post.

BEHOLD the GARgantuan Alligator Gar!!! This is the largest Alligator Gar I’ve encountered; at over 7 feet 10 inches (240 cm) and approximately 55 inches in girth, its weight is estimated at 300 pounds (136 kg)! A true river monster, among the largest caught, tagged and safely released! #GarWeek

Dr. Solomon David@solomonrdavid.bsky.social · 12mo ago

The BIGGEST Alligator Gar I’ve ever encountered!!! Truly GARgantuan, tagged and released!

Happy World Anatomy Day! 🦎 What better way to celebrate than announcing our veiled chameleon head atlas! This includes an awesome collection of 3D models - skull (with sutures!), jaw and tongue muscles, and the brain - plus lesson plans for your next anatomy practical! ✨️ Links below ✨️

Chameleon anatomy - A 3D model collection by The Leavey Lab (@aleavey)

The veiled chameleon is a model organism in reptile development research. Utilising contrast-enhanced microCT and deep learning segmentation models, we have generated the first digital atlases of the ...

tinyurl.com

New piece with @stuartsumida.bsky.social, Kristi Curry-Rogers, and Kenshu Shimada, and help from @magratnj.bsky.social : theconversation.com/fossils-are-...

Fossils are scientific evidence, and shouldn’t be auctioned for millions to private buyers

Dinosaur fossils are sold for millions to private collectors. These fossils are scientific evidence, and need to be accessible for research and public education.

theconversation.com

Feel like we need some ❤️ today so here are some close ups of the 🫀hearts🫀 from the Diffusion Diaries (read it here: doi.org/10.1093/iob/...) 1. 🦇 Schneider's leaf nosed bat 2. 🐟 bowfin 3. 🐸 midwife toad 4. 🦎 collared lizard

Here's a collage of specimens scanned and segmented at the UMMZ for the bluesky community to enjoy!

Looking for micro-CT data with existing DOI's? The UM Museum of Zoology has been building a publicly accessible repository of our scans on UM's Deep Blue Data. At the moment mammals & herps are being populated with data, but more is coming! deepblue.lib.umich.edu/data/collect...

Today my partner Miranda Cosman (not on bsky) found out that her NIH funded post-doc is being cut a year early. If you're looking for an absolutely amazing researcher to join your lab please let me know. Miranda works on skeletal phenotypic plasticity in response to exercise and diet (continued)...

If anyone is interested in leveraging the #ummz CT core lab for your research program, please check out our website for details!!!! lsa.umich.edu/ummz/ct-scan...

CT Scanning Core | U-M LSA Museum of Zoology

lsa.umich.edu

Cody Thompson@codythompson51.bsky.social · 2y ago

Last Friday our microCT lab scanned its 10,000th specimen! Not surprisingly, it was a wolverine. #GoBlue #BeatOhio #mammalogy #naturalhistory #collectionsareessential

If you need #zoological, #paleontological, or #archeological #micro-CT data, please let me know! In addition to hundreds of existing datasets, my lab offers scanning services. Check out our rates & send in a request here: lsa.umich.edu/ummz/ct-scan...

CT Scanning Core | U-M LSA Museum of Zoology

lsa.umich.edu

#Education resource! Over the years I created this collection of colored skull #3Dmodels for teaching. They're available to download on MorphoSource & to view on Sketchfab. Because of recent changes to Sketchfab, I migrated them to my website: www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/work/colorso... (1/3)

Since there’s finally been a proper migration of academia to bluesky, here’s a link to my most recent paper that’ll give you a sense of what I do. If you recently followed me and we were in touch on ‘twitter’ please say hi! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Differential performance of aqueous‐ and ethylic‐Lugol's iodine stain to visualize anatomy in μCT‐scanned vertebrates

We compared the performance of two common diceCT scan stains, ethylic-Lugol's iodine solution with aqueous-Lugol's, across several vertebrate orders to assess differential imaging outcomes. We found ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Glad to see a lot of new people joining!

After years of work the Open Vertebrate TCN project ended last year. We were able to generate thousands of freely available zoological micro-CT scans for the research community. Check out the oVert paper here: academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

There’s still a few months until salamanders start to emerge and march for vernal ponds, but here’s a false color Ambystoma maculatum CT render to get you through Friday. #herpetology #amphibians

While UofMichigan has some sports newsworthiness, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the UM Museum of Zoology houses world’s largest fluid preserved snake collection, including an especially great collection of Thamnophis. #GoBlue 🐍

🎉 HERE IT IS🎉 Once again, I compiled a list of all the new species described by museum scientists this year and the results are in: a staggering 815!! Most of this was the work of two people describing an incredible number of parasitic wasps 🐝 Find out more 👇🏻🧪 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Natural History Museum scientists described a record 815 new species in 2023

This year scientists at the Natural History Museum have been busy.

nhm.ac.uk

Went on a vacation to the Zoo.

Who has the largest museum collection of snakes in the world? @umichLSA ’s Museum of Zoology does! And YOU will get the chance to see that great collection at #SSAR2024 record.umich.edu/articles/mus...

Showing off the magic of micro-CT at the Sensorium Meeting at the Field Museum.

I’m several years late to the “learn to bake trend”, but here’s my entry: cinnamon raisin bread loaves.

As of a few weeks ago the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology became the worlds largest snake collection! We’re getting close to becoming the largest herpetological collection in the world too. Read all about it here: news.umich.edu/hiss-toric-f...