David Boyd and Maddie unpacking fish in cheesecloth

Undergrad Maddie With a wrasse that kept its blue coloration

A cooler full of fish specimens with labels

Specimens from my labs 2025 trip to Taiwan 🇹🇼 arrived. Always fun to begin the unpacking and now we can say the trip was a success. Batfish, wrasses, ponyfish and much more!

Also cool that my undergrad Maddie was there on the trip and is here to unpack the specimens she collected.

#ichthyology

Washington Post article on STEM cuts at federal agencies. NSF tops it at -42%!

“Between January 2025 and February 2026, STEM and health employees at science-focused agencies saw nearly 15,000 jobs cut. The rate outpaced cuts among other federal workers.”

OPM data - Figure from Wash Post article 19 April. (Where US science has been hit hardest.)

NSF at -42%!

HEY did you know that if you have ADHD you can get a free lifetime pass to our national parks?! Just need your psychiatrist to sign off on it. Holy mackerel how has no one told me this before.

And the original article in Ichthyology & Herpetology. Really nice work by @anoplogaster.bsky.social and Matt Davis

The Evolution of Lures in Anglerfishes (Acanthuriformes: Lophioidei): Investigating Nature's Tackle Box

bioone.org/journals/ich...

Circular seabat a flat fish from the front

How Female Anglerfish Evolved to Have It All www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/s...

Many thanks to the Phi Beta Kappa chapter of Elon University for hosting me and allowing me to speak at the PBK induction #evolution #scicomm

Biologists Confirm Not Much Evolution Happened Today STANFORD, CA—Calling it a “pretty slow one” as far as natural selection and genetic drift were concerned, biologists from Stanford University confirmed Tuesday that not much evolution happened today. ...

Biologists Confirm Not Much Evolution Happened Today

theonion.com/biologists-c...

Waiting for results is so scary. I hope for continued good news for you.

Deboleena on the left, me center, Tayari on the right holding a copy of my book

My book release day event at Charis Books was completely full and I was so lucky to have Deboleena Roy (left) as my conversation partner and among many friends in the audience, the incredible novelist Tayari Jones (right), whose new novel KIN you should RUN to the bookstore to grab.

Out in beautiful Muir Woods. I needed to hug a redwood and today I got to. Yay!

Geaux Blue! #GoBlue wearing my University of Michigan Museum of Natural History shirt in San Francisco! #michigan

Thanks! Starting to feel normalish again.

With Luiz Rocha curator of fishes at the CalAcad next to the infamous Tyson Roberts collection

My kids in the CAS fish collections

Luiz next to an exhibit of all the dive gear he needs to get to 500ft below the ocean surface

Stopped by briefly at @calacademy.bsky.social with my family where I got to see @coralreeffish.bsky.social and his awesome coral 🪸 reef fish exhibit and fish collections. Amazing to learn that some of the animals he brought back are breeding and helping conserve these species.

Elephant seal 🦭 pup laying on the sand on its stomach

Elephant seal 🦭 pup laying on the sand on its side - wave coming in

Elephant seal 🦭 pup - about two months old - as seen on our outing in San Francisco. Given the date today is it an ‘Easter seal’?

The image is split into two sections. The left side features a quote on funding priorities by Sudip S. Parikh, AAAS CEO, with a small photo of the person below. The U.S. Capitol building is in the background. The right side shows a bar chart titled "Federal R&D FY26 + FY27 Appropriations in Billions." It compares requested and enacted funding amounts for NIH, NSF, DOE, and NASA in 2026 and 2027. Bars are color-coded to distinguish between 2026 requests, 2027 requests, and 2026 enacted law.

The U.S. administration released the FY 2027 Budget Request this morning, proposing deep cuts to science funding once again. While there are similarities in the proposed cuts between FY26 and FY27, the final FY26 appropriations show the impact of advocacy in action.

A gar painted in bright colors

Even the gar are fabulous here in San Francisco - yes I already told @solomonrdavid.bsky.social and @thegarfather.bsky.social

A gentle reminder that there is less than a month to get in ASIH Raney Fund applications. Get up to $1,000 for your fishy research!

A fish with trans flag colors saying trans rights and text below that says you bet your wrasse

Happy trans day of visibility, here is a wrasse design I made awhile ago because all wrasses change sexes as they age.

This 6-foot-long fish makes a 7,000-mile round trip to spawn. Amazon nations are uniting to save it | CNN The epic migration route of the dorado catfish through the Amazon is being choked by dams and river fragmentation, but a new action plan could protect it.

This 6-foot fish has the world’s longest freshwater migration. Amazon nations are uniting to save it

www.cnn.com/science/dora...

a poster that says protect trans kids with hearts around it ALT: a poster that says protect trans kids with hearts around it

#TransDayOfVisibility

Thank you!

Great talk today @jfmclaughlin92.bsky.social - thanks for coming out to the Museum @lsumns.bsky.social

William Beebe peering out of the bathysphere before descent.

William Beebe says: "To be a Naturalist is better than to be a King."

From Knowledge to Action: Next Steps for the Natural Science Collections Community Abstract. Following decades of increasing collaboration and organization, the United States natural science collections community is uniting around the cre

From Knowledge to Action: Next Steps for the Natural Science Collections Community

Ellwood et al. 2026, BioScience

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

Hand holding a big purple sea star

Prosanta Chakrabarty standing in front of a phi beta kappa sign

Held a Pisaster sea star yesterday at the College of William & Mary (here to give a talk for their Phi Beta Kappa chapter) I didn’t realize how heavy these things are. I know Bob Paine was a big dude but I don’t know how he could fling them as far as he did in his ‘keystone species’ experiments.

Giving Day 2026 #biology #wildlife #science #students YouTube video by LSU Museum of Natural Science

Please consider donating to the LSU Museum of Natural Science for @lsu.bsky.social LSU's Giving Day

give.lsufoundation.org/schools/Loui...

Check out this cute video about us, narrated by yours truly
www.youtube.com/shorts/npssG...

#naturalhistory #outreach #evolution #scicomm #science #fieldwork

National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications The National Academies are accepting submissions to an annual award program that aims to recognize and develop excellence in science communication by research scientists, science journalists, and scie...

Applications open for the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications

They give awards to scientists, journalists and communicators at both junior and senior levels. #scicomm

www.nationalacademies.org/programs/NAE...

Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US Experts warn younger people not to dismiss symptoms such as rectal bleeding as diagnoses rise for those under 50

I’m quoted in this important Guardian article by @whatsitlike.me about colon cancer. I got the bad news today that chemo didn’t do the trick after 24 treatments. I start immunotherapy next week. Get tested folks; don’t ignore your health.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Up against the manatee for the second round! Vote for the cavefish!

uproar.indianapoliszoo.com

Vote to help this conservation effort to save some rare species including the Hoosier cavefish described by @niemiller.bsky.social (an actual Hoosier as an IU alum) and me (a hoser).

It's free and fun!

uproar.indianapoliszoo.com