Rodrigo Figueroa

Cover of the journal Nature, featuring the head of a large fish with its mouth open. A smaller fish is swimming into its mouth. The cover reads "Caught in Time: Early fossils shed light on the origins of bony fish."

Osteichthyans--the bony fishes--are by far the most diverse group of living jawed vertebrates. Two papers out today in @nature.com feature remarkable new Chinese fossils that paint a picture of substantial morphological diversity among stem osteichthyans.

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...

Ding-dong! The Dutch Fish Doorbell needs you to help migrating fish A Dutch lock is closed for the spring, and its employees want you to tell them when migrating fish come knocking by ringing a digital doorbell

A Dutch lock is closed for the spring, and its employees want you to tell them when migrating fish come knocking by ringing a digital doorbell

“The truth lies in their small brains” should have been my dissertation title

When I finish a museum collection visit:

Main image is a reconstruction of extinct fish Gondwanacanthus decollatus swimming in its natural environment. On the left are two photographs of fossil specimens: at the top, the holotype (MCP2457) which preserves vertebrae, ribs, rays and fines of the main body and tail; at the bottom, paratype MCP3458D, which preserves large spinoid scales in several rows, with the lateral line running horzontally across the centre. Small red image in lower right corner is the cover of Papers in Palaeontology, the journal in which the new species is described.

The oldest acanthomorph fossil from the Early Cretaceous of Gondwana (Morro do Chaves Formation, Sergipe–Alagoas Basin, NE Brazil) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #PapersinPalaeontology

paleo club lives???

Four incomplete fossil fish specimens on a black background. The specimens preserve scales, vertebrae, spines, and so on, and are dark gray on lighter gray to mustard-colored slabs.

Remarkable. Report of a Brazilian spiny-rayed fish dating to the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous, preceding the oldest known acanthomorphs by ~20 million years. Gondwanacanthus extends the roots of one of today's most prominent vertebrate radiations: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

For some reason it makes me unhappy that Gondwanacanthus isn’t a Devonian ‘shark’

Einstein would have developed the theory of relativity much faster if he had to count on the schedule timing of the Boston MBTA

Jules knew what it is all about

Morphology and evolutionary significance of phosphatic otoliths within the inner ears of cartilaginous fishes (Chondrichthyes) - BMC Ecology and Evolution Background Chondrichthyans represent a monophyletic group of crown group gnathostomes and are central to our understanding of vertebrate evolution. Like all vertebrates, cartilaginous fishes evolved c...

tbf, chondrichthyans do have “otoliths”. First time looking at a Squalus scan I was quite puzzled

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Evolution of the ray-finned fish brain Ray-finned fishes can be considered as the most successful group of vertebrates as they represent roughly half of the extant species diversity of vert…

Apparently the original link is not working:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/chap...

If anyone wants a PDF just DM me!

I wanted this to be a text that can be used by those that want to start exploring brain anatomy and evolution in ray-finned fishes, which is something that I personally think was lacking in the literature.

I’m delighted to share my first ever book chapter is out now!
I goal with this piece is to provide a detailed but approachable review of ray-finned fish brain anatomy, anatomical diversity and evolutionary patterns.

www.sciencedirect.com:5037/science/chap...

It’s so much fun spending more than a decade working on my career, making sacrifices, achieving important milestones and contributing to science and society to then receive job rejections like this:

On the left, a narrow, glass-fronted display case with a mix of letterpress, hand-bound, antiquarian, and collectors' books; stretching off to the right, 8-foot bookcases laden with literary and contemporary commercial fiction, about one thousand books out of the 6-7 thousand in that section. LED lighting and light-colored wood cases and flooring keep the room feeling relatively spacious despite the sheer quantity of books.

Communities need used-book shops.

As the trends in our world are increasingly standardized and entrenched by "predictive" technologies that stifle innovation and reduce human actions into economic categories...

We need a full range of possibilities for readers and communities to explore and share.

where there’s a will there’s a government trying to destroy the way

Evolution 2026 logo. Text: Evolution 2026, Cleveland, OH, June 20-24. A globe with a plane flying across it. Text: Society for the Study of Evolution International Travel Stipends, Deadline: January 30.

Applications now open for the International Travel Stipends to attend #Evol2026! Funds cover registration, travel, food, and lodging. Apply by January 30: www.evolutionsociety.org/content/soci... @evolmtg.bsky.social

Couldn’t agree more

27-28yo - publish these brains in fancy journals;

29yo - Finish PhD and start postdoc at Harvard

18yo - Start working at a paleo lab, looking at fossil sharks, including the ones my mom chose for my 1yo party;

21yo - my first 2 papers are published;

22yo - I describe my first new fossil species;

23yo - I find fossil fish brains!!

12yo - I learn to dive and spearfish and get together my fish anatomy basics;

12yo - I meet a paleontologist for the first time at a book release;

17yo - I finish high school and get into college for a bio degree;

(cont.)

1yo - my mom chose plastic fossil fish to decorate my first birthday party;

4yo - hitting a quartzite wall with a hammer it falls over me (but I love it);

5yo - I watch Jurassic Park;

6yo - I find my first fossils;

(continued)

BOLSONARO PRESO

I have it. Its a great source!

If you replace ‘bird’ with ‘fish’ its the question I ask myself everyday

The interplay of different structures of the vertebrate head is such a fascinating topic that I want to make my whole career be about it

I’m happy that sponges are back to their sacred place