Maddy Janakis

looking for a biology post doc at my dream school (NYADA) #glee

A photo of an ice cream machine with a sign reading, "Anything is possible with ice cream." Beneath that is a hand lettered sign reading, "No ice cream".

2026 basically

sometimes i love the whimsy of living in an apartment. like my neighbor practices guitar most nights and every sunday another neighbor makes the same roast. Right now, however ...my neighbor is absolutely burning their cookies

Structural and mechanical properties facilitate shock wave damping by helmet-like orbital hoods in snapping shrimp Abstract:. Snapping shrimp damp the shock waves they produce and use as weapons with a helmet-like structure termed the orbital hood. Here, we ask how stru

New paper in Royal Society Interface! With fantastic engineering colleagues, we’re learning more and more about how snapping shrimp are protected from shock waves! royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Image of a bearded, bald, and morose Charles Darwin, with his famous quote “I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything”

Happy birthday, Chuck.

Proud to carry on your legacy of studying evolutionary biology while going through it

Porcelain crab - Wikipedia

The 12yo has declared Porcelain Crab Awareness Day!

I’m especially fond of the red and white polka dotted ones. Are they crabs if they have crab in their name? Nope. These are decapod crustaceans evolving ever crab-wards!

i finally ordered new glasses (everyone clap and cheer for me now)

i can't believe Noah Kahan is waiting to release his new album until AFTER my defense :( Help a girl write her dissertation 🙏

a little late in this (i got sick) but thank you to @sicb-dab.bsky.social Portland 2026. had lots of fun seeing great talks and talking about crabs! 🦀

"Fatigue" by artist John Brosio #crustmas

i follow Kesha's mom (Pebe Sebert) online and she added me to her private tiktok bulletin and she's releasing a new song. i love her and i would like to be one of her top listeners this year so i can get her message on spotify

Two Decapod Crustaceans, Panopeus herbstii and Petrolisthes armatus, Stabilize Their Gaze Using Achromatic Visual Cues, but Not the Angle of Linearly Polarized Light Synopsis. Gaze stabilization is important to animals because it allows them to visually differentiate between their own motion relative to their environmen

🚨 Using polarization vision to stabilize gaze 👀 would theoretically be helpful for animals living in visually noisy environments, but it seems two decapod crustaceans use achromatic cues instead. 🚨

From @maddy-janakis.bsky.social

Check it out! 🦀
academic.oup.com/iob/article/...

picture of complete crab molt of Panopeus herbstii in a small dish

picture of molted cornea through a dissecting scope

Did you know that when crabs molt they also molt their outer cornea giving them a pretty scary zombie look

a bearded, male advisor stands in the middle and has two grad students on each side dressed up to match him with beards drawn in with make-up they all are copying his pose

got all the grad students to dress as our advisor! I had to do it once before I defend!

selfie of three women wearing baseball hats, posing in front of their estuary collection site

Had a great day collecting yesterday at Baruch Marine Field Lab in SC. We got 42 porcelain crabs and 40 mud crabs 🦀 🦀🦀

IOB
"In shallow #aquatic #environments, such as tidal creeks, the motion of the water's surface can create dynamic #spatiotemporal fluctuations in illumination referred to as “caustic flicker..."
@maddy-janakis.bsky.social et al

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

#crustacean #biology #science

https://www.speiserlab.com/

IOB
"Using #optomotor behavioral assays, we found that both porcelain & mud #crabs use #achromatic cues for gaze stabilization..."

@maddy-janakis.bsky.social et al

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

Jane opened up my eyes to a lot as a kid - she was a female scientist and she was known for devoting her life to it. not to her family or children, but to her passion.

i remember thinking that was so cool and it was probably the first time I realized women can be known in that way.

THATS ME! That's my first paper!! everyone read it!! 🎉🎉🎉🦀🦀🦀👀👀👀

Fig. 1 The green porcelain crab Petrolisthes armatus and the Atlantic mud #crab Panopeus herbstii. (A) Dorsal view of P. armatus. (B) Ventral view of an eye from P. armatus. (C) Dorsal view of P. herbstii. (D) Ventral view of an eye from P. herbstii. The scale bars in (A) and (C) represent 1 cm.

IOB
from the www.speiserlab.com
-Two #Decapod #Crustaceans, Panopeus herbstii and Petrolisthes armatus, Stabilize Their Gaze Using Achromatic #Visual Cues, but Not the Angle of Linearly Polarized Light
by
M Janakis et al

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

#biology #science #organisms

Evolution of sideways locomotion in crabs The evolutionary change in the mode of locomotion is often a major evolutionary event, triggering diversification. Sideways locomotion is a defining feature of true crabs (Brachyura) and may have cont...

🚨 Exciting new crab preprint! A Japanese team found that sideways walking only evolved once! Maybe carcinization itself is necessary but not sufficient to go sideways?

When it's lost, the species that go forward have alternate anti predation behaviors. 🧪🦑🦀

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Video: Tiny shrimp, huge impact Snapping shrimp can create shockwaves strong enough to stun prey. But how do they survive each other’s blasts? USC biologist Dan Speiser and his team discovered that a special “orbital hood” — a helme...

www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/... check out this cool piece out of our and @alexcnkingston.bsky.social lab!

this is all exactly right- plus the bonus of using polarized light under these conditions. Already papers has shown that using this concept could be used to find missing divers. i encourage you to read work from our lab (Speiser Lab) on distributed visual systems in chitons and scallops

Thanks so much for publishing with us🙌we are looking forward to gibbing a full week of promotional efforts to your work 10-1 week. 👍stay tuned.

yes, sorry i didn't fully answer you. increased eutrophication leads to more turbid or specially narrow (colored) water so in these environments we're making vision a more difficult endeavor. animals that use different or multiple types of light cues may be better off in the anthropocene

Also stay tuned for a paper that looks at how turbidity may affect mate signaling in blue crabs of the Chesapeake Bay!?

this is something i'd love to look into more! porcelain crabs are invasive to the area too! how may they be using vision! stay tuned for my other manuscripts (in the works!)

Two Decapod Crustaceans, Panopeus herbstii and Petrolisthes armatus, Stabilize Their Gaze Using Achromatic Visual Cues, but Not the Angle of Linearly Polarized Light Synopsis. Gaze stabilization is important to animals because it allows them to visually differentiate between their own motion relative to their environmen

Ever wondered how tidal creek crabs stabilize their gaze? think crabs are neat? want to support a first time author? read my first article! out now in IOB @sicbjournals.bsky.social academic.oup.com/iob/article/...