George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
UK-based prof of Zoology, father, African cichlid expert, lover of the natural world, museums, music, education, the welfare state.
Environmental science
41%
Biology
31%
Reposted by George F. Turner
Molly Schumer
@mollyschumer.bsky.social
· Apr 10
The molecular evolutionary basis of species formation - Nature Reviews Genetics
Recently, several new speciation genes have been identified that have contributed to our understanding of the molecular details of the evolution of hybrid dysfunction. This Progress article describes ...
shorturl.at
With @hybridzones.bsky.social & @jenncoughlan.bsky.social, we have been working on an update to Daven Presgraves' influential 2010 review on hybrid incompatibilities (shorturl.at/cJndf). The preprint is available here (shorturl.at/DTC48) with an updated table of almost 100 incompatibilities!
Reposted by George F. Turner
Emily Troyer
@fishfetisher.bsky.social
· Jul 18
Check out our new paper! We find cavefish colonized caves 3x and global cooling events may have influenced these events.
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· May 26
Lake Malawi cichlids: even common, big, spectacular species are often a taxonomic mess, like these Taeniolethrinops species. Much work needed!
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 21
Yes, thats it. Lots of trawlers in south. Fewer people & less demand in north. And not many previous trawl surveys with good specimen collection / photo records / ID experts.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 18
Only described in 1977, Lethrinops microdon, once the dominant species in the bottom trawl fishery in southern Lake Malawi, had disappeared completely by the late 1990s. We rediscovered it in very deep water at the northern end of the lake in 2023.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 18
Lethrinops micrentodon is another species that seems to have disappeared in the southern parts of Lake Malawi but cropped up again in the north. It has a similar pharyngeal bone to L. stridei & L. microdon (many tiny closely-packed teeth) but fewer gillrakers. It feeds mainly on sedimented diatoms.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 18
Early pink campion yesterday, near Bangor golf course
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 17
Lamps on Bangor Pier. Love the attention to detail! Why not just make it lovely?
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 17
Wild cherry trees have got extrafloral nectaries to reward ants. Didn't know about this before. I was taking pics of the flowers and spotted this. Amazing. Not many ants about at the moment, but something to look out for later on in the year!
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 14
Never seen before (unless you follow me on Fb), here is a Lake Malawi Protomelas with unusual square-ended oral jaws & lots of teeth (5-6 rows). Caught in shallow water near Ngara (Karonga District), we got quite a few from 2 different trawls, so it doesn't seem particularly rare in the area.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 14
I first distinguished this species from a specimen at Cambridge from our 2016 survey. Nice to find some more specimens in stronger breeding colours and from the opposite end of the lake in the 2023 survey.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 14
Might have rediscovered Lethrinops macracanthus, a deep water Lake Malawi cichlid missing since the early 1990s.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 14
Baby axolotls. Bigger ones feeding on brine shrimp. Maybe some white ones?
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
Placidochromis nkhotakotae, described by Hanssens in 2004, has lots of gillrakers. I collected it in the 1990s but didn't get a fresh colour photo. We got one from Karonga in 2023, but actually a better one (sequenced) in 2017 from a pair trawl catch in the SW Arm. Clearly widely distributed.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
This deepwater species from Karonga is definitely an Alticorpus (highly expanded lateral line pits, big mental process), but isn't one of the usual ones. It might be A. profundicola, which was described in 1988 from specimens collected 10 years before, and has never been photographed fresh.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
Mylochromis sp. 'kande' was a new one for me in 2023. Originally identified by Konings from a breeding group at Kande Island, we got several nearby off Chintheche. Males have yellow chins and females an orange lower half of caudal.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
Placidochromis ecclesi was described by Hanssens in 2004 from 4 specimens trawled from 123-125m in Lukoma Bay, Tanzania in 1998. I think this is another one: first fresh photo! It's a tiny fish: both these specimens are only 58mm SL and look like mature males.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
A new species to me, from the 2023 trawl survey. I think we only got a single specimen of this from a deep water trawl from off Chintheche, on the sandy bay south of Nkhata Bay.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 12
I collected this species on a trawl in Mozambique in 1999 (specimens still OK) and we got it again in 2023, when the Malawi Fisheries research trawler Ndunduma was again able to sample in Mozambique in a collaborative survey ! Never known outside Mozambique. Should have a sequence now.
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 10
genome.cshlp.org
Nice to see this one out in final version. Can't pretend I really understand the methods, but it is another insight into the role of structural rearrangements in the evolution of Malawi cichlids. genome.cshlp.org/content/earl...
George Turner
@dlimnothrissa.bsky.social
· Apr 10
With @hybridzones.bsky.social & @jenncoughlan.bsky.social, we have been working on an update to Daven Presgraves' influential 2010 review on hybrid incompatibilities (shorturl.at/cJndf). The preprint is available here (shorturl.at/DTC48) with an updated table of almost 100 incompatibilities!
The molecular evolutionary basis of species formation - Nature Reviews Genetics
Recently, several new speciation genes have been identified that have contributed to our understanding of the molecular details of the evolution of hybrid dysfunction. This Progress article describes ...
shorturl.at
Looks interesting. Malawi cichlids don't really do much hybrid incompatibility, but it is interesting to get a good overview of the field.
I think these are basically all the same thing. Fairly non-descript shallow sand cichlid, except the faint double-bar markings. Nice to see a pattern emerging from something I first collected around 35 years ago. Hopefully we can get a sequence from the 2023 collection...
Ah, Great Egrets are spreading north in the UK too, but still rare around Bangor/Anglesey area.
The Little Egret is now really common here. This has changed dramatically in my lifetime: when I was a PhD student in the 1980s there were none at all around Bangor.
Sadly, true for most African cichlids. People want fish that are peaceful and pretty - even when young (or female).