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friedmanlab.bsky.social
Matt Friedman
@friedmanlab.bsky.social
1K followers 760 following 340 posts
Vertebrate evolutionary biologist | Professor University of Michigan | Director & Curator UMMP | he/him/his
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friedmanlab.bsky.social
Some Met fishes.
Closeup of 18th century French porcelain dish with gold edging featuring a sturgeon. Fish shaped wooden reliquary from the Solomon Islands, ~1900. Interpretive labels describes it as a mix of a shark and albacore, but it looks like a wahoo (Acanthocybium) to me. Carved wooden door from the Cote d'Ivoire featuring a large fish oriented vertically with a smaller fish (that looks a bit like a flying fish) in its mouth. 19th-mid. 20th century. Greek dish from southern Italy, featuring marine life in a rich shade of terracotta framed by black. ~340-330 BCE.
November 10, 2025 at 1:17 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Also struck by this on my visit yesterday.
Greek vessel shaped like a crustacean claw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
November 8, 2025 at 4:32 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
No secret that there's a lot of amazing stuff at AMNH. Some of my favorites are these massive chimneys recovered from hydrothermal vents of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, more than a mile beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Sectioned deep-sea hydrothermal chimney. Sectioned deep-sea hydrothermal chimney.
November 8, 2025 at 3:38 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Most unexpected discovery at AMNH? My missing copy of "Gaining Ground" . . . in Roger Benson's office 😂
Cover of the book Gaining Ground, with an illustration of Acanthostega. "Matt Friedman" scrawled inside said book.
November 8, 2025 at 3:25 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Secret Smilodon at the Met. Make a point to find it whenever I go.
Small decorative saber-toothed cat head ornamenting a larger porcelain piece.
November 8, 2025 at 2:04 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
#FossilFriday 🤝 #GarWeek
Fossil gars displayed at the AMNH. Atractosteus from the Green River Fm. (top) and Obaichthys from the Santana Fm. (bottom).
November 7, 2025 at 11:14 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Here's another one you won't have seen: a waiting-to-be-prepared specimen from the Green River Fm. Probably Cuneatus. Maybe they'll be ready for #GarWeek next year!
X-ray image of the skull and anterior body of an articulated gar, preserved as a dorsoventrally compressed individual.
November 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Spooky note left on my door yesterday.
Paper tapes to door with image of gray, spear-shaped object. Typed text reads "Just in time for Halloween: Amia calva, right serrated appendage."
November 1, 2025 at 3:47 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Emily gave a great talk for this week's departmental seminar. Got a new lab photo to mark the occasion . . .
A group of people standing at the entrance of a light colored building with elaborate doors and sconces.
October 31, 2025 at 9:53 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Neighborhood foliage is looking great this weekend.
Brightly colored autumn leaves set against deep blue sky. Brightly colored autumn leaves set against deep blue sky.
October 26, 2025 at 4:21 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Lazy Saturday navigating the Pennsylvanian stratigraphy of Staffordshire. Figure from: Rees, J G, and Wilson, A A. 1998. Geology of the country around Stoke-on-Trent. Memoir of the Geological Survey, Sheet 123 (England and Wales).
Stratigraphic corrections between distinctive layers with old mining names. Chart depicts different sections in the Pennsylvanian of the Potteries Coalfield of northern England.
October 25, 2025 at 5:18 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
With opahs as the theme for this week's #Sundayfishsketch, maybe we'll see some cool art of fossil relatives. Here's the type specimen of the lampriform Turkmene from the earliest Eocene of Turkmenistan, ~56 Ma. Specimen at the Paleontological Institute, Moscow.
Fossil skeleton of deep-bodied fish related to modern opahs on a dark tan matrix. A blot of red paint at the top of the specimen indicates it is a type.
October 25, 2025 at 2:01 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Now out in Tim Smithson's Festschrift: neurocranial anatomy (incl. endocast) of the Early Devonian Durialepis et al. OA for your porolepiform pondering pleasure. W/ @gilespalaeo.bsky.social @jorgemondejar.bsky.social @tom-challands.bsky.social & S. Henderson www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Figure showing complete endocast of Durialepis in dorsal view. Upper panels show this with only partial sensory canal overlay; lower panel shows elaborately ramifying branches of main canals. CT renderings and interpretive drawings of the anterior half of the endocast of Durialepis. CT renderings and interpretive drawings of the posterior half of the endocast of Durialepis, showing the skeletal labyrinth. CT renderings and interpretive drawings of the anterior half of the endocast of the holoptychiid porolepiform Glyptolepis.
October 20, 2025 at 4:24 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Congrats to Sanaa El-Sayed on her DEEP Award from the Paleontological Society!
Sanaa smiling and holding a plaque in front of a background with a repeated pattern of the Paleontological Society logo.
October 20, 2025 at 4:07 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
This week's new (to me) dioramas: a sampler of Michigan plant associations at the Cranbrook Institute of Science.
Diorama depicting an oak-hickory forest. Diorama depicting a meadow with wildflowers. A river or pond is visible in the background. Diorama depicting a bog habitat. Diorama depicting a coniferous forest.
October 19, 2025 at 10:53 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
A big bowfin skull (presumably Amia pattersoni) on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. Pretty rare Green River fish.
Fossil fish skull in right lateral view. Fossil bone is dark brown-black on tan rock matrix.
October 19, 2025 at 4:34 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Great pair of articles in this morning's Ann Arbor News highlighting the outstanding new leadership of the U-M Museum of Zoology and U-M Herbarium: Alison Davis Rabosky (left) and Thais Vasconcelos (right). 🍄🌿🌺🐚🪲🐟🐸🐍🐦🐿️
Alison Davis Rabosky, Director of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, poses in the museum’s Herpetology archives at the University of Michigan’s Research Museums Center. Thais Vasconcelos, Director of the University of Michigan Herbarium, poses at the University of Michigan’s Research Museums Center.
October 18, 2025 at 2:36 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Skeleton (cast) of the giant flightless bird Dromornis from the Miocene of Australia. Part of a traveling exhibit on tyrannosaurs currently at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. #FossilFriday
Large flightless bird skeleton displayed in a museum gallery. The lighting throws sharp shadows of the skeleton on to a dark blue wall.
October 17, 2025 at 10:16 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
With Halloween fast approaching, I'm reminded of a time a few years ago the lab surprised me with costumes based on my past profile pics. Complete with actual elements of my wardrobe, supplied by my partner who was in on the act. (I'd spent the past week wondering where my clothes went.)
Several people in a corridor. Matt is in the center, flanked by grad students dressed as Matt, wearing the same outfits as Matt is shown wearing in pictures they are holding.
October 17, 2025 at 6:49 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's SUPERFISH!

Coming soon to a museum near you.
Small museum exhibit being installed. Background features comic-book inspired layout. A model of a snakehead fish is in an upper case, with 3D prints of fish skulls in a case at the side.
October 13, 2025 at 5:41 PM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Also also also: I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing colleagues' names/images pop up in museum exhibits.
Image of shark dermal denticles, provided by Erin Dillon et al. Cladogram in tyrannosaur exhibit referencing Brusatte et al. Photograph of excavation of the Clapp Family mastodon. UMMP's Scott Beld is in foreground.
October 13, 2025 at 1:15 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Also also: this room done up as a cabinet of curiosities was fun.
Room with deep red walls and floors, with an ornate chandelier. The room includes a mastodon skeleton and a host of stuffed birds in cases. There is no interpretive text to be seen--just stuff.
October 13, 2025 at 1:15 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Also: this lovingly restored reptile display in classic mid 20th century style.
Display reading "Life histories of Michigan reptiles" featuring irregularly shaped, overlapping solid-color panels with text and models of a snake and turtle.
October 13, 2025 at 1:15 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
GRPM Michigan dioramas cont.
Model showing magnified examples of life in a drip of water. Cyanobacterial filaments crisscross the scene, with a handsome Daphnia visible near the center of the image. Diorama of a Michigan marsh with a heron in the foreground. Diorama of a Michigan deciduous forest in early autumn, with foliage still on trees and ranging from yellow to red. A male whitetail deer is in the background, partially concealed by a tree. A small group of whitetail deer emerge from the edge of a corn field where it abuts a forest.
October 13, 2025 at 1:15 AM
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Fall breaks for U-M and AAPS coincided, so I took the kids to West Michigan and stopped at the Grand Rapids Public Museum for the first time. Home to some beautifully done dioramas depicting Michigan ecosystems.
Diorama depicting a pack of wolves on a snowy night, stalking prey visible in the distance. Diorama of a moose family congregating around a pond. Diorama of a west Michigan scene depicting the transition from a forest to a sandy set of dunes along the Lake Michigan coast. An Igloo cooler and pair of hiking boots lie in the sand at the middle of the scene, suggesting someone has left them there at the start of a hike. Diorama depicting a deciduous forest, with an owl in a low tree branch and a fox and kit scampering past a fallen log on the forest floor.
October 13, 2025 at 1:15 AM