Maxwell Bernt
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mjbernt.bsky.social
Maxwell Bernt
@mjbernt.bsky.social
58 followers 62 following 7 posts
Evolutionary biologist studying the diversity of fishes.
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Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
robknell.bsky.social
Homage to Xavier Bou: little swifts at the Olifants River high-water bridge, Kruger National Park. Unstacked from video taken with an Iphone 14. #birds #photography #SouthAfrica #iPhone
A view of a river at sunset. By combining many exposures I have multiple images for single birds flying through the scene, making the appearance of trails. One bird flies in an arc across the scene close to the camera and the sunlight can be seen shining through its tail feathers.
October 26, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
friel.bsky.social
New species of #coelacanth from the Early Triassic of China just dropped. Say hello to Whiteia anniae.🐟🧪 #FossilFriday

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Whiteia anniae sp. nov. in right lateral view, Holotype (CHU 2016). (a), Whole specimen. (b), closeup of the calcified lung (indicated by lower arrows) and lateral line (indicated by upper arrows). (c), a scale near the head. (d), anterior tips of jaws with arrows indicating the fangs in anterior coronoids. (e), denticles on the last ray of the anterior dorsal fin.
October 24, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
endofthepier.bsky.social
A specimen of the fossil fish Norselaspis yields a wealth of information on the evolution of the head-trunk interface in vertebrates www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Novel assembly of a head–trunk interface in the sister group of jawed vertebrates - Nature
Imaging of a Devonian jawless fish reveals advanced features previously thought to be exclusive to jawed vertebrates, challenging the idea that jaws were the primary driver for the evolution of d...
www.nature.com
August 6, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
fishfetisher.bsky.social
Wow--new goby fossil!!
thepalass.bsky.social The Palaeontological Association @thepalass.bsky.social · Aug 27
New osteological characteristics identify the first stem sleeper goby (Gobioidei, Odontobutidae) from the upper Eocene onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @datadryad.bsky.social #PapersinPalaeontology
At the top: a photograph of a fossil fish: Paralates chapelcornerensis (NHMUK PV P 76993a) lying on its side horizontally on a fine grained yellow/brown rock matrix. Scale bar in lower right corner is 5 mm. Middle: an artist's reconstruction of the same fish, anatomically accurate based on fossil material with colouring based on extant genus Micropercops and preserved pigmentation visible in one of the fossil dorsal fins. At the bottom: a map of the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of England with the fossil locality near Ryde (on the northeastern coast of the island) marked with a yellow star.
August 27, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
fishinthenews.bsky.social
#NewSpeciesAlert - #𝑃ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑐𝑜𝑔𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑎𝑟𝑖, 𝑃. 𝑛𝑢𝑘𝑎𝑘, 𝑃. 𝑡𝑢𝑘𝑎𝑛𝑜 and 𝑃. 𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑦𝑢𝑝𝑒, four new species of #characins (#tetras) are described from the #Amazon and #Orinoco River basins of #Columbia.
🔒 bioone.org/journals/ich...
50-day free access - www.ichthyologyandherpetology.org/ihbjbd/tm202...
Alejandro Romero-Figueroa and Tiago P. Carvalho "Four New Species of Phenacogaster (Characiformes: Characidae) and a Review of Its Diversity in Colombia," Ichthyology & Herpetology 112(4), 619-644, (11 December 2024). https://doi.org/10.1643/i2023094
December 11, 2024 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
friel.bsky.social
𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑦𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠, a new species of eyeless cavefish is described from Guizhou Province, China. 🐟🧪

mdpi.com/2076-2615/15...
Sinocyclocheilus wanlanensis sp. nov., GXU2020000062, holotype, 86.74 mm SL. (A) Live specimen (not holotype); (B) lateral view of head in preserved specimen; (C) dorsal view of preserved specimen.
July 29, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
planet-of-fishes.bsky.social
While scanning some fishes yesterday I came across this Bonytail Chub collected near Blythe, CA in 1933. You can't find this species in Blythe anymore, nor in the rest of California as it is critically endangered. Museum collections like @nhm.org showcasing yet again our changing planet 🐟🐠
July 22, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
fishfetisher.bsky.social
Curious about Devonian actinopterygian lower jaws? Look no further--our new paper provides comprehensive descriptions for 19 species in a tidy ~50 page summary! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Panels c-f of Figure 1 depicting the lower jaw of Devonian actinopterygian Gogosardina coatesi
July 22, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
trevorabranch.bsky.social
In an unconscionable decision, the Smithsonian Institute has decided to no longer support the Biodiversity Heritage Library from 1 Jan 2026. Please someone step up and take it over.
trevorabranch.bsky.social Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · Jul 2
Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research.
about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...
Call for Support: – About BHL
about.biodiversitylibrary.org
July 2, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
gymnotus.bsky.social
New paper alert: 42 ecological traits for all 6,000+ valid species of #Neotropical_freshwater_fishes, the most diverse continental vertebrate fauna on Earth. A foundation for future studies on the ecology and conservation of tropical aquatic biodiversity.

nature.com/articles/s41...
July 2, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
jessicalwarelab.bsky.social
Do you fish in freshwater? Please share or/and complete our survey gathering data on observations of insects for our study on aquatic insect population declines! The link to our survey is here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/VXLMY89. Please share if you know anyone who might be interested in participating!
a dragonfly perched on a hand wearing pink nailpolish
June 15, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
jmhuie.bsky.social
New fish paper! We found that Clinocottus globicpes eats anemones (weird!) using a novel wrestling behavior + strong jaws that likely started as adaptations for tearing algae. It also has thick skin that protects it from stinging cells. @jzoology.bsky.social 🐟🧪

DM for PDF.

doi.org/10.1111/jzo....
June 27, 2025 at 2:14 PM
mjbernt.bsky.social
Yesterday was #NationalCatfishDay. To celebrate, I went fishing and used a catfish (Ameiurus natalis) as bait to catch a bigger catfish (Pylodictis olivaris). Not quite the monster I was hoping for...
Six-inch yellow bullhead. 30-inch flathead catfish.
June 26, 2025 at 3:36 PM
mjbernt.bsky.social
There are recent reports of the enigmatic Luciobrama macrocephalus from the Yangtze River...
This fish hasn't been collected since 1988.
From a facebook post by Drake Shaw: www.facebook.com/yuanzhou.xia...
Large, pale fish being lifted from moderately turbit water by a man in rain gear.
June 24, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
tuexplorer1.bsky.social
Bathypterois guentheri from @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 84 #MarineLife
June 2, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
amnh.org
The Common Pootoo is a master of disguise. You might think its huge yellow eyes would draw the attention of predators, but the bird has a workaround: It can close its peepers while staying aware of its surroundings, thanks to slits in its eyelids!
Photo: Jéssica Martins, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, iNautralist
A photo of a Common Potoo perched atop a branch. The bird is visible in profile. Its head is large, its eye is huge and yellow. Its beak is small. It is tannish in color and flecked with darker patterning.
May 28, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
prosanta.bsky.social
Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes

Carr et al. 2025 Nature Comm.

459 known biofluorescent teleosts (the majority are associated with coral reefs); estimate biofluorescence evolved multiple times but first ~112 mya

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Repeated and widespread evolution of biofluorescence in marine fishes - Nature Communications
Biofluorescence is widespread in fishes. Here, the authors compile data on biofluorescence presence across teleost fishes and demonstrate that it may have originally evolved in eels 112 million years ...
www.nature.com
May 26, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
astridboehne.bsky.social
Happy to share this collaborative effort on recommendations for #genomics of #type specimens
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
Type genomics: a Framework for integrating Genomic Data into Biodiversity and Taxonomic research
academic.oup.com
May 21, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
halooie1.bsky.social
Today at GenBank: sequences from the types of Synodus lautus sp. nov. from "A new species of Synodus from southern Japan, with a redescription of Synodus usitatus Cressey 1981 (Teleostei: Aulopiformes: Synodontidae)" from Furuhashi & Motomura in Ichthyol. Res. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
May 23, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
planet-of-fishes.bsky.social
Coelacanths having a great week! First a new live sighting of the Indonesian species, and now this fantastic work on their musculature by Aléssio Datovo and the late Dave Johnson
May 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
anoplogaster.bsky.social
New molecular + morphological anglerfish phylogeny! #marinelife
May 3, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
halooie1.bsky.social
Today at GenBank: sequences from the holotype of Labeo niariensis sp. nov. from the Niari River of R. Congo, courtesy of Liyandja & Stiassny in J. Fish Biol. (open access) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
April 23, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
prosanta.bsky.social
Synchrotron Microtomographic Osteology of the Chinese Subterranean Catfish: Description and Systematic Analysis.

Journal of Ichthyology, He, Y., Lundberg, J.G., Yang, J. and Yang, J.X., 2025.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Proliobagrus dorsalis, holotype, GIF 2011050901 (a) and overall morphology (b): overall skeleton. Scale: (a) 10, (b) 6 mm We use synchrotron microtomography to study the osteology of an eyeless stygobitic catfish from South China with the objective of examining its systematic position. The results support to assign this species to the superfamily Sisoroidea. Proliobagrus He, Lundberg, Yang et Yang, gen. nov. is proposed diagnosed with a combination of characters: infraorbital bones reduced to one posteriormost element and lacrimal; mesocoracoid arch incomplete; first dorsal-fin pterygiophore compressed lacking paired bony canals for erector muscles, fused with an anteriorly directed process at its proximal end, and remote from Weberian complex; compound Weberian centrum with a ventral median ridge instead of paired ventrolateral ridges, an auxillary parapophysis posterolaterally off compound Weberian centrum, heavy strut-like process ventrally off the fourth neural spine, claustrum absent, tripus with outwardly extended transformator process; anterior cranial fontanelle closed, posterior cranial fontanelle subdivided into anterior and posterior remnant; first proximal pectoral-fin radial roughly round; dorsal and ventral procurrent caudal-fin rays less than ten respectively; base of nasal barbel on anterior rim of posterior nostril; skin lacking tubercles. In a first cladistic analysis, Proliobagrus is grouped with sampled amblycipitid species. The abrupt change of insert position of the first dorsal-fin pterygoid implies that none of extant amblycipitid species could be considered as direct ancestor of Proliobagrus and it represents a relic lineage surviving in subterranean waters.
April 17, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
dirtydog.bsky.social
New #paddlefish paper just dropped. 🚨
So hot and fresh, the DOI link doesn’t even work yet
academic.oup.com/tafs/advance...
The effect of turbidity on foraging by prerostrum juvenile Paddlefish
ABSTRACTObjective. A previous study evaluating restoration success of Paddlefish Polyodon spathula suggested that excessive turbidity in lakes and rivers m
academic.oup.com
April 7, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by Maxwell Bernt
arielcamp.bsky.social
How do you measure what isn't there?

Elska did a fantastic job leading this paper on how we can measure the volume of changing, 3D spaces inside XROMM skeletal animations. And, importantly, how good are those volume measurements?
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
February 21, 2025 at 8:21 PM