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Alex Maile

@anoplogaster.bsky.social
427 followers 222 following 112 posts

Ph.D. Candidate University of Kansas | Ichthyologist (means I like fish too much) | Evolution, Anatomy, and Phylogenetics www.anoplogaster.com www.instagram.com/whatthefishisthat…

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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Porichthys plectrodon - the Atlantic midshipman. These unusual fishes possess rows of bioluminescent organs called photophores and can produce sounds using specialized muscles attached to their swim bladder.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I’ve been looking at this weirdo quite a bit lately. Monocentris japonica, AKA the pineapplefish, pineconefish, or the knightfish. They possesses amazing armor that allows these fishes to swim around like little tanks. Scan is from Morphosource: UF 159787 🐟🧪🌊🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Behold! Two extinct birds: the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis). Both were wiped out by humans not long after we encountered them. These specimens are housed at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, where they’re used for research. 🌊🧪🦆🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Time in Copenhagen is never lonely when working with #anglerfishes 🧪🐟🌊🦑🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Fishy frenzy 🐟🦑🌊🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Lil’ photogenic dude 🐠🦑🌊🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The bees are a buzz’n
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
‼️ Our anglerfish research is now featured in @ScienceMagazine! 🐟🎣 "Why do anglerfish have glowing lures? It might be sex" Check it out here! 🧪🌊🐟🦇 www.science.org/content/arti...
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
‼️NEW ANGLERFISH PAPER! 🐟🎣 So excited to share the final part of my Master’s research! We explore the bizarre tacklebox of anglerfish lures and show how these fishes evolved different ways to attract prey and maybe even mates in the deep sea. 🧪🦑🌊🦇🦀 Open access paper link: doi.org/10.1643/i202...
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Finally got around to framing these postcards from a Nagasaki University calendar I was gifted a few years ago. 🌊🐟🦑🦀
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Talk about a headache! (especially from your partner fusing to you!) This is a Ghostly Seadevil (Haplophryne mollis) from the University of Washington Burke Museum!
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Morning from a Kansas reef 🐟🦀🦑🌊🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Kansas snow day with the reef
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
These MN blizzard conditions make me long for Cretaceous weather.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Lil puppies with fins
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
The swimming candy cane 🌊🐟🦑🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
An urchin a day keeps the bad vibes away
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Snack time 🌊🦑🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
If you hold it like this, it’s a hat! 🦑🌊🦇🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
When life puts a rock in the way, carry it around like an urchin 🦑🌊🦇🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Watching the world go by 🦑🌊🦇🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Snack time on the reef 🦑🌊🦇🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
POV you’re in a crabby mood 🦑 🌊 🧪 🦇
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Our mini snail aquarium for this week’s lab on gastropods!
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Snail radula in action
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
We didn't carve pumpkins this year, but here are some deep-sea fish jack-o'-lanterns l've made in prior years!
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Happy Halloween! 🎃 🦇 🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Ever seen a clear and stained little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus)? 🦇 I love how their modified forelimbs, with elongated phalanges that support the wing membrane used for flight. Look how big those fangs are! 🧪🎃
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
A 3D printer is glamorous until you have to fix a wiring issue…
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Bellator militaris — the horned searobin. Just like other armored searobins, they possess modified pectoral fin rays used to walk and detect food on the seafloor. This specimen is TCWC 6818.17 available on MorphoSource. www.morphosource.org/concern/biol... 🦑 🌊 🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Bellator militaris — the horned searobin. Just like other armored searobins, they possess modified pectoral fin rays used to walk and detect food on the seafloor. This specimen is TCWC 6818.17 available on MorphoSource. www.morphosource.org/concern/biol... 🦑 🌊 🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Just a few more pieces left to glue — the monkfish is nearly complete! 🦑 🌊 🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Happy Monday from these three amigos 🦑 🌊
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
They are jumpers so I would suggest a lid of some sort.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Just clown’in around 🦑 🌊 🧪
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
New addition to the aquarium! A Longnose Hawkfish (Oxycirrhites typus). Loves the camera more than any other fish I’ve had.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
New urchin, who dis? 🦑 🌊
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Hoplostethus mediterraneus – the Mediterranean slimehead (Trachichthyidae). Remarkably, slimeheads have been documented to live for over 230 years. This specimen is KU 42748 from the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum. 🦑🌊
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Monocentris japonica — the Japanese pineapplefish (or pinecone fish)
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
Anyone else walk into the fish store and suddenly feel like handing over their wallet for a new tank?
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Went to Duluth to celebrate wedding anniversary prior to #JMIH. Pretty cool aquarium and sturgeon touch tank!
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Returned from visiting family to see new leaves on my mangroves! 🧪🌊🦑
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Always ask your doctor for a copy of your CT scan. You never know when it may come in handy, say for Halloween…
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Such smol mouths 👄… Poor things don’t have typical tetrodontid beaks
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Have you ever seen a sargassum frogfish (Histrio histrio) eat in slowmo? This is Freddy eating his favorite food: anchovies. #marinelife #anglerfish
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Have you ever seen a juvenile Buffalo Trunkfish (Lactophrys trigonus)? I absolutely love their weird skeleton which forms this bony carapace making their body rigid.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
9/11 Finally, for some cool morphology, we identified new traits to help diagnose monkfishes (Lophiidae), including elongated dorsal and pelvic fin elements, and we show that hinged teeth are a shared derived trait of all anglerfishes!
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
8/11 We used geometric morphometrics to explore how depth transitions affect body form in anglerfishes. Frogfishes (Antennariidae) and deep-sea ceratioids (Ceratioidei) have the highest body shape disparity, despite living in vastly different environments.
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Alex Maile @anoplogaster.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
7/11 Our character state reconstructions show independent deep-water transitions in monkfishes and batfishes, and a deep-sea invasion in coffinfishes and ceratioid anglerfishes, with ceratioids anglers also moving to pelagic environments.
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