iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 31/08/2025

Out of town for a concert and the cat camera has fallen and/or been knocked down successfully 👍

Image of Wednesday, a domestic short hair cat with black fur, above the camera's POV and staring directly down at the camera.

Image of Pete, a domestic long hair cat with a sort of grey mask on his face and various grey spots on his mostly white fur. Pete is loaded up a few feet away on the floor from the camera looking directly at it. Several cat toys like a banana and a ball are surrounding him since the cat's toy box is right there too.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 01/08/2025

🚨 Wednesday has successfully yoinked Pete's blanket 🚨

Pete, my long hair domestic cat thats mostly white white some grey splotches looking very concerned inside a pet crate inside a car. There is a blue blanket underneath him. Behind him, with a separator in the crate, is my partner's cat, Wednesday, a black short hair domestic cat. She's just looking to the side, much less concerned than Pete.

Now Wednesday has stolen Pete's blanket and sits on it while Pete is mostly now on the plastic crate bottom. Both have annoyed looks on their faces from the hours of car time.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 09/05/2025

Anyways taking this as good vibes for my dissertation defense next week. I've never been more simultaneously anxious, stressed, and tired, but excited

Image of a long hair black and white cat curled up in a white cat bed holding an orange toy. There is a figure of a peacock mantis shrimp on top of him. He looks confused and or concerned.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 09/05/2025

Been playing my favorite game Stardew Valley to cope with defense anxiety when I have the time. This is on PS5 unmodded and I got **THREE** ancient seeds my first week AND THEN the crop fairy visited after I planted them. This is a <0.000000125% chance.

Image of Stardew Valley with a chest and inventory open. Two ancient seeds are visible, but the description is filled out on, indicating I've already donated a third one to the museum in game. The top right date is the 7th of Spring (end of first week in game).

Image of Stardew Valley farm at night with the crop fairy appearing over my freshly planted ancient seeds.

Image of Stardew Valley farm with three fully grown ancient seed crops (they take like 28 days to grow in game) but the top right date is the 9th of Spring (and of the game in the fresh save)

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 05/05/2025

@thermofishersci.bsky.social has made itself clear on where they stand with the current administration. Only we scientists can hold these companies accountable. If you buy from TF, please look into alternatives 🧪

LinkedIn Post from the CEO of ThermoFisher, Marc Casper:

"Committed to our customers and advancing innovation in the U.S.
I was honored to represent Thermo Fisher
Scientific at the White House where President Trump recognized an investment our company is making to advance science and innovation in the United States.
Thermo Fisher has announced that we are investing an additional $2 billion over the next four years to strengthen our capabilities in the U.S. We made this commitment so we can be an even stronger partner for our customers. Ultimately, these investments will help to strengthen American innovation, manufacturing and economic competitiveness in the life sciences sector.
It is my greatest honor to represent our company when meeting with world leaders. I always lead with our purpose - our Mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. The work we do every day helps to improve lives and make the world a better place.
So, we'll keep building our capabilities to advance our Mission and create an even brighter future for all. Thank you to our colleagues all over the world for making this possible."

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 02/05/2025

Friend sent me this from Reddit. Why is @zymoresearch.bsky.social financially supporting the people breaking down our whole academic system? Very disappointing. 🧪

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 01/04/2025

Also a big fan of how my Microsoft Word will randomly switch my identities from myself... to myself, even when editing in the same instance (this ones funny, keep this one in Microsoft)

Screenshot of edits pane from Microsoft Word. Top edit is in blue and has my name formatted as "Butler, Caleb" and Bottom edit is in red and has my name formatted as "Caleb Butler".

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 01/04/2025

Incredible auto-formatting happening in Microsoft Outlook recently

Screenshot of text "May 16th" but the 6t and superscript, when you'd typically expect dates to formatting with the "th" as the superscript (as it should be). Thanks Microsoft Outlook.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 18/03/2025

Unsure how to ask to use someone's image? Here's an email template. Not once have I ever had someone say "no".

Image of a placebo email to a fake email "PersonWithCoolImage@someemail.com"

Subject: Image Use?

Body: Hello PersonWithCoolImage,

I saw your cool image and thought it would work well for my presentation/article/post/class/other. Would you be comfortable if I used it? I will of course give credit.

Thank you,
Caleb Butler

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 17/03/2025

Did I win? (not graphic, just used for spoiler purposes)

Zoomed in pic with a red circle on top of a lightly outlined, slightly more purple blob than the surroundings.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/03/2025

I have another one created in plotly (R) that's interactive, but since it doesn't support producing vectorized graphics I searched for other options, and the one above is created with scatterplot3d (R).

Image of my other 3D Plot. Dots are bigger and uniform now. Similar angle and results as previous 3D plot.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/03/2025

Dear sci-friends. I am preparing a 3D PCA that given context makes a lot of sense. The issue is that 3D scatterplots always are difficult to read. Can anyone send me 3D scatterplots they find intuitive? Or reccs on how to make them easier to read? Here's what I'm working with (2D v 3D). 🧪

Image of a 2D PCA Plot with various colors. There are 8 individual groups, forming two clusters. PC1 is 13.4% and PC2 is 9%.

My 3D PCA scatterplot. Now there is a third PC being presented, one of the grouped up clusters has now spread out more, while the other is still relatively clustered together.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 21/02/2025

I'm losing my mind here with PowerPoint. Does anyone know why PPT when saving, closing, and then opening again, butchers the quality and transparency of certain assets? There is no discernible pattern because all are imported the same from the same file format. All my assets are saved as .pdf 🧪

A screenshot from my powerpoint. There are two ovals, one purple, one pinkish-orange. Inside each are two more ovals here, green in the purple, yellow in the pinkish-orange, but the two yellow and one green have lost their transparency so there are white boxes around them.

A map of the Indo-Pacific, with certain areas highlighted with shapes and white circles to display an organisms range. The quality of the map has been terribly butchered.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 13/02/2025

Hear me out: academic talk but Wes Anderson 🧪🦑

An image of a coral reef surrounded by a light yellow border. The reef is slanted from down to up from left to right. There are multiple soft corals and hard corals visible. Notably in the center are two Sarcophytidae (that resemble your standard Sarcophyton, but I've done the genetics, it's a cryptic group!), one with its polyps out with a light brown hue, and another one beside it with its polyps retracted looking light blue. There is another soft coral below them that resembles a Lobophytum with its polyps out. You can make out a few hard corals, some encrusting Pachyseris, a bouldering Porites, and another bouldering Favites (maybe). A few small fish are visible in the background. In the top left is bold all-caps text "BIOLOGY IS ROOTED IN" in yellow and in the bottom right similarly, but marginally larger, "SPECIFICITY" in a coral pink.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

This neat coral is found across the Indo-Pacifc, including the Red Sea, Palau, the GBR, parts of the South China Sea, and a lot more places. One recent study focusing on P. speciosa found significant genetic differentiation based off of depth and location, with no correlation to morphology

Figure from Bongaerts et al. 2021. split into multiple parts. Figure caption below. A.) shows an underwater colony of more plate-like Pachyseris speciosa. B.) shows the range of the species and the five sampling regions un the study (Gulf of Aqaba, Okinawa, Papua New Guinea, Western Coral Sea, and the Great Barrier Reef). C.) shows the different sampling depths done from 10m-60m. D.) includes assembly summary statistics for the genome (Size: 984 Mb, Predicted size: 886 Mb, Predicted genes: 39,160, Completeness: 90.5% BUSCO, E.) Includes a circular phylogenetic seeing differentation by site and partitioning into four major lineages. F.) Is an admixture analysis based off of the whole genome sequencing of the organisms, but only of representative samples from the GBR, finding decent homogeneity across sites, but differs more when examining depth in G).

Figure 1. Overview of the study system and sequencing/genotyping approach
(A) Pachyseris speciosa colonies at 40 m depth (Western Coral Sea).
(B) Predicted geographic distribution38 of Pachyseris speciosa sensu lato and the five sampling regions.
(C) Sampled habitats and their corresponding water depths (±3 m).
(D) Genome assembly summary statistics.
(E) Circular phylogenetic tree summarizing the reduced-representation sequencing data (nextRAD; 8,536 SNPs) and showing the partitioning into four major
lineages. Sample region is indicated in the inner surrounding circle and sample selection for whole-genome sequencing is indicated in the outer surrounding
circle.
(F) Admixture proportion (PCAngsd) based on whole-genome resequencing (WGS; ~37M SNPs) of representative samples from the three lineages occurring on
the Great Barrier Reef.
(G) Geographic and ecological distribution of the lineages across habitats and regions (excluding Israel) based on the CAPS genotyping assay (1–3 markers per
sample) merged with the nextRAD data (note that assignments for Okinawa are based exclusively on nextRAD data).

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

In their study, Quek et al. (2023) used a hybrid-capture approach to collect as much genetic information as possible for lots of target hard corals. This approach confirmed and agreed with Kirahara et al. 2012: Pachyseris was more closely related to Euphyllidae than Agariciidae.

A select screenshot from Quek et al. 2023, focusing on the hard coral families Rhizangiidae, Agariciidae, Pachyseridae, and Euphyllidae. Pachyseridae is between Agariciidae and Euphyllidae, but noticably divergent from both, supporting that Pachyseris deserves its own family.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

Kitahara et al. 2012 used a multi-marker approach (always good) to delineate and study family Agariciidae. Though they only had one marker for a Pachyseris (P. speciosa, different species!), they found it was rather distantly related from the other Agariciids, and more related to Euphyllidae

A figure with three unrooted maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees. Among the three trees, there are extensions from each one that are all encircled in one circle, representing family Agariicidae. The trees are from the 28s ribosomal large subunit, the 16s ribosomal small subunit, and a mitochondrial gene, the CO1. On each tree there are also other circles, representing another taxonomic group colloquially referred to as "robust corals" (story for another day). Highlighted, I have P. speciosa, which is notably, not in the circle with the other Agariciids on the CO1 tree. Figure caption below:

"Fig. 1. Unrooted most likely trees derived from maximum likelihood analysis of partial 16S rDNA, partial CO1, and partial 28S rDNA nucleotide sequences. Values near each node indicate the maximum likelihood (ML) Shimodaira–Hasegawa-like statistical support followed by bootstrap (100 replicate) analyses, and Bayesian Inference (BI) posterior probability (7500 topologies). An asterisk (*) in the CO1 reconstruction indicates discrepancy between the ML and BI (different branching from BI is indicated in red). Dark shaded area indicates Agariciidae clade and light shaded areas indicate the ‘Robust’ coral clades. Dashed lines bridge the end of each branch and its respective species name."

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

As older taxonomic systems go as you look through them, there were many different descriptions of P. rugosa based off of differing morphologies, that were later reconciled into one species with genetic methods. Some of these other names include P. carinata, P. monticulosa, P., and P. valenciennesia.

Image from Veron's Scleractinia of Eastern Australia (Part III). It shows four different P. rugosa skeletons of different morphologies, each with a label accompanying them. The skeletons are white on black background. The two of them have branching morphologies, similar to mentioned earlier, and another has a more columnar morphology. Finally the fourth one has more of a "fan" morphology, probably related to the original "lettuce" description of these colonies.

Original image caption:
Figs. 131-134 Pachyseris rugosa (x 0.5).
Fig. 131 From Butterfly Bay, Hook Island, Whitsunday Islands, collecting station 98.
Fig. 132 From Cateran Bay, Border Island, Whitsunday Islands, collecting station 101, showing close similarity with the holotype of P. torresiana. [My note: P. torresiana was reconciled under P. rugosa later too.]
Figs. 133, 134 From Sue Island, collecting station 17.

Close-up of P. rugosa skeleton, showing a lot of the ridges of the "corallite" that isn't necessarily star-shaped, but still has plenty of septa. Almost "snake"-like morphology, perhaps lending to why it was also once called the "serpent coral". IC: Wells JW (1954).

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

In 1849, Milne and Edwards first described the genus Pachyseris, meaning "thick lettuce" in Greek. While I'm unsure what lettuce Milne and Edwards were eating (jk), they moved A. rugosa into Pachyseris as the type specimen, creating the P. rugosa we know of today.

Image of a more encrusting/massive P. rugosa, still with its trippy undulating lines and large ridges and septa. This colony is more of a white than the previous orange ones. IC: Emre Turak and Lyndon DeVantier

A zoomed out image of an extensively large colony of P. rugosa, this one of the more columnar morphology I talked about earlier. This large colony goes on as far as you can see in the image. IC: Ed Lovell

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

In this description, Lamarck makes an important point here, "the stars are not visible". In this case, Lamarck is referring to a star-like structure that coral polyps are housed in, within the skeleton. These are what we refer to as "corallites". Notice them missing on this P. rugosa skeleton?

Diagram of a hexacoral (hard coral) corallite. It is circular and divided into six-fold symmetry with six large primary septa that divide up the circular corallite, and then divided further by secondary and tertiary septa. In between these septa is the theca, and the center, where the main mouth-hole is, is the columella. IC: NOAA

Image of a Pachyseris skeleton, of the one I got a tattoo of earlier in the thread. Since this is the skeleton, it is wholly white. There is a hole where some worm or other organism may have burrowed in when it was alive. Again, looks oddly like a biological heart, but maybe that's just me! Noticeably, it still has all the ridges, and no noticeable corallites. IC: me

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

Now the WOrld Register of Marine Species (WORMS) lists good ol' Lamarck (the giraffe reaches for high tree so neck get longer guy) as the person to first describe Pachyseries rugosa, but as Agaricia rugosa 1801 (it actually was described in his follow-up book in 1816 as below)

Screenshot from Lamarck's 1816 Histoire naturelle des animeux sans vertébras, scanned on yellowed paperment.

Original text in French:

3. Agarice ridée. Agaricia rugosa.
A. frondibus brevibus, undato-contortis, rugosissimis; rugis confertis, elevatis, irregularibus, lamelloso-striatis.
Mus. n.o
Habite les mers australes. Péron et le Sueur. Elle est sin- gulièrement ridée en dessus, et ses rides sont élevées, ser- rées les unes contre les autres, inégales, contournées, et transversalement striées par de petites lames. Le dessous de ses expansions est nu, avec des stries fines vers les bords; mais ces expansions se contournent et souvent se replient de manière que leur surface supérieure est la seule apparente. Les étoiles ne paraissent point.

Google Translation (sorry French speakers if this is astoundingly wrong):
3. Wrinkled agarice. Agaricia rugosa.
A. frondibus brevibus, undato-contortis, rugosissimis; rugis confertis, elevatis, irregularibus, lamelloso-striatis.
Mus. n.o
Inhabits the southern seas. Péron and Le Sueur. It is singularly wrinkled above, and its wrinkles are high, pressed against each other, unequal, contoured, and transversely streaked by small blades. The underside of its expansions is bare, with fine streaks towards the edges; but these expansions go around and often fold back so that their upper surface is the only one visible. The stars do not appear.

(My note: the stars here refer to the polyps/mouths)

Another image of a live Pachyseris reguosa colony, this time with the tag "52" by zip-tie on the colony. This one seems to have more, but thinner branches than the previous, almost creating a more uniform colony, but still with all the undulation and heterogeneity great for bouncing of light.
IC: Dr. Allison Lewis

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 07/02/2025

The world: 🔥🔥🔥 Me: let's dissociate and talk about the hard coral genus, Pachyseris, which includes the "Elephant Skin" coral, Pachyersis rugosa (which I got tattoo'd on my leg recently) 🦑🪸🧪 #CoralReefs

An image of an underwater colony of Pachyseris rugosa, the elephant skin coral. There is a large nail put through a tag onto some bare rock between the coral labelled "45". The colony itself is composed of many column-like projections that come up to a peak. The texture of the coral's ridges/septa is very unique and undulating, seemingly following no pattern, almost resembling the crest and ridges of skin, or in this case, elephants skin. It's very mesmerizing to following the lines. IC: Dr. Allison Lewis (collaborator)

An image of a pale, white leg shaved in the middle for tattoo of a Pachyseris rugosa with fine ink lines following the undulating patterning of the coral. It ranges from orange-yellow at the top down into a teal-ish blue at the bottom. Overall, it almost resembles a biological heart, which is based off of a skeleton we have in our lab.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 29/01/2025

To those that have been following me on my academic journey while I get nearer to my defense: I've decided to delay my defense until the Summer. This grants me more time to look for next steps. My current postdoc apps would be funded by federal agencies, and the current situation is scary.

An image of a long hair cat with its underside mostly white and grey on top with zigzagging coloration between. He is staring at the image tacker (off screen) with his green eyes open. He is sitting on a grey blanket.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 27/01/2025

Interestingly, last time I was in the field, one of my collaborators (@xestysponge.bsky.social) snapped an image of many Fungiid's aggregated together. I am uncertain if this is a monospecific pairing (and wouldn't trust without genetic evidence first), but it's a very fascinating behavior.

A top-down image of a very crowded reef in Palau. There are lots of smaller colonies of branching corals of various shapes, sizes, and genera-species (notably, some Pocillopora, Seriatopora, Acropora, likely others). There are also some green grass-like sprouts here and there of kelp, but not much. The focal point of this image are a large number of disc-shaped Fungiids in multiple aggregations. They are all uniform in shape and size however, but do differ greatly in color. Some are light brown, dark brown, orange-ish brown, and there is one very unique one that is green. Some of them have pretty purple splotches on them as well. It is diffuclt to tell for certain as there's a branching coral on top of it, but there may also be a dark red one. There are a couple small (1-2 inch) long bright blue fish around in the image as well.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 27/01/2025

Funnily enough, these corals also sometimes display "swarming" or "aggregating" behavior. One paper, by Heintz and Laboute (2020) reported the first known monospecific (one species!) aggregation of these corals, which may be a behavior for sexual reproduction.

A three part figure of the disc, Fungiid corals aggreggating together. Image caption below, but first image descriptions: Panel "a" shows a large number of these fungiids aggregating together of different shapes and sizes. Panel "b" shows more of these, including labels "i" and "ii" that correspond to fungiids that have elongated forms derived from sexual reproduction, and another amorphous "star" shape one (it's called star shaped in the caption, but its difficult to tell here). Panel "c" shows more of the fungiids, including more of the "i" elongated one and another "ii" but this one looks very star-like with each point a different size, with roughly 5-6-ish different points, it's difficult to tell exactly because of shading.

Image caption:
Fig 1 a Polyphyllia novaehiberniae aggregation in NewCaledonia (scale bar 10 cm) representing a wide range ofgrowth forms; b Elongated form derived from sexual reproduction (i) and star-shaped form (ii) (scale bar
10 cm); c Round corals originating from regenerated fragments (i) and fused individuals regenerated from an empty stalk (ii) (scale bar 5 cm)

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 17/01/2025

Please like and subscribe for more coral facts 🧪🪸🦑

Image of a Palauan Reef taken by Collaborator Dr. Shelby Gantt. Lots of various reds, browns, and yellows in the corals. There is a Fungiid coral that has positioned itself on the ledge of a Montipora, possibly not far off from falling off of it. You can only mostly see the underside of it. Yes, these Fungiids have the ability to move. Not fast! But they certainly do move. Some have been noted to form large aggregations, possibly for reproduction.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 16/01/2025

Why is my PowerPoint blue now. It's always been red/orange. PowerPoint IS red/orange. I feel betrayed. This is wrong. PowerPoint is a lie.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 13/01/2025

To put the video into better perspective. Here are some images from 2010 by James L. Stuby. Here's the thing: this is still far from ideal. You ask people that were there in 2000, 1990, and further back, and they'll say these images are sad. Shifting baseline syndrome is very real.

Image of Looe Reef, full of staghorn hard corals, Acropora palmata. They are relatively large colonies extending out into the distance of the reef. Very orange, very healthy.

Image of the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis, a decently sized colony that is branching in what you may imagine a stereotypical branching coral to appear to look like. Mostly orange, except it has white types, which is typical of the coral while healthy.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 13/01/2025

The Indo-Pacific is not far behind. Multiple papers through the years have begun documented a slow, but steady increase in soft coral coverage. It may only be a matter of decades, or even years, until the Indo-Pacific is wholly octocoral dominated, much like Atlantic reefs.

Image of a journal article published in Hydrobiologia, "Demographic aspects of the soft coral Sinularia [my note: now Sclerophytum] flexibilis leading to local dominance on coral reefs" by C. Bastidas, K. E. Fabricius, and B. L. Willis. Key words: GBR (Great Barrier Reef), population dynamics, Sinularia, soft corals. Published in 2004.

Screenshot from Journal Article "Abundance and physiology of dominant soft corals linked to water quality in Jakarta Bay, Indonesia" by Gunilla Baum, Indra Januar, Sebastian C.A. Ferse, Christian Wild, and Andreas Kunzmann. Published in 2016.

Screenshot of Journal Article "Phase shift from a stony-coral to a soft-coral community on a coral reef: a case study of an alternative state" by Konstantin S. Tkachenko, Vu Viet Dung, and Vo Thi Ha. Published in 2022.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 13/01/2025

One of these things (is not like the others) 🎶🧪

Ad for Disney and National Geographic's "A Real Bug's Life 2 narrated by awkwafina, available on Disney+ January 15th." The promotional ad has multiple leaves, each with a arthropod on them (Cicada, various beetles/insects I am not familiar with, a jumping spider, and a stag beetle)... and then there's one leaf with a snail.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 06/01/2025

Happy to see the weird tank in DFW Terminal E that usually has just Sinularia brassica and one fish, has added some pulsing Xeniids (wouldn't trust any genus level ID without a sequencer) Fun fact: Sinularia used to be one of the most speciose genera of softies. Now? One species. 🧪🦑🪸⬇️

Image of a saltwater tank. There are multiple leafy, purple (near the tips, then more grey) colonies of S. brassica. There is one plate, likely from the pet store, that has some pretty, purple Xeniids. Most of the rest of the shot is living rocks, possibly with encrusting red algae growing on them, though that's VERY outside my own wheelhouse.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 02/01/2025

It's almost time for defense. I'll be sharing a Zoom link on my page for those interested in listening to me babble about specificity in Coral-Symbiodiniaceae mutualisms. Any final tips?🧪🦑

Meme image in the format of the "Dawn of the Final Day" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but instead saying "Dawn of the Final Stretch; 50 Days Remain Until Dissertation Defense"

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 29/12/2024

Partial and complete genome duplication events abound 🧪🦑

The car salesman meme where a salesman in a suit is trying to sell a car to another man looking contemplatively with his hand on his chin. There are three different electron microscopy images of different dinoflagellates where the car normally is. It is captioned "micro-eukaryote salesman: *slaps armor of dino* you can fit so much dna in it".

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 25/12/2024

Happy holidays from the cat my parents named after me

Image the same cat in the quote image sitting under a lighted rainbow christmas tree, looking rather concerned.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 20/12/2024

As an adult visiting my parents for the holidays, I get to practice my context clues as my parents named their new cat after me, after I moved out

Image of a cat sitting in a patio chair, staring forward at the camera. The cat is a larger cat (it's dense muscle, he was an outside cat prior to adoption) He is mostly brownish-black with a white chest that extends up to between his green eyes. He looks watchful, but not scared.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 19/12/2024

One hexacoral stands alone an octocoral reef. Can the lone hard coral stand the **heat**? Coming to most coral reefs soon. 🧪🦑

Meme zoomed in on the only hexacoral/hard coral on the image posted originally with an aged filter on it. A cartoon cowboy hat has been added on top and there are two needles representing nematocysts to either side. It is caption in typewriter bold red font "The Lone Hexacoral" in green smaller typewriter font, "This reef aint cool enough fot most of em :(". The Lone Hexacoral is surrounded by some gorgonians of different species.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 19/12/2024

Just waiting on our flights for the holidays ⌚️

Picture of a bird on carpet in the airport looking left.

Picture of the same bird looking forward at the camera.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 19/12/2024

Octocoral representation on one of the (supposed) best books of the year!! Melithaea (or related) I think! (No idea if a good book, unfortunately grad students don’t get paid enough for $30 off the rack books) 🧪🦑

An image of a book in a rack titled "Playground" by Richard Powers. The cover features the underside of some ray and then a deep red sea fan in the bottom right and some other marine rubble in the bottom left. There's also a misplaced book description beneath for another book called The Ministry of Time.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 19/12/2024

Definitely need to get some custom metal logo S. necroappetens on acid-wash black sweaters now..

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 18/12/2024

There's many more fascinating symbiotic Scyphozoans like Cotylorhiza tuberculata (which associates with two species from different genera simultaneously, very rare! and the species I have tattoo'd on me). Though my personal favorite is Cephea cephea which we haven't been able to study (yet!) 🧪🦑

Cephea cephea, the Cauliflower/Crowned jellyfish. It is very purple in the bell and radiating out into the arms, but the terminal ends, which host the brown symbionts, are brown. On top-center it has projections radiating out like a "crown", which has an unknown function! IC: Derek Keats

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 18/12/2024

As someone that studies this symbiosis and specificity in it, this raises the question for me of how conserved or similar this symbiosis is across all Cnidarians. Symbiodiniaceae associate with hard corals, soft corals, marine hydrozoans (fire corals!), and true jellyfish.

Image of Palauan coral reed dominated by soft corals Sarcophytidae, which visually resemble Sarcophytons but my genetic analyses place them in a cryptic group outside. There's a Lemnaliid in the foreground and several hard corals dot the area, mostly encrusting. In the top right is a bouldering Millepora, a "fire coral" that's actually a hydrozoan. IC: Todd LaJeunesse, taken while sampling soft corals for me

An image of Cassiopea jellyfish, the upside down mangrove jellyfish. There's a bunch of them crowding a tank's substrate. Taken by me at the Baltimore aquarium

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 18/12/2024

I am constantly fascinated by Anthopleura's ability to form mutualisms with the normal marine Cnidarian symbionts of Symbiodiniaceae (dinoflagellates; brown algae!) but also Chlorella (green algae, more related to plants!) which can also form mutualisms with freshwater hydra! 🧪 🦑

A horde of Anthopleura hosting chlorella (neon green) surrounding the one dinoflagellate holdout (brownish-grown). Image taken by me.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 09/12/2024

How to deal with unproductive colleagues that just sit on your desk and silently judge your code?

Image of a white and grey long hair cat sitting on my desk, facing away from the camera and instead looking at my monitor. Ears are flared and concerned.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 03/12/2024

Shout out to my landlord for selling my email information to a some rent payment plan that gives me a heart attack every month by sending me emails like this even when I've paid rent

Image of an email from a company called Flex saying "Reminder: Rent is due, don't be late this month". Don't worry, I hit unsubscribe this time.

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 29/11/2024

And the feather star perched on it in my image? Same thing! Their feathery appearance on their arms is used to maximize their own surface area. This rule applies to so many things in biology, include bird feathers to maximize lift! Or the microvilli in our guts for nutrient absorption!

Transmission electron micrograph image of microvilli, almost carpet-like projects that just constantly line the cells to boost surface-area for nutrient absorption. IC: Louisa Howard, Katherine Connollly

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 29/11/2024

What makes them a great filter feeder? HIGH surface area. If biology had "laws", form == function *(usually)* would be a great one. By spreading out across planes and forming interconnected lattices, these sea fans are maximizing their surface area to collect things from the water column.

Image of more crinoids on some Melithaea ( I think), on a reef shelf sloped down. There are three feather stars clusters together on one branch. Perhaps the optimal branch, as it is the one sticking out the most. IC: Phillip Colla

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Dr. Caleb C. Butler 🦠🪸 @calebcbutler.com · 29/11/2024

A beautiful Melithaea (or related genus) in front of a magnificently bouldering Porites (I think). This group of sea-fans is thought to be non-symbiotic with algae, unlike most other corals, but make great filter-feeders, and hosts to other filter-feeders, like crinoids! 🧪🦑🪸🧵 #coralreefs

Image of a Melithaea from the Great Barrier Reef, taken by my collaborator at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, Dr. Katharina E. Fabricius.

The seafan is a dark reddish-brown. A crinoid (feather-star) is perched on one branch of the organism, splayed out. Some branching hard corals in the background.

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