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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

I became obsessed with these questions around 2021, leading to my first Scripps (1-day) research cruise in 2024 with @arciladk.bsky.social where we collected the specimens sequenced for this project.

The Mexican lampfish, Triphoturus mexicanus, collected off San Diego in 2026. Note the iridescent photophores forming a species-characteristic pattern on the side of the fish.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Also check out this amazing video filmed by my star undergrad who found this ongoing in the fish room this morning. #Anableps Note the males trying to mate with the female *while* she is giving birth 😱 😅 smdh

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

🚨New baby animal alert 🚨 For the first time - 13 newborn four-eyed fish in the lab after months-long gestation period!!!! 😍🥹 #Anableps 🤓🐟

Single newborn 3” four eyed fish - grey brown with a white dorsal stripe in a shoebox. Note the iris grows tendrils that meet in the middle forming two pupils in each eye - already fully formed at birth.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Large crowd at #StandUpForScience2025 #Berkeley !!! 🧪🧬🔬 Nobel-prize winner CRISPR discoverer Jennifer Doudna just spoke!

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

I'll be there -- this Friday! 🧪 Don't stop protesting the dehumanization of our people and the dismantling of our institutions just to enrich a few billionaires. Protest is still the most effective tool we have. #StandUpForScience2025 #SanctionMusk #BoycottNatureSpringer

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Returning from a fun workshop/conference in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology for Darwin’s birthday. All senior scientists here are alarmed and bewildered about what’s happening in the US. 😥

Snowy village of Plön next to a large lake.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

I just need to share these photos of our four-eyed fish #Anableps anableps I took yesterday in our fish room. 15/10 one of the best fishes 😍 🧪🐟 #MarineLife We are studying vision in these fish as a component of my Ichthyology undergraduate research ( #CURE ) course IB177LF.

Iris growing tendrils that meet in the middle, forming an upper and lower pupil. Note the shadow of lower pupil reflected in the water. There is a dark band of melanin pigmentation at the water line across the iris tendrils as well with shades of green in the skin around the eye.

Two four-eyed fish swimming side by side. They are positively buoyant - floating with just their eyes and tips of their snouts above the water like adorable crocodiles.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Highlight of the trip was this Pacific red octopus - found by one of the undergrads in my lab on her very first time tidepooling! 🥳

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

More highlights from my lab’s tidepooling trip to Maverick’s beach: Monkeyface prickleback!!! 😍 Black prickleback, northern clingfish, and tidepool sculpin. 🦑🐟 #teamfish #fishes Soon to be catalogued in the MVZ fishes collection 🙏🥲

Brown banded face of monkeyface prickleback

Tidepool sculpin dorsal view - black, white, and brown banded with little hairs projecting from lateral line.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Fantastic day of #nudibranchs at Maverick’s beach during the King tide - Spotted, Monterey, and Cockerell’s Dorids. #MarineLife

Bright orange spotted dorid nudibranchs in a plastic bin for viewing (released afterwards!)

Bright yellow Monterey dorid with little eyestalks like rabbit ears

White with orange tipped tentacles on Cockerell’s dorid

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 01/11/2024

The horrific parasite hanging off this #lanternfish belongs to the copepod lineage. The prey long ago evolved to parasitize their predator! Happy Halloween 🎃 😱!!! 🧪 #MarineLife #evo

Oval reddish blob with two long thin tendrils is hanging from the ventral side of the lanternfish’s head. This copepod parasite is almost as long as its host 😱

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 30/10/2024

I had no idea these were so abundant and was shocked to find one - the literal inspiration for Ridley Scott’s #Aliens queen! 😱 This is a Phronima amphipod, which hollows out the insides of salps to make itself a pelagic jelly home. #evo #MarineLife 🧪🐟🐠 arthropoda.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/d...

Transparent amphipod several inches long lying in my hand with a large bulbous head reminiscent of the Aliens queen.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

And what preys on these abundant lanternfishes? Everything 🤣! But these long Chauliodus dragonfish were relatively abundant down there as well - with species-specific bioluminescent chin barbels! 😱🥰 After one trawl this was the catch tank for closer inspection #MarineLife #fish #evo #evosky

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

What is the most abundant vertebrate in the world? Even biologists rarely know the answer- lanternfishes🏮🐟 Myctophids are so abundant the Navy thought the ocean was only 500 m deep when it first invented sonar, then noticed the bottom was migrating to the surface at night! 😱 🧪 #evosky #MarineLife

Iridescent blue with ventral photophores - possibly Lampanichthys sp. lanternfish in hand.

Triphoturus mexicanus lanternfish - most abundant fish off San Diego coast - about 90% of the catch.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

And this was one of the largest fishes at 600 m depth - a snipe eel! With some of the strangest jaws of all vertebrates for feeding on shrimp. But how??? Still unclear since feeding has never been observed! 😱 🧪🐟🐠 #evolution #evolsky #fish #mesopelagic

Needle thing elongated jaws of the snipe eel

Me holding a snipe eel on board the ship.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 23/10/2024

Just returned from an incredible deep sea cruise with Dahiana Arcila and Ben Frable at Scripps - and we found a deep sea #anglerfish!!!!!!! 😱😱😱🤯🤯🤯 Dream come true since I was 6 years old 🥲. Stay tuned for more highlights of the catch (from a single midwater trawl at 600 m!). 🧪 #evo #evosky 🐟🐠

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 09/10/2024

My oldest daughter’s chosen theme for her 9th birthday party was “blobfish” and I am just such a proud ichthyologist dad 🥲🙏 trying to hide my utter enthusiasm so she sticks with it for the 10th 🤞🧪🥹

blobfish cake I made for my kiddo’s 9th birthday 🥳

Blobfish dress, blobfish stickers, and *blobfish ear rings* for her birthday 🥳 🥳🥳

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 19/09/2024

Here’s ‘Curtis’ our West African #lungfish after six months in aestivation yesterday and … today looking swell 😎🥳! Check out that papery cocoon! 🧪🐟 Our preprint on this undergrad-driven #CURE research: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Aestivating lungfish covered in dry cocoon growing mold surrounded by drying mud in a fish tank.

Papery thin cocoon with multiple thicknesses from cocoon regrowth.

Curtis after rehydration with most of their cocoon peeled away.

Curtis happily underwater again today with a pile of food and peeled off cocoon.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 30/07/2024

Great talk by my grad student David Tian #Evol2024 DEADBOX ☠️ gene may be killing one of the most endangered fish species on earth, the Devil’s Hole #pupfish 😈🐟😱 +whole genome assemblies and sequencing 100+ genomes of both adult and embryonic lethal Devil’s Hole pupfish among many other discoveries!

David Tian presenting his dissertation work on Devil’s Hole pupfish.

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Chris Martin @fishspeciation.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

My postdoc Feña Palominos' first paper from the lab is out today in PRSB! We discovered a new role for galr2 in vertebrate craniofacial development using a pupfish adaptive radiation endemic to San Salvador Island, Bahamas. #evolution #fish #lepidophage royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

In situ hybridization chain reaction showing that Galr2a is expressed in the chondrocytes of the Meckel’s and palatoquadrate cartilages at hatching (8 dpf) in San Salvador Island pupfishes.

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