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Nathan Lujan

@potamophile.bsky.social
294 followers 182 following 56 posts

Ichthyologist | Associate Curator, Royal Ontario Museum | Assistant Professor, University of Toronto | River Guardian: cutt.ly/UgQO0Z1 | @IUCN FW Fish Specialist Group | IG: @potamophile

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Reposted by Nathan Lujan
Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
You have less than a month to visit one of North America's great nature museum. richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-great-na...
richardconniff.substack.com
A Great Nature Museum Closes Its Doors
A university “saved” a major center of American science. Now it means to kill it.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Same goes for biodiversity.
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 17/08/2026
Brazil plans to dredge the Madeira River for grain exports, despite recent fatal barge collisions and local safety fears. Communities worry expanding waterway traffic will prioritize agribusiness over those reliant on the river for fishing and daily life. Story by @bykarlamendes.bsky.social.
mongabay.cc
Fatal barge crashes fuel fear over Madeira River waterway expansion in Brazil
With an election looming, Amazon communities worry their safety will be traded for faster agribusiness growth.
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Mongabay Latam @mongabaylatam.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
🇵🇪 #EleccionesPerú Este 7 de junio, #Perú elegirá un nuevo presidente. Expertos advierten que el próximo gobierno deberá enfrentar desafíos urgentes como la minería ilegal, el crimen organizado y la violencia contra pueblos indígenas. es.mongabay.com/2026/06/mine...
es.mongabay.com
Minería ilegal, crimen organizado y violencia: la agenda ambiental que le espera al próximo presidente de Perú
Minería ilegal, crimen organizado y violencia: la agenda ambiental que le espera al próximo presidente de Perú
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Ashkaan K. Fahimipour @akfbio.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Reptiles with longer Wikipedia pages tend to be bigger. The relationship is a power law with exponent = 0.85. I guess humans really like writing about big lizards? The longest article is the Komodo Dragon.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Great to see this news! With Ugandan fisheries personnel, I sampled rivers all around the Ugandan flank of Mt Elgon almost 20 years ago when there were no large wild mammals remaining. At the time this absence and the development that caused it seemed irreversible.
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Paul Barrett @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
We’re hiring a herpetology curator @nhm-london.bsky.social - come join us! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/internal/Job...
jobs.nhm.ac.uk
Senior Curator in Charge, Herpetology:South Kensington
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🤘Patricia Lee, Publisher @hairydogproductions.com · 11/05/2026
Hemp plastics have been an option for some time now too. Unless we FORCE manufacturing to change.. why wouid it? phys.org/news/2026-04...
phys.org
Hemp-based thermoplastic offers a greener alternative to plastic packaging
As the global pollution crisis caused by manufacturing and disposing of single-use plastics continues to grow, researchers have developed a non-toxic plastic alternative derived from the hemp plant—a ...
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 15/04/2026
Social media is accelerating the illegal wildlife trade, creating a direct digital pipeline from remote forests to urban buyers. A recent sting in Laos, sparked by a Facebook post, resulted in the rescue of two 2-month-old Asiatic black bear cubs. @npbrao.bsky.social reports for #Mongabay.
mongabay.cc
Two-month-old bear cubs rescued from Facebook sale in Laos
Two Asiatic black bear cubs posted for sale on Facebook have been rescued in Laos as part of an illegal wildlife trade sting. Free the Bears, an international conservation nonprofit, coordinated the…
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Mongabay Latam @mongabaylatam.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
🇧🇴 En operativos de fuerzas estatales bolivianas fueron destruidos 11 campamentos de minería ilegal en la Amazonía valuados en 12 millones de dólares. Las acciones se concentraron en ríos cercanos al Parque Nacional Madidi. ⬇️ es.mongabay.com/2026/03/boli...
es.mongabay.com
Bolivia: destruyen 11 campamentos mineros ilegales valuados en 12 millones de dólares
Destruyen 11 campamentos mineros ilegales valuados en 12 millones de dólares en Bolivia. Documentamos el operativo.
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Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
There's just over one week left to soak up the excitement of Sharks, closing March 22! @potamophile.bsky.social brings us up close to the smallest specimen of the biggest shark in the ocean, the whale shark & the 2nd smallest: the pygmy shark! Both held in the palm of his hand! ✋
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Tennessee Lookout @tennesseelookout.com · 13/03/2026
Legislation enshrining scenic river protections for treasured Middle Tennessee waterways is moving forward after lawmakers rejected a change that would have removed a clause barring landfills within two miles of scenic rivers. @cstephenson.bsky.social reports.
tennesseelookout.com
Bill extending scenic river protections to most of Duck, Buffalo Rivers moves forward • Tennessee Lookout
Legislation enshrining scenic river protections for treasured Middle Tennessee waterways like the Duck River is moving forward.
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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
A Dutch lock is closed for the spring, and its employees want you to tell them when migrating fish come knocking by ringing a digital doorbell
scientificamerican.com
Ding-dong! The Dutch Fish Doorbell needs you to help migrating fish
A Dutch lock is closed for the spring, and its employees want you to tell them when migrating fish come knocking by ringing a digital doorbell
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Donna Giberson (Elbows UP!) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @donnag.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Incredible article about Art Borkent, biting midges, and aging taxonomists. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out?
Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Shout out to the inestimable Sandra Raredon, the Smithsonian Museum Specialist who made this images, and for decades has helped visiting researchers produce similar images.
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Simon Pooley @s-pooley.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
I'm pleased to see the @linneansociety.bsky.social have posted a video of my talk on Discovering the Okapi on their YouTube channel, here youtu.be/MCOHAGII0a0?...
youtu.be
Discovering the Okapi
YouTube video by Linnean Society
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Greg Priest @gregpriest.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
OTD in 1912, Alfred Wegener delivered a lecture propounding the theory that our modern continents were formed by the splitting and drifting apart of an ancient supercontinent, which he named Pangea. Due to his failure to offer a plausible mechanism, he was widely ridiculed. 🧠🗃️⚒️ 🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci
Wegener's (1915) depiction of the breakup of Pangaea. (a) the Carboniferous, (b) the Eocene, (c) today.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Great to see a natural history collection growing in an era when the expansion of barriers to such growth is inexorable.
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Dan 🐟 C @zebrafish007.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Exciting new #Zebrafish research from the #WeinsteinLab, led by Jong Park! “Specialized gas-exchange endothelium of the zebrafish gill” — www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Amazing to see red blood cells moving through the gills! Don’t forget to check out the supplemental movies ;-)
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Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Ladies, does your man hang out in the deep sea, have a cartilaginous skeleton, and teeth on his forehead? That's not your man, that is a chimera. 👻🦈 In honour of Halloween weekend, Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social Curator of Fishes at ROM) gave us a lesson on these creepy creatures.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
The Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social is delighted to seek a collections specialist specializing in birds and mammals. Candidates should have 3-5 years collections experience and deep knowledge of avian and mammalian taxonomy, systematics, and identification.
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Bruce Stallsmith @laimosemion.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
The Tennessee Aquarium is hiring a temporary field technician for sampling work to discover Trispot Darter distribution. Details below: 🧪🐟 #TeamFish
tnaqua.applicantpro.com
Temporary Field Technician - Chattanooga, TN
The Temporary Field Technician will assist with our Trispot Darter Distribution Assessment Project. The objective of this project is to assess the current distribution of the Trispot Darter (Etheostom...
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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
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.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
The Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social is delighted to seek a new Curator of Plants. With more than 1.1 million specimens, including the largest, most representative collection of Ontario flora available, ROM's plant collection is world-class and global in scope.
royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com
Curator of Plants & Sustainability - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page
Apply to Curator of Plants & Sustainability at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
The Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social is delighted to seek a new Curator of Birds. With more than 200,000 specimens, including the world’s largest collection of bird skeletons, ROM's bird collection is the largest in Canada and one of the world's largest.
royalontariomuseum.applytojob.com
Curator of Birds - Royal Ontario Museum - Career Page
Apply to Curator of Birds at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
The @romtoronto.bsky.social Sharks exhibition is opening this weekend! The perfect family-friendly destination for the Thanksgiving long weekend!
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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
And that's how you integrate digital elements into an exhibition. Part of the temporary "China's Dinosaur World" at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, China. Closing this November. Video source: Shanghai Let's Meet
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The Linnean Society of London @linneansociety.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Today is #AmazonRainforestDay! Home to 47 million people and around 10% of all species on Earth, this incredible ecosystem is under threat from mass deforestation and climate change. You can visit buff.ly/D6xZCkJ to learn more about how to help the Amazon Rainforest.
An aerial view of a rainforest with a river running through it. Text on top reads "Amazon Rainforest Day".
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
I'm excited to be traveling to Lima, Peru, tomorrow to give a keynote lecture on "New approaches to the study of neotropical fishes: Genomics, eDNA, and computed tomography" at the National Life Sciences Congress.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Proud of @romtoronto.bsky.social and @utsc.utoronto.ca Provosts Postdoctoral Fellow Tobit Liyandja for publishing this core chapter of his PhD dissertation.
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EvolDir @evoldir.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Postdoc position (24 mos) in Bioinformatics for Integrative Taxonomy at MNHN, Paris. Develop software tools for taxonomy research. Apply by Sept 7: recrutement.mnhn.fr/front-jobs-deta… #postdoc
recrutement.mnhn.fr
Chargé de recherche bioinformatique appliquée à la taxonomie intégrative (F/H) @ Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
Muséum national d'Histoire naturellerecrute !
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Windsor Aguirre @windsor-aguirre.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
“We are undergoing unprecedented loss of freshwater across the planet.” And need new leadership yesterday. :/ www.newscientist.com/article/2490...
newscientist.com
We are undergoing unprecedented loss of freshwater across the planet
Rising temperatures are causing water to evaporate and driving humans to extract more groundwater, which is moving freshwater from the land to the seas and creating a "continental drying" trend
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
@FMNH is hiring a new curator of Invertebrate Zoology!
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Matt Herbert @matteherbert.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Fish are disappearing in an African lake that feeds the people of four countries. #Freshwater lakes may not be as vast as oceans but they are just as important. #fisheries news-decoder.com/finally-a-fo...
news-decoder.com
Finally, a focus on freshwater fish
Fish are disappearing in an African lake that feeds the people of four countries. Freshwater lakes may not be as vast as oceans but they are just as important.
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SHOAL @shoalorg.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
📢 We're hiring! Roles at SHOAL don't come up that often, and when they do, we know they're exciting: are you our new Data Officer? Learn more and apply here 👉 shoalconservation.org/careers/
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Brielle Comartin @briellecomartin.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Was thrilled to find so many freshwater sponges during a practice dive in the St. Lawrence River, including some growing on unionid mussels! #freshwatersponges
Freshwater sponge on a rock. Freshwater sponges on unionid mussels.
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
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...
about.biodiversitylibrary.org
Call for Support: – About BHL
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Kicking off the 2025 ROM Population Genomics Symposium is @asherdcutter.bsky.social sharing new insights into the diversity of Caenorhabditis in the @romtoronto.bsky.social Glass Room.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Great talk on population genomics of the Xingu River Volta Grande by PDF Tobit Liyandja from the Lovejoy and Lujan labs at the EEB-Toronto Atwood Colloquium!
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The Anatomical Record @anatrecord.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Some microphagous fishes have a unique pocket-like throat structure, epibranchial organ (EBO), that helps gather tiny food particles. New study of 13 species reveals diverse EBO anatomy, weak phylogenetic ties & possible link to diet Evans et al: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/b...
nytimes.com
Trump Science Funding Cuts May Hurt Economy, Experts Say
Since World War II, U.S. research funding has led to discoveries that fueled economic gains. Now cutbacks are seen as putting that legacy in jeopardy.
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Royal Ontario Museum @romtoronto.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
We’re excited to announce our expanded slate of ROM Ontario Fish Identification Workshops for 2025. 🐟 Designed primarily for professionals, technicians, field biologists, and environmental consultants, other interested individuals - including university and college students – are also welcome!
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Carl-August W. @basaltweaver.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Paleo-art-map of South America during the Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian, 72 - 66 MYA). Original resolution: 75 x 100 cm (300 DPI). This is the first part of a wider Maastrichtian series that I've been working on over the winter. Sharing another map tomorrow :) #geology #dinosaurs #sciart
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Joaquín Hortal @jhortal.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Although many invertebrates and other less-charismatic groups are key for ecosystem service provision, they and their functions are rarely included in conservation strategies. Benoit Guénard, @achughes.bsky.social et al show how funding largely goes to charismatic rather than threatened species 🌐🧪🪲
pnas.org
Limited and biased global conservation funding means most threatened species remain unsupported | PNAS
The conservation of biodiversity represents a global challenge as the world experiences its sixth mass extinction. Understanding how conservation e...
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SHOAL @shoalorg.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Interesting that even in this article about conservation funding disparities, fish aren’t mentioned once. ‘Most conservation funds go to large vertebrates at expense of ‘neglected’ species’. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Most conservation funds go to large vertebrates at expense of ‘neglected’ species
Study shows funding bias towards animals like rhino while other endangered species including amphibians and algae disregarded
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Anthony Ricciardi @ecoinvasions.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
What a great story! The introduction alone is well worth reading.
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Second Rights of Nature Tribunal to coincide with Toronto mining conference PDAC. Will focus on Canada’s international extractivism with a specific focus on the Belo Sun mining project, which poses an existential threat to the lower Xingu River, Brasil. www.rightsofnaturetribunal.org/impacts-of-m...
rightsofnaturetribunal.org
Impacts Of Mining And The Post-Extractivism Era Tribunal 2025 - Rights Of Nature Tribunal
Themed “The Impacts of Mining and the Post-Extractivism Era” this session will highlight the environmental and human rights impacts of Canadian mining companies worldwide. Witnesses from diverse regio...
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Finally having the first lab meeting of 2025, with presentations on Acestrorhamphidae alpha taxonomy from Tiago Faria and 3D shape variation in loricariid opercles from Mikhail Clare!
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Nathan Lujan @potamophile.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Check out the gear on this Hemipsilichthys papillatus (MCP 39539), a member of the 'primitive' loricariid subfamily Delturinae from the Paraíba do Sul drainage in southeastern Brazil. It has large cheek odontodes like the more diverse Hypostominae subfamily, but it can't evert them.
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