Dan Paluh

Out now in @anatrecord.bsky.social: The distinct synsacrum of knob-tailed geckos (Gekkota: Carphodactylidae: Nephrurus) doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

Granados-Martinez et al. (2025) ran behavioral field experiments to test whether male Strawberry Poison Frogs (Oophaga pumilio) rely on vision for navigation in tropical forests and open areas. Read a summary of their results at AmphibiaWeb.org #AWNews

Spring has officially arrived. Pair of wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) in amplexus.

Grow a thick skin frog! VanBuren et al. (2025) examined three frog species from the northern United States and found that skin layers were not consistent over the time. Read the details at AmphibiaWeb.org #AWNews

Our paper on convergent regressive evolution of genes involved in oral anatomy of myrmecophagous mammals is now officially published @molbioevol.bsky.social

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msag009

The recent description of the 9,000th amphibian species marks a remarkable milestone for biodiversity science and a testament to decades of careful fieldwork, taxonomy, and collaboration across the globe. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org #AWNews

Complex range expansion and selective regime in the introduced Florida cane toad - Heredity Heredity - Complex range expansion and selective regime in the introduced Florida cane toad

New paper led by my former student Cinnamon Mittan... find out what those cane toads have been doing once they got established down there in Florida... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Navarrete et al. (2025) provides evidence that Caecilians aren't totally blind. Go to AmphibiaWeb.org to read more of this #AWNews.

Rete ridges form via evolutionarily distinct mechanisms in mammalian skin - Nature A spatial and single-cell transcriptomics study across multiple mammalian species identifies epidermal BMP signalling as a functional requirement for rete ridge formation, providing insight into ...

Ridges under the skin - paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How are ballistic tongues in plethodonts and chameleons similar and different? Zeng et al. (2025) explore this in this week's #AWNews. Visit AmphibiaWeb.org to read more.

Limnonectes palavanensis group exhibit one of the most advanced brood care behaviors. Recently, Dehling et al (2025) showed that there is an unexpectedly high diversity within this clade. Read more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

Cartoon of Pax9 expression (purple) during facial development in mouse (left) and zebrafish (right). Text: Mammals. Pax9 is expressed In tooth-forming mesenchyme around the mouth. Required for tooth formation in mouse and human. Fish. Pax9 is also expressed in oral mesenchyme in fishes. But many fish do not form oral teeth. Vestigial expression or divergent function? Result: pax9 is required for formation of upper jaw bones and barbels in zebrafish, but dispensable for non-oral teeth. Support ancestral function in building peri-oral structures from condensed mesenchyme rather than a specific requirement for teeth

#DBfeature 🐠

Pax9 has a broader role in initiating development of mesenchymal structures around the mouth during zebrafish development

By Sandhya Paudel, Sarah McLeod, Stefani Gjorcheska, Lindsey Barske

tinyurl.com/yc3jfpux

Help Save the Jambato: Ecuador’s Last Population Is at Risk By ALIANZA JAMBATO

Atelopus ignescens (the jambato) is a sentinel for environmental health. Please help us protect it from construction that doesn't follow local environmental regulations givebutter.com/XNVdrL

If you are a geologist/engineer who could help advise on alts to dynamite for road construction pls DM me.

NEWS from Ohio State Fish Division: You can now search our 6,000-tissue collection on our website! 🐟

mbd.osu.edu/collections/...

The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole keratinized mouthparts to adult teeth: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @garethjfraser.bsky.social @danpaluh.bsky.social #evolution

brightfield images of three lizard embryos of approximately the same developmental stage. Below each embryo image is an immunofluorescence image labeling E-cadherin (green) and alpha-smooth muscle actin (magenta) of their developing lungs

New paper out in @devdynamics.bsky.social on lizard lung development!

Project co-led w/ Kaleb Hill and also w/ @tonygamble.bsky.social @shylonatasha.bsky.social @aussiebiologist.bsky.social @bezbez.bsky.social @celestemnelson.bsky.social

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Immunofluorescence of mouse, anole, and chicken lungs showing epithelium in green and smooth muscle actin in magenta

New preprint from my postdoc work! Using fluorescent imaging, scRNA-seq, and ATAC-seq of mouse, anole, and chicken embryos, we provide evidence that birds have co-opted vascular smooth muscle to generate the pulmonary smooth muscle in their lungs. More on this later!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very happy that our new paper on the odd, looped optic nerves of chameleons is now out! It turns out having highly mobile eyes require some pretty specialized connections! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Can lungless tadpoles get their lungs back before metamorphosis? Find out in this week's #AWNews featuring Phillips et al. (2025) at AmphibiaWeb.org

Depth Matters for Marine Biodiversity Aim Studies on the geographical distributions of marine species have typically ignored the oceans' inherent 3D nature, instead focusing on two-dimensional patterns based on surface or near-surface a...

Last major paper of my #MSCA is finally out!! I modeled and mapped over 300 fish species in three orders in 3D to demonstrate how incorporating a depth perspective may offer a view of open-ocean biodiversity patterns that differs from a typical 2D approach.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Pretty stoked that our article got the cover of the latest issue of @journalofanatomy.bsky.social!

Check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

🥈 Second Prize – DevBio Art Contest 🎨
Hyloscirtus lynchi tadpoles captured in watercolor! 🐸 A tribute to this critically endangered Andean frog, showcasing its natural colors, unique hindlimb sacs & delicate morphology. 🌿 Painting by Sebastian Plata #DevBio #ScienceArt

Thanks to @amphibiaweb.org for featuring our new paper!

This week's #AWNews features a study by Paluh et al. (2025) that examined the developmental-genetic mechanisms underlying tooth formation in frogs and tested whether a rudimentary dental program is activated in the lower jaw. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org.

A pair of Ehiopian grass frogs (Ptychadena nana) on the cover of PNAS this week!

Happy to share that our paper on the #evolution and #genomics of the most common #color polymorphism in #frogs is now out in @pnas.org! My favorite frogs even made the cover of this week’s issue! 🎉🐸🎉

Read the paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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...

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...

Our new paper is out in Royal Society Open Science! The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole keratinized mouthparts to adult teeth doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

This common fish has an uncommon feature: forehead teeth, used for mating New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish, a shark-like species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, have rows of teeth on top of their heads,...

New paper is officially out!
Ratfish have a second jaw on their foreheads - CT + histology show they’re real teeth, built from the same tissues and signals as oral teeth.

www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...

Shark tooth regeneration: RNAseq reveals genes for unlimited dental renewal Sharks are masters of tooth regeneration with a rapid and unlimited tooth supply. We present a comprehensive transcriptomic analysis across five distinct compartments from the embryonic shark mouth, c...

Ever wondered how #sharks produce an unlimited supply of teeth? Our new preprint uncovers the genes within the dental stem cell niche driving lifelong tooth development. "Shark tooth regeneration: RNAseq reveals genes for unlimited dental renewal" 🦈🦷
bit.ly/47kkRHL

The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole keratinized mouthparts to adult teeth | Royal Society Open Science Teeth have been a prominent feature of most vertebrates for 400 million years, and the core regulatory network underlying embryonic tooth formation is deeply conserved. In frogs, however, odontogenesi...

Excited to share our new paper by @danpaluh.bsky.social out today in @royalsociety.org Open Science; with a great team, including undergraduate researchers! "The metamorphic transition of the frog mouth: from tadpole kertanized mouthparts to adult teeth" 🦷🐸
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...