Jo Wolfe, PhD
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jopabinia.bsky.social
Jo Wolfe, PhD
@jopabinia.bsky.social
16K followers 2.9K following 15K posts
Why things evolve into crabs. Evolutionary biologist (species alive today AND fossils, and how to study them together). Canadian at UCSB and Harvard (she/her)

My science: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CKqoVjEAAAAJ&hl=en
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jopabinia.bsky.social
Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · Aug 1
Our paper on convergent evolution of land crabs is out in its final final form. The journal didn't pick my image as the cover, so I'm sharing it here because it must be seen!

academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

🦀🦑🧪
Circular timetree of crabs with pie slices colored by superfamily (Figure 2 in the paper). Simplified version with no text/labels. Line drawings of crabs arranged around the perimeter like a zodiac, with colors matching the superfamily pie slice. Figure by me, drawings by Harrison Mancke and Javi Luque
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
toughcitywriter.bsky.social
Thanks for boosting this! I loved working on these pieces.
jopabinia.bsky.social Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · Dec 7
@hakaimagazine.com did a series on what life is like for these guys (features a Mystacocarid - not in the preview pic! There are 4 articles, check them all out)

Here's how to keep the Hakai team going www.biographic.com/hakai-magazi...

#Crustmas 🧪
December 7, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
jopabinia.bsky.social
I missed #Crustmas yesterday, so here is a double! Two entire subclasses, Mystacocarida and Cephalocarida, live only among sediment grains (intertidal and underwater, respectively), both discovered in New England in the 20th century. Makes you wonder what else is lurking where we haven't looked 👀
🧪🦑
Ctenocheilocaris galvarini, scale 250 microns A strange looking crustacean, with no head shield and instead robustly developed antennae and head appendages are visible. It is elongate, with 5 pairs of thoracic limbs and a limbless abdomen. No eyes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derocheilocarididae#/media/File:Mystacocarida-scale250um.jpg Hutchinsoniella macracantha, scale 0.5 mm A strange looking crustacean, elongate with a head shield, 9 pairs of thoracic limbs, and a limbless abdomen. No eyes. It is stained red (this is part of the preparation, it would be transparent in life) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalocarida#/media/Fichier:Hutchinsoniella_macracantha_(YPM_IZ_036350).jpeg
December 7, 2023 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
jopabinia.bsky.social
@hakaimagazine.com did a series on what life is like for these guys (features a Mystacocarid - not in the preview pic! There are 4 articles, check them all out)

Here's how to keep the Hakai team going www.biographic.com/hakai-magazi...

#Crustmas 🧪
December 7, 2024 at 6:37 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas glow upper right, good colors
invertebae.bsky.social Maryjanna Zosia 🦊⛰️ they/iad & she/i @invertebae.bsky.social · 11h
I will never tidepool at night without a uv light again

🌊🌿🦀🐙🦑
a fluorescing mossy chiton on a rock surrounded by aggregating anemones a fluorescing northern kelp crab in seagrass a mossy chiton fluorescing among some.red seaweed a starburst anemone fluorescing in a tidepool
December 7, 2025 at 1:07 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas at left
elizabethbeston.bsky.social Elizabeth Beston @elizabethbeston.bsky.social · 3h
Right. Back to it. 89 Acartia discaudata copepods and 115 colonies of Bacillaria paxillifera logged and in the NPIL database. 💪 #marineplankton 🦑
December 7, 2025 at 1:05 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas gathering
k-hermit.com でんか @k-hermit.com · 3h
Shrimps, crabs, and hermits everywhere.🦀
The biodiversity here is just outrageous.
December 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas 😱
k-hermit.com でんか @k-hermit.com · 4h
I went tide pooling with the staff from “The Shrimp and Crab Aquarium” and we observed more than fifty species of crustaceans. 🦀
December 7, 2025 at 1:03 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas glow lower right
invertebae.bsky.social Maryjanna Zosia 🦊⛰️ they/iad & she/i @invertebae.bsky.social · 12h
one more night in the tidepools tonight & I had a blast seeing who fluoresces! just about every crustacean I found fluoresced including eelgrass isopods (couldn't get a good pic unfortunately)

🌊🌿🦀🐙🦑
a small owl limpet fluorescing bright red and orange on a tidepool rock a starburst anemone fluorescing bright green with pink and purple in a tidepool a flame-lined chiton fluorescing in a tidepool a striped shore crab fluorescing bright blue in a tidepool
December 7, 2025 at 1:03 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas upper right again. Not the abalone, look closer, its the barnacles
invertebae.bsky.social Maryjanna Zosia 🦊⛰️ they/iad & she/i @invertebae.bsky.social · 11h
I love how abalone shells can become mini reefs

🌊🌿🐙🦑
a white-speckled dorid on red seaweed in a tidepool a black abalone shell covered in barnacles, colonial tunicates, bryozoan, and others encrusting the shell a less coated black abalone shell with bryozoans, colonial tunicates, and other tiny organisms encrusting the shell a mutated orange bat star with six rays instead of five in a tidepool
December 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#Crustmas upper right
December 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
xenomatt.bsky.social
#Crustmas
kk-maker.bsky.social KK @kk-maker.bsky.social · 14h
> Keeper Lydia spotted one of Audubon Aquarium's resident crawfish in the middle of a molt!

Video: brown crawfish wiggling out of its old carapace like they're shaking off a too-tight sleeping bag.

[via Audubon Zoo]
December 7, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
jopabinia.bsky.social
#CRUSTMAS 😍
ketrinadrawsalot.bsky.social KetrinaDrawsALot @ketrinadrawsalot.bsky.social · 16h
Deep-Sea-cember: The reason for the season is to be cozy at home 🦐🧽
#deepseadecember #deepseacember #deepsea #glasssponge #shrimp #venusflowerbasket #art #cozy
Two shrimp holding claws inside a Venus's flower basket (a white glass sponge)
December 7, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
shazzoir.bsky.social
♫ Shrimply...having... a wonderful fishmastime... ♫

#Crustmas #Shrimp
December 7, 2025 at 9:13 AM
jopabinia.bsky.social
#CRUSTMAS 😍
ketrinadrawsalot.bsky.social KetrinaDrawsALot @ketrinadrawsalot.bsky.social · 16h
Deep-Sea-cember: The reason for the season is to be cozy at home 🦐🧽
#deepseadecember #deepseacember #deepsea #glasssponge #shrimp #venusflowerbasket #art #cozy
Two shrimp holding claws inside a Venus's flower basket (a white glass sponge)
December 7, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
elizabethbeston.bsky.social
You beautiful, slinky worm, you! A Xenacoela - I don’t know much about these guys, but I think this one is gorgeous! Thanks @microbe_guru for the ID.
#marineplankton 🦑
December 6, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
physgal.bsky.social
36 years ago today, 14 women, most of whom were studying engineering, were killed by an anti-feminist gun man at École Polytechnique in Montreal. I was a young graduate student studying physics at the time and I will never forget. #MontrealMassacre #NeverForget 🧪 👩‍🔬 ⚛️ 🎢 #AcademicSky 🇨🇦
Photos of the 14 victims of the Montreal massacre: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte and the rooms where they were killed.
December 6, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
julieslalonde.bsky.social
Today is Canada's National Day of Action & Remembrance on Violence against Women. It marks the day in 1989 when 14 women at Polytechnique in Montreal were murdered by an "incel" (Proving that shit has a new name but is an old problem.)

There are vigils across the country today. Please attend one.
December 6, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
minibubbly.bsky.social
In remembrance

#Montreal to honour 14 victims of Polytechnique massacre at ceremony #Dec61989

Representatives from all 3 levels of government expected to be in attendance

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Montreal to honour 14 victims of Polytechnique massacre at ceremony | CBC News
A total of 14 women were murdered in the mass shooting on Dec. 6, 1989. Thirteen others were injured in the attack.
www.cbc.ca
December 6, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
skinks-and-such.bsky.social
Porcelain crab on an anemone

#photo #photography #scuba #dive #crab #crustmas
December 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
johnwares.bsky.social
Rehderella belyaevi - unusual fused opercular plates, cobalt mantle tissue, likely a cryptic barnacle species opportunity for #crustmas academic.oup.com/jcb/article-...
Barnacles in a petri dish
December 6, 2025 at 8:24 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
That's what the #Crustmas hashtag was born for

And the crab feed in general
bsky.app/profile/did:...
urbanhymnal.bsky.social Urbanhymnal @urbanhymnal.bsky.social · 21h
I have a neighbor who only has one Christmas decoration in their yard and it’s this. It’s all of like three feet tall and I am delighted every time I see it.

Crab is the true reason for the season.
An inflatable crab decoration. The crab is about three feet tall and bright red. In one of its claws is a sprig of holly.
December 6, 2025 at 9:26 PM
jopabinia.bsky.social
Land Daphnia like crustaceans just like how there's land ostracods, land crabs, land isopods, and obviously insects #Crustmas
mossworm.bsky.social mossworm.bsky.social @mossworm.bsky.social · 1d
"The Non-swimming Chydorid Cladocera of Wet Forests, with
Descriptions of a New Genus and Two New Species" Frey 1980. what do you mean they just ooze around the world
"This cladoceran can’t swim, but it can climb trees! It never leaves contact with the substrate, even when sufficient water is present, as in the culture vessels. Here it crawls over the bottom and assiduously crawls over or through the detritus, chiefly by the action of the trunk limbs with occasional assistance from the postabdomen. The antennae seem to function more as balancing structures, like halteres, in that when the animal is erect on a horizontal surface, such as the bottom of a petri dish, the antennae vibrate rapidly without seeming to contribute in any way to the forward movement. The animal moves slowly and deliberately. Even when undisturbed it undergoes long quiescent periods, sometimes with no movement of any of the trunk limbs. Disturbance, such as from touching with a needle, results in cessation of all activity. I n this possum-like condition live animals can be removed easily from cultures with an ordinary tungsten loop." drawing of Bryospilus repens terrestrial water flea. It is very round and has one eye
December 6, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
davidho.bsky.social
PSA: Kīlauea here in Hawaiʻi is doing its thing and you want to see it.
[V3cam] Kīlauea volcano, Hawaii (south Halemaʻumaʻu crater)
YouTube video by USGS
www.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
davidho.bsky.social
Deep sea mining is very bad for deep sea ecosystems.
What Scientists Found When a Deep Sea Mining Company Invited Them In
www.nytimes.com
December 6, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Jo Wolfe, PhD
brackenlab.bsky.social
Is #SeastarSaturday a thing? 🌊⭐️ After losing so many of these important predators along the west coast of North America a decade ago, seeing their return to our rocky shores always makes me happy. 🤩 #MarineLife #Invertebrate 🦑
An orange “ochre” star (*Pisaster ochraceus*) feeds in a mussel bed on a Southern California rocky reef.
December 6, 2025 at 6:52 PM