Andrew Iwaniuk
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evoneuro.bsky.social
Andrew Iwaniuk
@evoneuro.bsky.social
2.7K followers 1.8K following 2K posts
neurobiologist, ornithologist, scruffy looking nerfherder, social distancing since 1974, currently at U Lethbridge, Treaty 7 lands
🇨🇦 🇦🇺 stuff
open access link for our book: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/6000/Bird-Brains-and-BehaviorA-Synthesis
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evoneuro.bsky.social
I have officially put up our Christmas light
A table lamp shaped like a woman’s leg in a high heel and fishnet stocking (the official lamp from the movie A Christmas Story) is perched on a windowsill. Outside is a snow covered street.
December 1, 2025 at 5:46 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
From the annual Fort MacLeod Santa Claus parade yesterday. This dude shows up most years.
#Alberta #yql
A mustachioed man wearing a cowboy hat, light brown jacket, and bison fur chaps is sitting astride a bison on a town street. The bison has frost built up around its mouth and nostrils. In the background some onlookers are lined up on the street dressed in heavy winter jackets and two signs say "Red Coat Inn Motel' and "Regular 122", the latter advertising current gasoline prices in Canadian dollars.
November 30, 2025 at 6:45 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Warmed up to a balmy -18 for the dog walk this afternoon. For anyone in Lethbridge headed to Popson Park, snowshoes or cleats are recommended!
#yql #Alberta
A winter scene of a snow covered trail, two dogs running and a woman in a light blue parka and black snow pants trudging through the snow
November 29, 2025 at 11:00 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
We “win” 🥶
November 29, 2025 at 3:14 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
My #BirdOfTheDay #Headshots is Sulphur-crested Cockatoo from Lorne, Victoria, Australia
#WildOz #birds #birding #parrots 🪶
A headshot of a bright white cockatoo with a yellow crest and its feathers fluffed up around its black beak.
November 28, 2025 at 2:28 AM
evoneuro.bsky.social
A Great Auk in the public gallery of the Natural History Museum, Tring. Will hopefully have updates on this symbol of extinction next year as we are about to start working on the anatomy of its sensory systems.
#birds #neuroethology 🪶
A profile of the head and neck of a Great Auk. The large bill is all black with several vertical grooves. The head is mostly black with a large white patch in front of the eye. The top of the white chest is just visible at the bottom of the neck.
November 26, 2025 at 3:40 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Jubilee, one of the ravens that graces the Tower of London.
#birds #birding #ravens 🪶
A profile view of the head and neck of a glossy black common raven.
November 25, 2025 at 8:07 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Great day giving a talk at Christ’s College for the Cambridgeshire Bird Club as well as checking out specimens collected by Darwin in the Cambridge Museum. Special thanks to Dan Field for organizing everything!
A courtyard of a college in the rain with a footpath that forks. A greenish egg in a box held in place by styrofoam held by someone wearing blue nitrile gloves Taxidermied grey duck with very short wings
November 22, 2025 at 9:39 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Brilliant morning walk, including some good birds, along the Cam and Coe Fen this morning.
A fall scene of a flat river with a shed on the left and leafless trees on the right
November 21, 2025 at 10:19 AM
evoneuro.bsky.social
A teaser for my talk this Saturday. Can't go wrong with a parrot on the title slide...🪶🦜🧠🧪
A landscape image of a multicoloured small parrot with a long tail and the end of a long dead branch. The top of the slide reads: Why study bird brains?
November 20, 2025 at 4:57 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
In Cambridge today looking forwarding to talking about birds and brains, including a talk at the Cambridgeshire Bird Club this Saturday.
A footpath along side a road with shops on the left and large grandiose university buildings on the right. Also on the right are two dignified looking pigeons
November 20, 2025 at 3:03 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
We have successfully used immersion fixation for heads of Cathartes and Coragyps with the rest of the body used for skins, skeletons, and spirit specimens. I will add that for most comparative neuroanatomy an n of 3-6 is fine. Big series are only needed for sex or seasonal variation within species
Photos of extracted: top Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus); and bottom Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) brains. For each photo, white arrows point to OB (olfactory bulbs) and TeO (optic tectum).
November 18, 2025 at 8:17 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
So how can we best use museum collections for neuroanatomy research?
1. more skeletons in good quality
2. proper fixation of specimens
3. avoid long-term ethanol storage if possible.

And for more information on bird brains, check out our new book:
direct.mit.edu/books...

#BOU2025

6/6
The top of slide asks: what needs to be done to better support the use of museum specimens for neuroanatomy? Below on the left is a drawer full of bright green parrots with yellow-orange heads: Carolina parakeets. "More skeletons!" is written below the image. Below middle is a plastic container with a preserved hawk head inside with the skin and eyes removed with the caption "better tissue fixation". Below on the right is written "ethanol for fluid specimens" that is then crossed out with a bold red X.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Fluid specimens can be potentially be used for histology, but again long-term ethanol storage is problematic as it both dehydrates the tissue and the staining quality of tissue is poor.

#BOU2025
5/6
Four histological sections are shown through approximately the same brain regions of four different species. The first is a ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), which was perfused. The second is a Cooper's hawk (Astur cooperii) that was immersed in formaldehyde in the lab. The third is a Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) that was immersed in formaldehyde in the field. The last is a ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) that was a museum specimen. The grouse and hawk are brightly stained purplish against a white background. The woodcock is stained purplish, but not as dark as the first two. The duck brain is weakly stained purplish and appears washed out compared with the other sections. Below these images is the bullet point: extract brains from fluid specimens and use conventional histology.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
There is the potential to use MRI on museum specimens, provided that the specimens are fresh frozen or fixed and not stored in ethanol. Long-term ethanol storage leads to too much dehydration, which makes MRI nearly impossible.

#BOU2025
4/6
The bullet point states: MRI of frozen and fixed specimens. Below on the left is a partial figure from Corfield et al. (2008) Nature Protocols 3: 597-605. The image has 6 greyscale panels of lateral and coronal views of a kiwi brain with matching histological sections with the brain tissue stained purple against a white background. Below on the right are 4 brain images and a profile view of a sulphur-crested cockatoo against a blue, cloudless sky. The top two images are greyscale images of a cockatoo brain in coronal plane. The bottom two are rainbow coloured images of coronal sections through a cockatoo brain. The different colours reflect white matter connections among brain regions.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
CT scanning of skulls can provide some information on sensory brain regions, as well as the dimensions of the cranial nerves, for many species. However, we urge caution in the use of contrast enhanced CT scanning as it can damage specimens.

#BOU2025
3/6
At the top is a bullet point that states: CT scanning of specimens. At the bottom right is a digital reconstruction of an entire ibis skull, below which is a sagittal section taken through the entire skull showing the brain case. Below that, the brain case is filled with a reconstruction of the brain in blue. Finally there is a just a blue brain (endocast) of the ibis shown. On the right are 6 dark blue ibis endocasts with the optic lobe highlighted in green.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
We have discovered numerous cases of changes in brain region sizes associated with differences in sensory abilities in birds, such as the expansion of LM to support self motion detection (i.e. optic flow) in hummingbirds.

But can museum specimens also be used for these studies?

#BOU2025
2/6
The top image is a photo of a mostly green hummingbird hovering in front of a plant that has many small pinkish flowers. The bottom image is a black and white photo of the lateral aspect of a hummingbird brain. Several brain regions are pointed to with solid lines: telencephalon, olfactory bulb, cerebellum, optic tectum, spinal cord, and optic nerve. One brain region is highlighted in light grey with the label: lentiform mesencephalic nucleus (LM).
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
All aspects of bird behaviour are a product of the anatomy and physiology of their brains. Brain anatomy can therefore provide new insights into bird behaviour.

Today at #BOU2025, I will discuss how museum specimens can potentially be used to study bird brains.

#ornithology #neuroskyence
1/6
A slide entitled Neuroscience at the Museum with two bullet points and three images. The first bullet point states that all behaviour is a product of the physiology and anatomy of the brain. The images below are photos of: a sharp-tailed grouse in a courtship display posture with its purple throat sacs and yellow eyebrows flared; a bright red and green king parrot perched on the back of a chair and holding a nut in its left foot that it is chewing on; and a flock of snow geese on an early morning with dozens of geese standing on a field and flying across. Below those images is the second bullet point" brain anatomy can provide novel insights into bird behavior.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
A mute swan channelling my feelings about my various admin duties (taken today at Kensington Gardens).
#birds #birding #swans 🪶
A portrait of a mute swan who appears to be looking at me with a decidedly unimpressed expression on its face.
November 17, 2025 at 9:16 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Made my own gin today at Portobello Rd distillery. The name is an awful pun based on the Great Auk for my fellow ornithophiles
The label of a gin bottle from the Portobello Distillery named “pinginius”
November 16, 2025 at 7:39 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
My first conference talk in a while is next week! Looking forward to seeing @thelabandfield.bsky.social and talking a bit about how we can use museum collections to study bird brains.
#ornithology 🧪🧠🇨🇦🇬🇧
A movie poster for Night at the Museum showing the back of Ben Stiller looking down a hallway with several historical characters and a T. rex looking back at him. The title of the movie poster is however changed to Neuroscience at the Museum, presented by Andrew Iwaniuk and a University of Lethbridge production.
November 13, 2025 at 2:43 AM
evoneuro.bsky.social
A downy woodpecker for #woodpeckerwednesday taken last weekend.
#Alberta #wildlife #birds #birding 🪶🇨🇦
A small black and white woodpecker with a small red patch on the back of its head is holding onto a vertical willow branch. It is looking towards its right so that its left profile is facing the camera.
November 12, 2025 at 4:43 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
A pine grosbeak on a rather dull and overcast day.
#Alberta #wildlife #birding #birds 🪶🇨🇦
A pinkish-red finch with a black beak is perched on the leafless branch of a willow tree.
November 10, 2025 at 10:54 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
Ice starting to form on the lake and local beavers have been super busy knocking down massive poplar trees to build up their lodge for winter
#Alberta #Canada 🇨🇦
A view from the shoreline of a lake. Thin ice covers the water surface out to a reed bed. To the left is a large overhanging tree with bare leaves. Beneath it is a an elongated beaver lodge on the lake made out of a tangle of branches and logs.
November 8, 2025 at 11:48 PM
evoneuro.bsky.social
The Blue Jays wedged ball is a metaphor for my life in academia
#academicsky
November 1, 2025 at 3:26 AM