Award-winning author #PlatypusMatters & #NaturesMemory. Assistant Director of @ZoologyMuseum.bsky.social at Cambridge Uni. President of the Society for the History of Natural History. Australian mammal nerd. He/him. Own views.
Well so they do! Every day's a school day.
Jack AshbyAnother museum, another #echidna with legs pointing in the wrong direction. In life, #echidnas' hindfeet point backwards: they can flex to scratch between their shoulders, and do jazzhands with all 4 feet to drill vertically into the soil to hide. But taxidermists twist them forward so the skin rips
🦇 If anyone wants to help us learn more about Daubenton's bats and how they are doing in the UK, have a look at our Waterway Survey: www.bats.org.uk/our-work/nat... . Sign-up and take part in this year's survey season in August :)
Jack AshbyDaubenton's #bats have a distinctive flight pattern, swooping in figures-of-eight over the water's surface to swoop up bugs. (But it's still cool to have the Echo Meter bat detector to confirm the ID). 🦇🔊 #MammalWatching #WildWales #BreconBeacons
📢 Apply now to SCCS 2027 🎉 The 26th Student Conference on Conservation Science will take place between 30 March – 1 April 2027 at the University of Cambridge. Check the website for further details and to apply: www.sccs-cam.org
Student Conference on Conservation Science - WelcomeSCCS helps young conservation scientists gain experience, learn new ideas and make contacts that will be valuable for their future careers.www.sccs-cam.org
baculum erasure is real!!
Jack AshbyWhy don't you see penis bones in #museums? I spoke to @iflscience.com about how museums have been deliberately modifying the anatomy of their specimens: they knowingly mislead visitors about what most male mammal skeletons look like, as I wrote in #NaturesMemory: www.iflscience.com/the-majority...
Kangaroos heard you were talking shit about them (less than a greyhound!) and came out swinging (yes I know that is a description of size, not relative worth, but kangaroos are notoriously bad at nuance)
Jack Ashby255 years ago today, Europeans met #kangaroos. #OTD in 1770, Captain Cook wrote this in North #Queensland: "June 23 One of the Men saw an Animal something less than a greyhound; it was of a Mouse Colour, very slender made, and swift of Foot." This is the first European description of a #kangaroo. 🦘
New echidna paper There are 5 subspecies of short-beaked echidnas. They look different but some of the differences between them, like reproductive behaviour, are so dramatic that I thought they may be different species. But previous genetic studies suggested that the subspecies were not real.
Much needed timeline cleanse
Jack AshbyA wombat's eye-view. #WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #wombats #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombat