Research

Check out some quick writeups of my various research projects.

Everything below is written for any curious person. Technical versions are available upon request. Also feel free to check out Google Scholar, and my full publication list on my CV.

Do tadpoles even have lungs?

Yes, and they breathe by sucking bubbles

Most tadpoles start breathing air within a few days of hatching, long before they grow legs. At the size they’re doing it, though, breathing means fighting the surface of the water itself. Here’s how they get around that, and why the same trick keeps turning up in animals that have almost nothing else in common.

Why lose a lung?

Lungless tadpoles and life in fast water

Most tadpoles have lungs. Some definitely do not, and they never will, even though the frogs they turn into breathe just fine. Read on to learn why, what a “gastromyzophorous” tadpole is, and why losing the habit of breathing might matter more than losing the lung itself.

Lost and found in the museum

How a jar of “unidentified” tadpoles became a new genus

No, not like the Ben Stiller movie. A jar of strange tadpoles sat in a museum collection for years before anyone realized what they were looking at. Read on to see how a closer look turned an odd specimen into a brand new genus of frog.

Bubble guts

A lungless tadpole that found a second way to breathe air

Some tadpoles never grow lungs, and that loss never reverses. So what do you make of a lungless tadpole that clearly breathes air anyway? Read on to see where the air actually goes, and what it might mean for how the first vertebrates ever learned to breathe.

Once lost, is a trait gone forever?

Dollo’s law, lungs and beaks

For the more serious-minded reader, read on for a discussion of Dollo’s Law and how my research into tadpole lungs and beaks may shed light on why some kinds of loss are more irreversible than others over evolutionary time.