Kristen Behrens, PhD

@behrenskristen

she/her | postdoctoral fellow of fisheries bioinformatics @ UMich | coregonine genomics and cichlid sex chromosomes | bioinformatician 🖤🩶🤍💜 My views are my own.

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Bluesky

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Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 17h

Got a new set of fancy colored pencils for my 30th this week so I had to pick a colorful reef fish for #SundayFishSketch to test them out!

Colored pencil drawing of an anthias reef fish. He has a big ole snoot and a mouth that sits below the midline and is very colorful with mostly yellow fins and a blue and purple body.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 7d

For funsies, I last drew a rockfish just over a year ago when I first started drawing as a hobby. This is the sister species, and they likely speciated based on depth niches

Colored pencil drawing of a Sebastes carnatus, it’s a brown splotched fish with a cream colored base and spiky first dorsal fin

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 7d

For #SundayFishSketch this week we’re throwing back to the black and yellow rockfish (Sebastes chrysomelas), which is where my whole fish-as-a-career thing started. They are near and dear to me, enough that I got one tattooed! (Cichlid tattoo coming fall 2026)

Digital drawing of a black and yellow rockfish. Unsurprisingly, he’s black splotched on a yellow-golden base. The splotching is heavier along the top line and decreases going toward the belly

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 14d

A giant leafy sea dragon for #SundayFishSketch this week!

Colored pencil drawing of a giant leafy sea dragon. Most of the body is a deep burgundy but the little leafy bits sticking off are dark around the edges and then fade into a shade of magenta or purple

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 21d

#SundayFishSketch this week is the Northern Starhead Topminnow (Fundulus dispar), an endangered species found in Michigan. This is a secret gift for a departing coworker 🤫 #SciArt

Digital art illustration of a northern starhead topminnow, which is a cute little beigy-yellow fish covered in red spots. It has a bit of teal under-the-eye shadow going on and some teal along the midline as well

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 22d

Early voting for the Michigan primaries started today, the sticker options were above average 🐟

Sticker of a trout that has “I Voted” as part of it’s markings along the upper half of the body.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· 28d

Shark Day was this past week so a whale shark it is for #SundayFishSketch! 🦈

Colored pencil drawing of a whale shark and two of its clinger friends

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jul 12

Got a little drawing pad for myself as an early 30th birthday present so here’s my first digital art fish for #SundayFishSketch, Neolamprologus brevis. There is definitely a learning curve 🥵

Digital art drawing of a Neolamprologus brevis. It’s a pug faces little cichlid with a peachy beige body, a blue streak below the eye, and teal-ish fins

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jul 4

Early #SundayFishSketch because I’m in my feelings about the Cabo Verde game last night. Go Blue Sharks! 🦈

Colored pencil drawing of a blue shark. It’s a long skinny guy with a light underbelly that gradually becomes blue and purplish blue. The tail is longer on top.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 28

One more pride fish before the month is out for #SundayFishSketch, the anemone fish. This is a re-attempt from my first go at this fish almost a year ago, much happier with this one 😮‍💨

Colored pencil drawing of an anemone/clown fish with a blue/pink/white trans flag beside it.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 23

Some more #Evol2026 sketches, it’s been a while since I did just pencil but I don’t feel like trucking my colored pencils around for 12hrs 🥴 a convict cichlid and a fantail darter this time

Pencil drawing of a convict cichlid from Shannon Whitney’s talk, this is a compact and striped little cichlid

Pencil drawing of a fantail darter, this guy does not have the steep face of some darters and has the lil egg things on his dorsal fin. I think this was a speaker’s favorite darter when prompted but I forget who oops

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 21

It’s #SundayFishSketch but the #Evol2026 edition! Some very quick sketches of the fish from talks I’m going to today.

Quick pencil drawings of several different fish. From left to right, there is a tea cup with a Lipton tea bag and a square fish with blue fins in it and below is the actual Blue Killifish from Becky Fuller’s talk. Next is a non-specific darter from Gabrielle Welsh’s talk. Slightly above that is a suckermouth armored catfish (think Pleco) from Wynne Radcliffe’s talk. And finally an Alewife in the bottom right from Emily Tanwa’s talk.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 16

I am back from getting an A+ in maid of honor duties which means on to the next, #Evol2026! I’ll be presenting on some of my postdoc research on Monday afternoon in the Speciation I section so drop by to hear about some Great Lakes fish genetics!

Screen cap from the Evolution conference app. It shows the title of the talk “Depth-driven ecological speciation in the ciscoes of Lake Superior.” The date and time is Monday the 22nd at 3:15pm. The presenter is the post author

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 13

#SundayFishSketch is here a day early because I’m in a wedding tomorrow. This is the deep water sculpin, inspired by the dive they did last weekend with a remote vehicle down to the deepest point of Lake Superior, Superior Maximus. There were lots of these little guys and one chased the ROV laser.

Ink drawing of a deepwater sculpin from Lake Superior’s deepest point. There’s a quote from the ROV operator, “This is where the monster sculpin live.”

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 7

Bonus deeply unhelpful assistant

Picture of a half completed fish painting with an orange cat hovering mid-step above it. The tablecloth beneath the sketchbook has fish on it

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Jun 7

Broke out the watercolors for this week’s #SundayFishSketch, the Boesemani Rainbowfish for the start of Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

Ink and watercolor art of the Boesemani Rainbowfish, a fish that lives up to it’s name. The front half of the fish is purple and blue and green, the back half is orange and red and yellow.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 31

Another lab-mate suggested #SundayFishSketch, the Bonytail Chub

Colored pencil and ink drawing of a Bonytail Chub. It’s a pretty standard looking silver fish with some lil orange highlights except for that the part of the body going into the tail is weirdly long and skinny

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 24

#SundayFishSketch this week is a newly described species of goby because apparently I am on a goby spree

Colored pencil and ink drawing of the newly described goby species Valenciennea zaboae. It’s a mostly silver fish with a bright yellow face that has a large teal horizontal stripe accompanied by some smaller stripes.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 18

Super jazzed to share that I was one of the Charles Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award recipients for dissertations submitted in 2025! Did not make the award ceremony last week but it’s an honor to have my work recognized 🐟🥳

Screen cap of an email received from the University of Maryland Graduate School announcing the award of the Charles Carmello Distinguished Dissertation Award for 2025

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 17

Had to go to Pittsburgh yesterday for stupid car stuff but met up with my brother and fam to do the aviary and the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium with the nephew. The tank labeling was disappointingly shite but the kiddo was exited to see some eels. Of course I found the cichlids as well 🐟

Slightly blurry photo of what was labeled as Green Terror cichlids in an aquaria. Some of the fish are pinkish orange and others are gray-green with black barring. You can see the vague reflection of nephew’s bucket hat in the top left.

Photo of a dwarf lionfish in a tank, he’s a beautiful shade of red. There’s an anemone fish lurking in the background by the coral.

Photo of several garden eels in a darkly lit tank, they’re sticking straight up out of the sand and are mostly small black spots against a light background and slender.

Photo of two weedy sea dragons against a rocky background. They’re light yellow with black elongated oval bits sticking off and a black snoot

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 17

My office mate was like you gotta do the Snuffleupagus hairy pipefish for #SundayFishSketch this week and who am I to say no 🤷🏼‍♀️

Colored pencil drawing of a Hairy ghost pipefish which is literally just a pipefish that stole Sesamee Street’s Mr. Snuffleupagus’s hairy orange fit. You thought a fish couldn’t look furry? Think again.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 10

Went a little whimsical for #SundayFishSketch inspired by some conversations with collaborators on the morphology of Coregonus kiyi as I get a manuscript pulled together. Kiyi is the only cisco to make dramatic daily vertical migrations and was jokingly referred to as basically a fish balloon

Colored pencil drawing of a collection of regular balloons in various colors and a fish “balloon” amongst the bunch. The fish is a Coregonus kiyi, a black and silver fish that’s fairly slender and has a large eye

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· May 3

When we did some beach seining ladt week in Lake Michigan the target was larval coregonines, but mostly we caught mimic shiners #SundayFishSketch

Colored pencil drawing of a mimic shiner. It’s a mostly brown and gold long slender fish with a blunt face

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 30

Once in a blue moon I do go outside for science purposes (subbing in with another team for some larval fish sampling!). This was before it started dumping rain and I swamped my waders in an unexpected deep spot 🙃

Photo of Lake Michigan from the beach on an overcast day, there’s a sein net floating in the water in a curved shape

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 26

#SundayFishSketch is a juvenile Emperor Angelfish. Not a bright as I would have liked but a fussy fish to draw. And another sequential hermaphrodite!

Colored pencil drawing of an emperor angelfish, which is a mostly black fish with purple and white circular bands at the tail that become more vertical towards the front.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 19

#SundayFishSketch this week is @fishfetisher.bsky.social’s Henry, a lawnmower blenny, painted (drawn) like a french girl 😂

Drawing of a lawnmower blenny sitting on a purple couch. He’s a light brown mottled fish with lil fuzzy things coming out of his head in several spots. He is accompanied by a brown mottled snail.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 12

This weirdo, featured in some BBC doc or another, popped up in my feed. Unclear what exact species of comb blenny this is but he’s funky #SundayFishSketch

Colored pencil sketch of a very odd fish poking out of a hole on a reef. It’s grayish purple with what looks like a collection of little tree branches coming out of its forehead. The mouth is slightly open and shows some tiny little blunt teeth.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 11

This is who they’re interviewing for faculty positions 😅

A photo of a printed photo of a small very blonde child in a white shirt and purple and pink flower shorts hugging a very tolerant black lab around the neck.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Apr 5

Found some water color markers on sale and decided to test them on the brightly colored Ribbon Eel for #SundayFishSketch

Marker drawing of a ribbon eel, which is bright blue with a yellow dorsal fin and the tips of it’s vaguely horn looking jaws are also yellow. Its mouth is gaping open.

Kristen Behrens, PhD@behrenskristen· Mar 29

I volunteered this past week for a women and nonbinary students in STEMM event at the museum and was asked what my favorite Great Lakes fish was, so here he is, the Lake Sturgeon for #SundayFishSketch