Laelaps
Musings on evolution, the fossil record, and our place in nature
Profile
Laelaps is the blog of freelance science writer Brian Switek. This blog frequently features his musings on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. Switek also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking, and he is a research associate at the New Jersey State Museum.
Switek's first book, Written in Stone, will be published on November 1, 2010 by Bellevue Literary Press.
Search
Recent Posts
- This Blog Has Moved
- A Pepsi-Induced
HiatusExodus - Funky Worms Cause Ants to Mimic Fruit
- Photo of the Day #953: Collared brown lemur baby
- Pleased to meet you
- Photo of the Day #952: Bryce Canyon
- Photo of the Day #951: Dinosaur toe
- What's eating you? - Bugs, bacteria, and zombies
- Eureka!
- Deceitful Male Topi Raise False Alarms to Keep Females Nearby
Recent Comments
- markoting on Poor, poor Ida, Or: "Overselling an Adapid"
- dan on Have the hunting habits of leopards shaped primate evolution?
- geraldine on John Daniel, the civilized gorilla
- hastaneotomasyonu on Book Review: A History of Paleontology Illustration
- Artikelkatalog on What's eating you? - Bugs, bacteria, and zombies
- konteyner on Tyrannosaurus yeck?: Another look at preserved proteins
- Darryl on Book Review: Richard Owen: Biology Without Darwin
- Mr. Turd on How sucker-winged bats hang on
- Mr. TurD on How sucker-winged bats hang on
- hava perdeleri on What's eating you? - Bugs, bacteria, and zombies
Archives
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Blogroll
Paleo
- Dinosaur Tracking
- The Coastal Paleontologist
- Aquatic Amniotes
- SV-POW!
- Afarensis
- The World We Don't Live In
- Paleo Errata
- Archosaur Musings
- Chinleana
- Ediacaran
- The Life of Madygen
- Dracovenator
- The Ethical Palaeontologist
- Bond's Blog
- Paleo Dude
- Dinochick
- The Open Source Paleontologist
- The Disillusioned Taxonomist
- Everything Dinosaur
- Hairy Museum of Natural History
- John Hawks
- Mark Witton
- microecos
- The Dragon's Tales
- When Pigs Fly Returns
- Self-Designed Student
- Palaeoblog
Zoology
- The Loom
- Photo Africa Blog
- Mainly Mongoose
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Endless Forms
- Rigor Vitae
- The Lord Geekington
- The Daily Coyote
- Cephalopodcast
- The Other 95%
- Deep Sea News
Ecology
History of Science
- A Simple Prop
- Evolving Thoughts
- Skulls in the Stars
- Archy
- Ether Wave Propaganda
- FCD: The Red Notebook
- Millard Fillmore's Bathtub
- The Dispersal of Darwin
- Thoughts in a Haystack
- The Beagle Project Blog
- Transcribing Tyndall
Geology
Miscellany
- The Sandwalk
- Migrations
- Gurney Journey
- Skepchick
- Dispatches from Carbon Nation
- Cocktail Party Physics
- Peculiar Beauty
- The Digital Cuttlefish
- The Flying Trilobote
- The Panda's Thumb
- RedMolly Picayune Democrat
Fellow Sciblings
« Breaking the Chain of Early Whale Evolution | Main | Scientist tries to communicate with public, gets quote-mined instead »
Photo of the Day #795: Giant anteater
Category: Mammals • Photography
Posted on: December 17, 2009 6:22 AM, by Brian Switek
Find more posts in: 
Life Science
Life ScienceTrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/127349
Comments
Xenarthrans! All I want for Christmas is a Megatherium.
Posted by: blueshifter | December 17, 2009 7:21 AM
Nice shot. After numerous misses, I finally saw the mom and young'en a few weeks ago. I never thought they would look goofier than the anteater on the Pink Panther cartoons, but I think they had him licked.
They were very cute tho, and didn't take lip from a wisecracking cartoon ant either...
Posted by: Fertanish | December 17, 2009 2:57 PM
Regarding your recent piece on whale evolution, I came across a claim by a YEC baraminologist that proposed whale intermediates are not actually intermediates - http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-about-transitional-forms.html . Normally I would ignore YEC claims about such things but Todd Wood is regarded as one of the more honest 'creation scientists' - http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html . He links to page 12 of this PDF (not page 10 as he says in the article) - http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents.ashx?key=6FyKwSXHsz57v8ZJrts8fEYrGdpU%2f0FGieqqw2QiS0A%3d . I was intrigued by this and wondered what you thought.
Posted by: Ben | December 17, 2009 3:59 PM
Ben; Thanks for the links, but, frankly, it is all baloney. I don't care how "honest" Wood might seem; he does not provide any compelling evidence for his fantastic claims. He uses the meaningless jargon of "baraminology" to shift goalposts and he foolishly treats archaeocetes as a homogenous group (as if Pakicetus and Basilosaurus and Kutchicetus were the same!). I am sorry to be so curt, but all Wood has done is show his allegiance to his particular religious ideology. Writing up a scientific reply to his assertions would be pointless because what he is proposing is so heavily influenced by his beliefs.
Posted by: Laelaps | January 3, 2010 10:14 AM