Category: Palaeozoic tetrapods
The temnospondyls.. where to begin? They include terrestrial, amphibious and wholly aquatic forms, brackish-water and marine forms, small generalist predators, large and formidable super-newts, giant small-limbed pseudo-crocodiles, frog-headed lurkers, the famous tusked toilet-bowl heads [like gigantic Mastodonsaurus giganteus, shown in adjacent image. That skull is 60 cm long], sail-backed and armoured forms.. and others. The smallest were less than 30 cm long; the biggest may have approached 10 m in length. They are so diverse that it is difficult to pick a representative member.
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Posted by Darren Naish at 11:00 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: mammalogy
Many, many thanks to everyone who took the time to think about, and comment on, the Erongo carcass (featured on Tet Zoo yesterday). As you might know if you checked the news article, this naturally mummified carcass was discovered...
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Posted by Darren Naish at 5:55 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: picture of the day
Another mystery photo for everyone to guess at. And in fact this specimen isn't just any old dead animal......
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Posted by Darren Naish at 5:44 AM • 48 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
During recent weeks, I've written on a couple of occasions about my intention to get through the list of long-promised and nearly-finished articles: they include Amazing social life of the green iguana, Beluwhals and proto-narwhals, more on sebecosuchians, Triassic...
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Posted by Darren Naish at 8:48 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: picture of the day
Given all the fun that everyone had recently with the Southern sea lion skull, I thought you'd all enjoy the chance to have a go with another specimen. This one's a lot easier, no prizes for getting it right....
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Posted by Darren Naish at 5:54 AM • 41 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: mammalogy
Well done and many thanks to everyone who tried identifying the mystery skull published on the blog yesterday. And as several people correctly worked out......
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Posted by Darren Naish at 8:22 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: picture of the day
I can't see that I'm going to have the chance today to post an article, so here's another picture. Sorry it's not the best photo in the world. But the question is......
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Posted by Darren Naish at 8:42 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: herpetology
In an effort to get through all the blog posts I've started but have yet to finish, I thought I may as well start with this one on, of course, plethodontid salamanders (aka lungless salamanders). It started life as...
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Posted by Darren Naish at 5:58 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Among the most surreal snakes are (in my opinion) the turtle-headed sea snakes, or Aipysurus-group hydrophiids......
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Posted by Darren Naish at 4:26 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
The gigantic mystery coelurosaur alluded to here in one of the ornithomimosaur articles - yes, you heard it here first - has at last been published, and it is an immense long-legged oviraptorosaur, as big as a tyrannosaur. But...
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Posted by Darren Naish at 6:59 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Portsmouth, UK) who mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs. He also studies such things as the 
