Red bats
One particularly interesting thing they've been shown to do is eavesdrop on other red bats.
Posted by Darren Naish at 12:08 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tetrapod Zoology
"It is - still - the best zoological blog out there, period"
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With six years of tedious phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish stares longingly from his office window at the birds outside and wonders: why did I bother? He pursues exotic lizards and feral cats across the British countryside, occasionally prizes the skeletal jaws from hedgehog corpses, and aims to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He remains desperately in quest of an academic job that'll last more than a month, and - with a background in TV research, e-learning development, academic editing, popular writing, teaching, landscape gardening, parenting and the wonderful world of retail - he still holds out hope of becoming a dedicated academic. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go here.
Recent Posts
- The Crystal Palace monsters, armoured tyrannosaurs and lurking sauropods: a look back at 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective' (part I)
- California's declining frogs
- I'll be back
- Raptor makes killing in university grounds
- Do short titles really work?
- When I grow up, I want to be a functional anatomist: functional anatomy part III
- Of dragons, marsupial lions and the sixth digits of elephants: functional anatomy part II
- Bipedal orangs, gait of a dinosaur, and new-look Ichthyostega: exciting times in functional anatomy part I
- The Great Goswell Copse Zootoca
- Functional anatomy ALIVE
Recent Comments
- Vladimir Socha on The Crystal Palace monsters, armoured tyrannosaurs and lurking sauropods: a look back at 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective' (part I)
- Traumador the Tyrannosaur on The Crystal Palace monsters, armoured tyrannosaurs and lurking sauropods: a look back at 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective' (part I)
- Mary on California's declining frogs
- Traumador the Tyrannosaur on California's declining frogs
- neil on California's declining frogs
- David Marjanović on I'll be back
- Vladimir Socha on I'll be back
- Alan on I'll be back
- Cameron on I'll be back
- Sven DiMilo on I'll be back
Archives
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Tetrapod Zoology backstory
The ones I participate in
- Ask A Biologist
- Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week
- Southampton Natural History Society
- Chessel Bay Local Nature Reserve
Friends and colleagues
- The adventures of Ben Speers-Roesch
- Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings
- Ask Dr Vector
- The Ethical Palaeontologist
- Graeme's photos
- Mike P. Taylor
- Mark Witton's photos
- Neil Phillips' Photos (UK Wildlife)
- News from Nemo Ramjet
- Olduvai George: Dealing with the Beasts
- Philosophica Neopalaeontographica
- Stephen Bodio's Querencia
- UK Wildlife - by Neil
Other tetrapod-based blogs
- Afarensis
- Bestiarium
- Camera Trap Codger
- Catalogue of Organisms
- The Dragon's Tales
- Evolving Thoughts
- Fish Feet
- Fretmarks
- Frog Matters
- Hairy Museum of Natural History
- John Hawks Anthropology weblog
- Laelaps
- The Lord Geekington
- Marc van Roosmalen : New Species Discoveries
- Matt Bille's Sci/Tech blog
- Nimravid's Weblog
- Pondering Pikaia
- Rigor Vitae
- Traumador the tyrannosaur in The Tyrannosaur Chronicles
- When Pigs Fly Returns
- The World We Don't Live In
Other Information
You've read the blog, now buy the books....
- Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life
- Walking With Dinosaurs: The Evidence
- Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight
Many thanks to those who have donated!
November 30, 2007
November 29, 2007
The goat-eating hot water bottle turtles
Category: herpetology
You will doubtless have heard of the reportedly immense softshells from Hoan Kim Lake in Vietnam. They're not narrow-headed softshells: instead they belong to Rafetus, another genus of big Asian softshells. A lot of claims have been made about these turtles: that they approach 3 m in length and are as big as a double bed, that they live to be over 500 years old, that they are the same turtles mentioned in a story from the 1400s, and that they represent a new species...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:50 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 28, 2007
Its cute little face
Late in the evening I sat in an airport lounge, finally reading Robert Twigger's book on python hunting, my head full of Robert Appleby's legacy, fossil giraffes, giant mustelids, and the song from the end of Portal. I thought...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:57 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2007
Deer oh deer, this joke gets worse every time I use it
The fallow deer larynx is particularly interesting. Apparently, it used to be thought that the descended larynx was unique to humans and uniquely tied to speech. Presumably, the people that thought this had never looked at deer, as descended larynges are bloody obvious in the males of several species.
Posted by Darren Naish at 12:38 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 23, 2007
Homage to The Velvet Claw (part II)
On to more of my thoughts about the TV series The Velvet Claw (part I is here). In the previous article, I discussed the art and animation used in the series, all of which was really quite good and...
Posted by Darren Naish at 9:15 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2007
Homage to The Velvet Claw (part I)
But perhaps best of all, the series includes some awesome speculative zoology. We see a future bear that, running through a polar landscape covering present-day New York City (the Statue of Liberty can be seen in the distance), has evolved to be a sabre-toothed predator of newly evolved megaherbivores. Best of all, the dingy industrial underworld of a future super-city is said to be inhabited, and in part dominated, by a smart, sleek, gracile predator. Foraging amongst what look like futuristic coal trucks in pursuit of rat-like rodents, it leaps on to a truck, scattering the rodents. They leap and flee, emitting loud metallic alarm calls.
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:54 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2007
Homage to The Velvet Claw (teaser)
If you're like me, you'll know the TV series, and/or the book, well......
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:51 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 18, 2007
Polymorphism, squeakers, the hairy frog: an afrobatrachian's tale (part II)
Category: herpetology
During the breeding season, males and males alone develop frills of hair-like papillae along their flanks and thighs. These are supposed to increase the animal's surface area (and therefore allow more cutaneous respiration to take place) and to then allow it to remain submerged for an exceptional amount of time when it is egg-guarding. This was suggested by Dean (1912), but he imagined that male hairy frogs somehow arranged the eggs around their papillae: quite how the male was supposed to get the eggs into position I'm not sure (Dean had midwife toads in mind, but they 'only' have to wrap egg strands around their hindlimbs).
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:50 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 15, 2007
The world's most amazing sauropod
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
At last, readers with good memories will understand why I've been making all those veiled references to the inherent coolness of names that start with 'xeno'. The story behind Xenoposeidon's massive awesomeness is a long one, and the implications of its discovery are immense (sort of).....
Posted by Darren Naish at 11:00 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2007
Giraffe vs plane
Category: mammalogy
I don't know anything about the history of the photo shown here; it looks genuine and I think it speaks for itself. It seems to have been posted around the internet quite a lot already, mostly by people who seem to think that it's amusing - yeah, a dead animal that was hit by a plane, oh my sides...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:29 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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