"It is - still - the best zoological blog out there, period"
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.
You've read the blog, now buy the books....
May 17, 2008
What the hell is this? As usual, I'm sure that many people will get it, but oddities (clues?) to note include the paired shallow concavities on the dorsal surface, the rugose laterodorsal patches and the clusters of large foramina....
Posted by Darren Naish at 10:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 16, 2008
Category: herpetology
The scales of typhlopids at least are thick and strongly overlapping, and in some species the scales glow under UV light (I don't think anyone knows why); furthermore, the scales are so thick that shed skins are said to be rubbery in texture. A pair of cloacal sacs - the retrocloacal sacs - are also present in these snakes, the function of which remains unknown (they were suggested to function in sperm storage but Shea (2001) showed that this was not the case).
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:44 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 13, 2008
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
I have a lot on at the moment, so getting this finished wasn't easy - but I managed it. Here we are with the rest of my recollections from 'Dinosaurs (and other extinct saurians) - A Historical Perspective', held...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:52 PM • 37 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 12, 2008
So, was it really 'the best conference of all time'? Hmm, maybe, but it was excellent and all went well (more or less). On May 6th and 7th I attended 'Dinosaurs (and other extinct saurians) - A Historical Perspective',...
Posted by Darren Naish at 3:41 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 10, 2008
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you'll know that 2008 is Year of the Frog (more here), and that several projects - including Amphibian Ark and EDGE - are working to try and save endangered frog and toad species...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:17 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 4, 2008
Ok, signing off for a while now. Among other things, the above will get discussed when I get back: the image on the right (from here) might look somewhat, err, 'inspired' if you're familiar with the original produced by...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:27 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 2, 2008
Category: ornithology
Yesterday, my colleague Anthony Butcher (who shares my office at UoP.. but, alas, works on Palaeozoic microfossils called chitinozoans) was driving out of our carpark when he realised that the grey object he had driven past on the pavement...
Posted by Darren Naish at 1:19 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 1, 2008
This is not a world of reality TV, fashion, big-screen sport and daily newspapers, but one covered in seas, mountains, forests, ferns, beetles, frogs and birds - get out there and look at it..
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:35 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
