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Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals - living and extinct
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 swimming abilities of giraffes and fossil marine reptiles. An avid interest in modern wildlife and conservation has resulted in many adventures in lizard-chasing, bird-watching and litter-collecting. I've been blogging since 2006 and a compilation of early Tet Zoo articles is now available in book form as Tetrapod Zoology Book One. Additional recent books include The Great Dinosaur Discoveries and Dinosaurs Life Size. For more biographical info go here. I can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. PLEASE NOTE: I am now completely unable to keep up with email correspondence. I do my best to respond to all queries and requests, but please don't be offended if I fail to reply. I blog from and about conferences - please contact me for more info. Follow me on twitter: @TetZoo.
You've read the blog, now buy the books....
The Great Dinosaur Discoveries (US edition)
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life
"Walking with Dinosaurs": The Evidence - How Did They Know That?
Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight (Guide 10; Field Guides to Fossils Series.) (Palaentology FG Fossils)
Tetrapod Zoology
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May 30, 2008
Category: ornithology
Something came up at a meeting the other day and I consider it worth discussing. And it concerns birds - which is good, because I haven't done much on birds at Tet Zoo lately. Specifically, it concerns sunbirds, or...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:53 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 27, 2008
Category: pterosaurs
Observant readers might have noticed the several recent references to 'big news in a big journal' coming soon, or on 'how a Tet Zoo article evolved into a peer-reviewed technical publication'. Yes, not all of Tet Zoo is idle...
Posted by Darren Naish at 10:05 PM • 101 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 26, 2008
Category: herpetology
It goes without saying that most predatory animals need to open their mouths when they want to stab or bite potential prey items. But, get this, there's a group of snakes that can erect their teeth and stab prey...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:32 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 23, 2008
I was saddened to learn today of the recent death of elephant researcher and conservationist Prof. Yeheskel (or Hezy) Shoshani: he was severely injured in what is thought to have been a terrorist attack in Addis Ababa (where he...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:27 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 22, 2008
Another busy week, so no time yet to finish any new articles, sorry. The photo here - kindly supplied by Mary Blanchard - depicts the little-known Collared nightjar Caprimulgus enarratus, a Madagascan endemic associated with humid evergreen forest and...
Posted by Darren Naish at 10:20 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 21, 2008
Tone and I recently threw out* tons of old clothes, and among the many t-shirts I'd been hoarding was the one shown here: I had it made in 1993 for the Jurassic Park premiere, how sad is that. Consider...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:00 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 19, 2008
Category: mammalogy
Well done and thanks to everyone who had a go at identifying the mystery skull, and congrats to TJ, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, Mark Lees and others: it was indeed a glyptodont, specifically a glyptodontine glyptodontid and, most specifically of all,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:45 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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 • 39 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 • 20 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 • 43 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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