"It is - still - the best zoological blog out there, period"
With six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish mostly spends long hours in the library, hunched over his laptop. But he gets out sometimes, and picks up litter and pursues exotic lizards across the British countryside, aiming all the while to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He also messes around with pterosaurs, swimming giraffes, British big cats and stuff like that. He has given up on the stupid idea of being a dedicated academic and ekes out a living as a technical consultant, editor and author. 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....
October 31, 2008
Category: herpetology
During the breeding season male frogs are compelled to grab moving objects and engage them in amplexus, the tight 'breeding clasp' that occurs either under the forelimbs (axillary amplexus) or around the waist (inguinal amplexus), depending on the species....
Posted by Darren Naish at 9:03 AM • 16 Comments •
October 30, 2008
Category: crurotarsans
Do you remember the photo - provided courtesy of Colin McHenry - showing a variety of crocodilian skulls? I published it in an article on the CEE Functional Anatomy meeting, and here it is again. The challenge was to...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:59 AM • 33 Comments •
October 29, 2008
Yay - another one from the archives. This article first appeared on Tet Zoo ver 1 in April 2006 (here). If you've read it before, please have the decency to pretend that you haven't, thanks [excellent macronarian sauropods below from...
Posted by Darren Naish at 11:38 AM • 36 Comments •
October 27, 2008
Category: cryptozoology
In 1993 a Japanese film crew led by Nadaka Tetsuo succeeded in filming a large animal swimming in the waters of Lake Dakataua on New Britain (the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, just north-east of New Guinea). Supposedly,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:39 AM • 12 Comments •
October 26, 2008
Identify the tetrapod. I think this is easy. You might agree, you might not. But then do something else: state the significance of what you can see. That might not be so easy, but then it might. Incidentally, more...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:49 AM • 46 Comments •
October 23, 2008
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
Today sees the formal publication of the bizarre little Chinese maniraptoran theropod Epidexipteryx hui Zhang et al., 2008 from the Daohugou Formation of Ningcheng County, north-eastern China. Unfortunately the publication of this new species is not quite the surprise it...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:46 AM • 72 Comments •
October 21, 2008
Yes, it's true. As revealed by my most redoubtable friend and ally Nemo Ramjet, Amerindian people knew of giant flightless azhdarchids long before their possible existence was hypothesised about here at Tet Zoo (follow-ups here and here). Depicting these animals...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:45 PM • 16 Comments •
October 20, 2008
Category: herpetology
Within recent years, the Palaearctic tortoise fauna has undergone a radical change. If you're interested in the recognition and discovery of new species, in controversy and argument about the status of species, in neat evolutionary stuff such as resource...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:29 AM • 22 Comments •
October 17, 2008
Category: conservation
Last weekend I and about 40 other people worked together in another effort to rid the shore at Chessel Bay Nature Reserve, Southampton (UK), of rubbish. We didn't succeed of course - if only that were possible - but,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:55 PM • 42 Comments •
October 15, 2008
Category: ornithology
What is this bizarre fuzzy little creature? It's a Black coucal Centropus grillii chick, and what makes it particularly interesting is that it's covered with simple, tubular, unbranched feathers (termed trichoptiles). If you know the literature on the evolutionary...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:30 AM • 20 Comments •
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