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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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November 26, 2008
I think everyone seriously interested in animals collects dead animals, or bits of dead animals. Over the years I've built up a reasonably good collection of bones, teeth, antlers and carcasses, most of which are used 'academically' (in teaching and...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:25 AM • 63 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2008
Another one from the archives, and another one from my rodent phase of 2006 (originally published here): despite efforts, I was simply unable to even scratch the surface of what is the largest extant mammalian 'Order'. Where appropriate I've...
Posted by Darren Naish at 9:05 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2008
Back in 2006 I took part in the 'ten birds' meme. If infected (do people normally speak of being 'infected' by memes?), you were supposed to write about ten birds that you found 'beautiful'. I decided to distort it slightly...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:30 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 17, 2008
From the archives! One of the most unusual and interesting of amphibians has to be the Olm (Proteus anguinus), an unusual long-bodied cave-dwelling salamander from SE Europe [adjacent image from the Devon Karst Research Society]. Olms were the first specialised...
Posted by Darren Naish at 9:20 AM • 48 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2008
I've been so busy over the past several weeks that I've totally failed to keep up with several of my favourite blogs. One of them is Andrea Cau's Theropoda, written in Italian but translatable into English thanks to the wonder...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:59 AM • 37 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2008
It's reasonably well known that fighting male deer are sometimes unable to extricate themselves after tangling their antlers together. Mammoths - which had more strongly curved tusks that living elephants - sometimes had a similar problem, as demonstrated by the...
Posted by Darren Naish at 10:48 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 11, 2008
Category: picture of the day
I would not like to be bitten by an African rock python Python sebae. Here's why....
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:53 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 10, 2008
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
Another book review. I've had a lot of them to do lately. The idea that feathers decorated and insulated the bodies of the small bird-like predatory dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous - the coelurosaurs - is no longer a...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:21 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2008
Category: crurotarsans
We all know that many birds feed their young. Nowadays, many of us are also familiar with the idea that hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs might also have fed their young. Far less well known is the possibility that crocodilians may...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:18 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 6, 2008
Category: mammalogy
Knowing that members of a certain species sometimes reach a certain size is not always the same as actually seeing images of that certain species at that certain size. The Puma, Cougar or Mountain lion Puma concolor (other names include...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:07 AM • 49 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
