Now on ScienceBlogs: And so, driven on ceaselessly toward new shores
"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....
The Great Dinosaur Discoveries (US edition)
The Great Dinosaur Discoveries (UK edition)
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life
Walking With Dinosaurs: The Evidence
Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight
April 30, 2009
Category: community
As you'll know if you've already seen the announcement over at SV-POW!, my friend and co-author Mike P. Taylor successfully defended his Ph. D. yesterday: congratulations again, Mike. Mike's thesis was titled Aspects of the History, Anatomy, Taxonomy and Palaeobiology...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:45 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 29, 2009
Category: ornithology
Inspired by comments made following the emu dissection article from Monday, I got thinking about elongate tracheae in birds. As we'll see, this subject is fertile ground if you like serious weirdness and spectacular extremes [Trumpet manucodes shown here,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:28 AM • 43 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 27, 2009
Category: ornithology
Back in 2006 my good friend Matt Wedel - who you may know better as one of the three SV-POWsketeers or as plain old Dr Vector - produced a short article on an emu dissection he participated in at...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:06 AM • 31 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 25, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
I never planned to do a whole week on ceratopsians: the initial idea was just to recycle some of those field guide texts in order to save a bit of time. But, oh well, Ceratopsian Week took on a...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:39 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 24, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
What with yesterday's article on an 'alternative look' for ceratopsians, here's another one. The image used here (again, a powerpoint slide from one of my talks) is pretty self-explanatory, and I use it here because Witmer and colleagues (Papp 1997,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:21 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 23, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
One of the most distinctive features of ceratopsian dinosaurs is the conspicuous bony frill, formed from the parietal and squamosal bones, that projected backwards (and sometimes upwards too) from the rear margin of the skull. Typically decorated around their edges...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:24 AM • 35 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 21, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
So far we've looked at leptoceratopsids and chasmosaurine ceratopsids. This time, it's the turn of the basal ceratopsoid Zuniceratops. If these terms are giving you grief, a cladogram showing a few of them is below......
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:32 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 20, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
Another obscure ceratopsian from the defunct field guide project: for the back story go here and here. A distinctive chasmosaurine similar in size to a large rhino (total length approximately 3.5 m), Anchiceratops ornatus was a heavily built species with...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:12 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 18, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
Once more, I'm going to start recycling some of those dinosaur texts written for the defunct field guide (for the back-story on that project see the ornithomimosaur article here). This time round, I'll get through some of the ceratopsians...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:40 AM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 17, 2009
Category: herpetology
Thanks to Monday's article on the unusual African mosasaur Goronyosaurus, I will admit that I was - quite seriously - considering doing a 'mosasaur week', perhaps even a 'weird mosasaur week'. Alas, I have not had the time. However:...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:57 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
