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
June 29, 2009
Category: mammalogy
The Leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis is native to southern and eastern Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia. It's a highly variable little cat, regarded by some workers as consisting of at least ten subspecies. Some (like the Sumatran leopard cat...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:38 AM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 27, 2009
Category: herpetology
For millenia, a battle has raged between alligators and water melons. Who will win? Well, the answer's obvious: one has a bite force of over 15,000 Newtons, and the other one's a water melon. Yes, the alligator vs water melon...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:00 PM • 47 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 25, 2009
Category: herpetology
It's well known that elephants have a major impact on their environment: indeed, they're what's known as ecosystem engineers. In a new study, Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz of the University of Tokyo reports that Asian elephant dung might serve a hitherto...
Posted by Darren Naish at 12:14 PM • 48 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 24, 2009
Category: from the archives
The photo of the Northern ground hornbill Bucorvus abyssinicus featured here yesterday was posted entirely on a whim. And I figured that I didn't need to say much about the species, nor about ground hornbills in general, given that...
Posted by Darren Naish at 2:49 AM • 106 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 23, 2009
Category: picture of the day
Ground hornbills - or bucorvids - have been Tet Zoo mainstays since the early days of 2006. However, the only species that I ever feature is the Southern ground hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri (sometimes incorrectly referred to by one of its...
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:30 AM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 21, 2009
Category: herpetology
At some stage, I'll have to write full-length articles on lysorophians, aïstopods, the remaining temnospondyls, nectrideans, microsaurs, and assorted other groups of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic non-amniote tetrapods. Alas, this hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, here are some slides from...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:33 AM • 77 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 19, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
Oh, what the hell: given that we've already covered a new Wealden theropod, and have looked a bit at the palaeobiology of Majungasaurus within the week, I may as well resist my urge not to do more dinosaurs. In other...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:20 AM • 179 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 16, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
I've had no time to complete any new articles, and after the text you're reading now - originally intended to be a comment appended to Cute, furry, has claws, bites - got to reasonable length, I thought I may...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:15 PM • 112 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 15, 2009
Category: Mesozoic dinosaurs
I think I said recently that there have been way too many dinosaurs on Tet Zoo lately. It isn't that I don't like dinosaurs: it's just that I aim to provide balance and, let's face it, writing about charismatic...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:24 AM • 81 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 13, 2009
Category: mammalogy
I'm sure you'll agree that there have been way too many dinosaurs on Tet Zoo over the past few weeks. Let's balance things out by showing a cute little rodent. Your challenge: to identify it to species and - if...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:57 AM • 132 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Highly Allochthonous 11.05.2009
Eruptions 11.05.2009
Not Exactly Rocket Science 11.05.2009
Corpus Callosum 11.05.2009
Starts With a Bang 11.04.2009
