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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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February 23, 2010
Category: from the archives
Welcome to yet another article in the (outstandingly successful, yet recycled from ver 1) series on babirusas. Observant readers will have noticed that, strangely, I've refrained thus far from using a scientific binomial for babirusas, plus I've consistently (I...
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:00 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 20, 2010
Category: from the archives
The bipedal 'boxing' behaviour of babirusas is odd, but arguably odder is a unique sort of 'ploughing' behaviour they've recently been shown to practise. On being presented with an area of soft sand, captive babirusas (mostly males) have been...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:16 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 18, 2010
Category: from the archives
In the previous articles we looked at the distribution and phylogenetic position of babirusas, and also at a bit of their behaviour, biology and morphology. While babirusas are famous for the bizarre upper canines that emerge from the dorsal...
Posted by Darren Naish at 9:46 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 17, 2010
Category: from the archives
Another article on babirusas - yaay! Like many (but not all) pigs, babirusas are omnivorous, and are said to eat invertebrates whenever they find them. They have also been reported to eat fish on occasion, to catch small mammals,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 8:21 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 15, 2010
Category: from the archives
More on babirusas! Go here for part I. While babirusas look pig-like and are classified as part of Suidae, they're distinctive and unusual [image above from wikipedia]. Combining rather slender legs with a barrel-shaped body, they can exceed 1 m...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:18 AM • 51 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 14, 2010
Category: from the archives
In the interests of recycling old material from Tet Zoo ver 1, I present... yes, a whole series of articles devoted to one of the most unusual and remarkable of hoofed mammals. Come on, we all love babirusas. If...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:06 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 12, 2010
Category: ornithology
Well, I really was very much enthused, inspired and uplifted by the many kind and supportive comments so many of you added to the previous article. Thank you all. So enthused, in fact, that I couldn't help myself, and took...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:50 AM • 67 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 10, 2010
Category: community
Every now and then, financial woes and other problems mean that I go through a major period of apathy and self-deprecation. And, after four years of very successful operation, I have seriously been considering calling it quits on Tetrapod...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:56 AM • 109 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
