tetrapodzoology

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Darren Naish

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 Discoveriesand 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:

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Hapalodectids, the once otter-like proto-whales (mesonychians part V)
We now move to another mesonychian group: Hapalodectidae. This is yet another of those obscure little groups that sounds really interesting, yet are never the subject of focus or discussion. Virtually all of the literature on them - and that's still only ten papers or so - mentions the idea that…
Mesonyx and the other mesonychid mesonychians (mesonychians part IV)
After Andrewsarchus, the best known mesonychians are the mesonychids... and, as we saw previously, Andrewsarchus may not be a mesonychian anyway. Mesonychids are a mostly Eocene group that originated in the Paleocene; Mesonyx, from the Middle Eocene of North America, was the first member of the…
Mesonychians part III: Andrewsarchus and the triisodontines
We saw in the previous article that Andrewsarchus, most 'famous' of mesonychians (even though it may well not be a member of this group), is not just a scaled-up Eocene wolf, but really something quite unusual. Indeed, it's so unusual that Szalay & Gould (1966) decided that it's worthy of its…
Mesonychians part II: Andrewsarchus was a hell of a lot weirder than all the books say
The previous article was a brief, cursory introduction to the mesonychians. Time to look at things in a bit more detail... Andrewsarchus mongoliensis is, of course, 'the' mesonychian for most people, and one might get the impression that it's a typical member of the group. In fact it's most…
Because Andrewsarchus is not the world's only mesonychian (mesonychians part I)
What the hell, I've decided to keep the ball rolling with the Paleogene mammals, and do a whole week series on mesonychians. Yes, let's deal with a group that everyone has at least heard of. Mesonychians are an assemblage of Paleocene and Eocene mammals, best characterized (or are they?) by the…
What did a dinoceratan do?
Inspired by yesterday's comments, I'm very keen to get posting on the Paleogene mammals we were talking about. I mean, seriously, I've got stuff prepared on pantodonts, apatemyids, pantolestans, dinoceratans, artocyonids, mesonychians... I just do not have the time to finish it and publish it. So…
Because we all love Paleogene 'ungulates'
I know, I know: these are the sorts of animals you want to find out about, but just can't. Dinoceratans (much more than just Uintatherium Uintatherium Uintatherium), mesonychians, phenacodonts and arctocyonids. And what about pantodonts, tillodonts, taeniodonts.. and so much more? I know it's…
An Arthurian adventure, part II: more fossil marine reptiles than are good for your health
On to our second day of talks (read part I first): things kicked off with Mike A. Taylor and Angela Milner's talk on the history and collections of Street. Pinpointing the locations of original quarries is always difficult as exact records are often not kept, and of course the areas once used for…
Sea Dragons of Avalon, an Arthurian adventure (part I)
I promised myself back in 2007 that I'd cut down on the number of conferences I attend. There's a problem with that: I'm pretty bad at keeping promises (at least, to myself). This year I'm attending a ridiculous four conferences, and I've just returned from the first of them (please remind me why…
Return from Avalon
If you've been paying attention you'll know that I've been absent for a little while: I've been at the Sea Dragons of Avalon conference, held at Street in Somerset and focusing on the evolution of marine reptiles (and other organisms) across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. The meeting also…
Inside Nature's Giants part IV: the incredible anatomy of the giraffe
Welcome to the last article in my little series on Inside Nature's Giants (see part I, part II and part III first). The final, fourth episode looked at giraffes (or, specifically, Rothschild's giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi, or G. rothschildi if you prefer). For me this was the most…
Enough mammals for the time being: crocodiles on Inside Nature's Giants (part III)
The third episode of Inside Nature's Giants (still available to watch, if you're in the UK) looked at a 17-year-old, 4 m long Nile crocodile Crocodylus niloticus that had died (very much prematurely) at a crocodile park in France (please read part I and part II unless you have already). RVC…
Inside Nature's Giants part II: whale guts and hindlimbs ahoy
The second episode of Inside Nature's Giants (read part I first) looked at whale anatomy: this time round, the autopsy was carried out on a Fin whale Balaenoptera physalus that had died off the coast of County Cork, southern Ireland. Whereas the other dissections all took place in the RVC, this…
Inside Nature's Giants: a major television event worthy of praise and accolade. Part I!
Over the past few weeks, Channel 4 here in the UK screened the four-part series Inside Nature's Giants. If you're at all interested in the world of zoology you'll already - I assume - have heard quite a lot about it. I watched it religiously, and let me tell that you that it was excellent, well…
Sneak peek
This work comes out in a few months though, as you can guess, I have my own advance copy already... Much more in due time. As before, see if you can identify any of the other works visible (just about) on the shelves. Some are easier than others! UPDATE: Well done if you had a go at guessing the…
Rogue killer Ice Age walruses can really ruin your day
Neil 'where the fudge are my thalattosaurs' Kelley once brought my attention to the following piece of art... I thought about saying something intelligent, but decided not to. UPDATE: the image comes from here: Valin Mattheis's flickr site, and I hope I'm ok in using it.
What I saw at the zoo yesterday...
Yesterday I did a day of work in London. Because everything finished far earlier than I was anticipating, I had time to kill so, accompanied by trusty sidekick John Conway, what else could I do but spend a few hours at ZSL's London Zoo (ZSL = Zoological Society of London)? We had a great time and…
Duck humps dog, and other stories from the world of waterfowl sex
I was sure I'd written about the wonderful subject of duck sex on Tet Zoo before. However, having searched the archives I can't find much, which seems odd. Male ducks have large - often very, very large - penises. The text-book example is the Argentine lake duck Oxyura vittata, originally reported…
"What was that cute little Mexican snake?", and other musings...
That cute little Mexican snake was, obviously, a 'colubrid'. That means, essentially, that it's a colubroid snake that isn't a viperid, elapid, or a member of any of the other obviously distinct colubroid clades (more on this matter below). Its small size, short-snouted, wide head and…
Una serpiente pequeña
This is a quiz! Identify the Mexican snake! Photograph by Dave Hone!
Publishing with a hidden agenda: why birds simply cannot be dinosaurs
A little while ago, news of a new paper by Devon Quick and John Ruben, both of Oregon State University, appeared on the newswires. It got its fair share of publicity. Entitled 'Cardio-pulmonary anatomy in theropod dinosaurs: implications from extant archosaurs', the paper (Quick & Ruben 2009…
Dromomerycids: discuss
You don't hear much about dromomerycids these days, it's always protoceratids hogging all the limelight. Here's one of the more obscure forms, the derived cranioceratin dromomerycine Procranioceras skinneri from the Miocene of the USA (originally named as a member of the speciose genus Cranioceras…
Death by lightning for giraffes, elephants, sheep and cows
A few posts ago the subject of giraffes and lightning came up in the comments (go here, and scroll down to comments 7, 9 and 10). Thanks to an aborted book project that I've mentioned once or twice (I try not to talk about it too much, it still hurts), I have voluminous files on accidental or…
Why are books so bloody expensive?
I have to say I really hate it when I see a blog post with an interesting title that concerns a complicated subject, only to find - on going to all that trouble of moving my fingers, clicking on the link, and waiting all of three or so seconds for the page to load - that the author has played the…
We flightless primates
Some time during the last several hours (while I was asleep), Tet Zoo reached the three million hits mark. Yes, three million hits in two years (Tet Zoo ver 2 was launched on Jan 31st 2007). A noble achievement, I'm sure you'll agree. Due to workload and assorted other commitments, I still don't…
The USA is still yielding lots of new extant tetrapod species
The naming of new amphibian species is a fairly routine thing. This doesn't mean that - despite the global amphibian crisis - amphibians are actually ok and that we can stop worrying; it means that we haven't been paying enough attention, and indeed many of the species that are being named anew…
The newest whales
In time-honoured tradition, here are some slides from one of my talks. They're self-explanatory, but let me know if elaboration is required... Anecdotal data and modelling work suggests that a few more species are yet to come - and more on those at some stage in the future. And if you want…
Animal deathmatch: rhino vs croc, hippo vs shark.... leopard vs small passerine??
Back in April 2008 (my god - where does the time go?) I wrote a brief article about the Animal Life and The Private Lives of Animals books, published by Casa Editrice AMZ. These first came out during the late 1960s and were written in Italian; they were then translated into English during the 70s.…
The first over-land migration of Canadian beluga
Like many of us, I'm sure, I have a great interest in the life-sized replica cetaceans that have often been made for museum displays. Making such models is an incredibly skilled process with an honourable tradition, and it requires a huge amount of research and experience if the results are to be…
Dinosaurs of Italy!
I'm really suffering from lack of time, so here's another book review (first published in 2005, so with a few updates added here and there)... Lacking the Mesozoic dinosaur record of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal or Spain, our Italian colleagues have long had to make do with Triassic marine…