laelaps | January 4, 2008
Giant pandas might get most of the media attention, but red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) are in just as much trouble from a conservation standpoint. Habitat fragmentation is the greatest threat (as it is with many species), outside pressures from humans worsening the situation for these animals as they have a naturally occurring slow birth rate and high death rate. As with other animals from Asia, products made from various parts of the red panda are important to various ceremonies and the animals are still hunted and poached, especially for their hides. The individual above was photographed at…
laelaps | January 3, 2008Sometimes I feel like I'm watching scientists concerned with the end-Cretaceous extinction (the one that killed off all those nifty non-avian dinosaurs and other animals) engage in a more formal version of the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" Sketch. Some that favor the impact of a comet or meteor of being the "smoking gun" accuse their opponents of being grumpy old uniformitarian fundamentalists, while some that favor a more gradual extinction that was mostly over by time the extraterrestrial body hit the earth say that the other side is made up a bunch of catastrophists that wouldn't know a…
laelaps | January 3, 2008
The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is the second largest living bear (the largest being the polar bear, Ursus maritimus), but depending on where you are in the world it can go by many names and vary in appearance. At present there seems to be a glut of possible brown bear subspecies that scream for proper revision, from the familiar grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) to the strange Tibetan blue bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus). Further adding to some of the confusion are rare hybrids produced from the mating of a polar bear and a brown bear, a wild example of this sort of pairing being…
laelaps | January 2, 2008 Throughout most of the world humans have exterminated carnivores in order to keep their places of habitation safe, and while large carnivores still exist in patches we have a sort of "You keep to your side, I'll keep to my side," sort of attitude towards them. The problem, however, is that we keep expanding our towns and villages out into areas where large carnivores live, some areas experiencing an increased level of conflict. Leopards eat stray dogs in the slums of Mumbai, wolves kill dogs left outside in Alaska, black bears raid trash cans in New Jersey suburbs, and even polar bears are…
laelaps | January 2, 2008I am extremely pleased to announce that one of my posts has been selected for the 2nd edition of The Open Laboratory! When I heard that the winners had been picked I started pacing the house, nervous that I wouldn't make it in, but one of the posts that helped give me the boost onto ScienceBlogs was selected for inclusion; Homo sapiens: What We Think About Who We Are (Redux). I've got some edits to make and some fat to trim, but I am extremely pleased to be included. Go and have a look at the list to see what else you can look forward to reading in this year's volume (and congratulations to…
laelaps | January 2, 2008In the latest issue of the Journal of Mammalogy, a resolution by the American Society of Mammalogists was published (resulting from the 87th annual conference held in June 2007) calling upon the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get off its butt and do something about jaguar (Panthera onca) conservation in the United States. When I think of jaguar habitat the forests of South and Central America first come to mind, but jaguars have historically been found in the southwestern U.S., and even though the indigenous population was wiped out in the last century new individuals keep coming in from…
laelaps | January 2, 2008A few months ago I reported on the delightful time I had at a Science Communication Consortium discussion held in New York (where I also got to meet Kate of the sadly departed Anterior Commissure), but for those of you in the area there's going to be another meeting coming up on January 31st. The panel discussion is going to be all about emerging outlets for science communication (including blogging!), and the panel will feature science journalist Christie Nicholson, president of ScienCentral, Inc. Eliene Augernbraun, "Immune Attack" project coordinator Eitan Glinert, science writer Karen…
laelaps | January 2, 2008I got some good news last night that I'd love to share, but I think I'm going to keep my lips sealed for until the official announcement is up elsewhere. It was definitely something good to hear on the first day of 2008, and hopefully I'll soon be able to tell you a bit more about it.
laelaps | January 2, 2008
The family of birds known as the Paradisaeidae contain 13 genera of brilliantly colored birds, but the genus Paradisaea is perhaps the most famous of all. This genus contains the Greater Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea apoda), the species name being attributable to the practice of cutting off the feet of the birds before shipping them back to naturalists in Europe. This lack of feet gave Linnaeus the impression that these birds never touched the ground and actually had no feet whatever, although this idea was later discarded when more complete specimens were observed. Similarly patterned but…
laelaps | January 1, 2008
If you visit zoos often enough, you'll probably eventually see at least one pair of animals mating with each other. While I didn't actually see the two gerenuk (Litocranius walleri) in flagrante delicto, the male chased the female around a bit with that intention. Much like a cat in heat, the female gerenuk (the one without horns) crouched down and lifted up her tail, and this put the male (the one with horns) in hot pursuit. If there was a successful mating and fertilization, then about seven months later there would have been a baby gerenuk born at the zoo. As I've said before when…
laelaps | December 31, 2007
You know you've got a unique book on your hands when the cover spots a eurypterid snagging a jackalope from under the cab of a Ford pickup carrying a disgruntled ammonite while dinosaurs stomp towards a "last chance" food & gas stop in the background. If you're a fan of artist Ray Troll, however, such a vibrant and motley assemblage probably will pique your interest rather than shock you. His artwork graces the pages of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, a collaborative work with paleobotanist Kirk Johnson, a wonderfully nerdy "Epoch Tale" of paleontology. While it may at first seem unusual,…
laelaps | December 31, 2007
In about 6 hours I'll have to start remembering to date everything 2008 instead of 2007, but otherwise the year will tick over like another mile on an odometer. I don't really have many resolutions, at least not moreso than a list of things I've been wanting to do for some time and haven't yet been able to accomplish, but at the moment I'm just wishing I had a few more days to get some writing done and kill a few more books (at last count I've read about 6 since Christmas).
I do want to take a moment, though, and thank everyone who has offered compliments, corrections, and critiques of…
laelaps | December 31, 2007
When I was a kid nearly every dinosaur book and documentary had at least one common phrase that was uttered over and over again; "Dinosaurs have been found on every continent, except Antarctica." By 1986, though, this could not longer be stated as the ankylosaur Antarctopelta oliveroi was discovered, with the large theropod Cryolophosaurus ellioti being uncovered in 1991 (subsequently named in 1994). While its phylogenetic position is still undergoing scrutiny (at present it appears to be the oldest known tetanuran theropod), Cryolophosaurus is impressive as it was a very large (about 20-26…
laelaps | December 30, 2007
Revered and reviled, the wolf embodies the concept of the "noble savage," a sort of respectable wildness that is both admired and feared. Presently many populations of wolves in North America continue on at the indulgence of our own species, humans essentially exterminating as many wolves as they could in America, and the tenuous position of modern wolves in the United States relies on understanding and the death of the "Big Bad Wolf" mythos. Scott Ian Barry, a photographer and wolf enthusiast who is intimately familiar with the natural history of these animals, has released a new book to…
laelaps | December 30, 2007
As much as I love the mount of Barnum Brown's famous Tyrannosaurus skeleton at the AMNH, one of my absolute favorite reconstructions is the one pictured above from the Maryland Science Museum in Baltimore. While many Tyrannosaurus mounts have their heads high up in the air, perhaps even with jaws agape looking down at visitors, this skeleton's skull is close to the ground and allows for an excellent look at the marvelous osteology of the great head of this dinosaur (as well as giving me the impression that the skeleton is just as curious about me as I am about it, were it alive that is).
laelaps | December 29, 2007The evolution of life on earth has no direction and no predetermined end; what is adaptive today might not be tomorrow, and the scores of extinct creatures preserved in the rocks of this planet attest to an ongoing process that results in what Charles Darwin rightly called "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful." The man hailed as the co-discover of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, would not agree with my opening remarks, though. While Wallace contributed much to biological science in his own right, the incorporation of anthropocentric spiritualism into his hypotheses…
laelaps | December 29, 2007
The Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) is one of the most most endangered big cats, and while there are many laws and programs that seek to protect the animals poaching is still a problem. Earlier this year NPR featured a short report on this problem, but it's not only scientists that are concerned about the disappearance of these cats and other animals. Photographers and a growing number of wildlife sound technicians are also heading out into the the places where rare species are still hanging on, and yesterday NPR featured another report featuring big cat conservation expert Alan Rabinowitz,…
laelaps | December 28, 2007Despite all the work I put into it this evening, my post on whether evolution is directed or not is still unfinished. I've completed most of it, but I want to go over it again and choose my words carefully as I know I'm considering a topic that has spurred a large amount of debate, although it shouldn't be a surprise which side I come down on. While you're waiting, why not watch Carl Sagan's last interview on Charlie Rose below? (What Sagan says about faith and the absence of evidence has a lot to do with what you'll be seeing tomorrow.) I should have the monstrous essay up in the morning (at…
laelaps | December 28, 2007
Following up on yesterday's post on marsupials, here's a photo of two Gray Kangaroo (Macropus sp.) at the Turtleback Zoo in New Jersey. The largest macropod to have ever lived, though, was the extinct Procoptodon goliath, a short-faced giant that would have stood about 10 feet tall when upright.
laelaps | December 27, 2007
The famous footage of "Benjamin," a Thylacine that died in captivity due to neglect on September 7, 1936. It was the last known living member of its species.
Convergent evolution can be a tricky thing, and one of the most celebrated examples of it (at least among creationists) is the case of the extinct marsupial predator the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus, also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf). Indeed, when compared to the skull of a wolf (a placental predator), the differences between the skulls of the predators are so slight that anyone but an expert would easily…