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A pair of purple mushrooms, photographed near High Point, New Jersey. Is there a mycologist in the house?
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A progressive "march" of elephant evolution as portrayed in Ingersoll's The Life of Animals. From left to right Moeritherium, Palaeomastodon, Gomphotherium ("Trilophodon"), Mammut americanum (American mastodon), Elephas maximus (Asian elephant).
Every now and then I like to browse through old popular-audience books about evolution. Given that I am writing such a popular book myself I enjoy looking back to see how other authors have approached the same task. In some cases I have come away quite impressed, but other times it seems that some authors of old used such platforms to give their…
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A recent restoration of Deinotherium from Markov, et al (2001) "A reconstruction of the facial morphology and feeding behavior of the deinotheres." The World of Elephants, International Congress, Rome 2001. Taken from The World We Don't Live In.
Poor Deinotherium. Although it is one of the most readily recognizable proboscideans (the larger group to which modern elephants belong) it has long been treated as an uninteresting distant cousin of more popular fossil elephants like woolly mammoths. During the early 20th century, especially, it was often seen as something of a failed evolutionary…
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A double-crested cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus), photographed in Westchester County, NY.
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The incomplete skull of Nicrosaurus (formerly "Belodon"), one of the earliest-recognized phytosaurs. It is missing teeth and it did not have an extended downward extension of the palate (the outline that extends below the upper jaw marked by the dotted line) like modern crocodiles. From A guide to the fossil reptiles and fishes in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural History).
On the occasion of our third anniversary my wife bought me one of my most favorite works of paleo-art; a scene from the late Triassic set in what is now Arizona's Petrified…
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On August 14 I am going to be leaving on a two week trip to Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. It will be my first trip out west, and I am really looking forward to seeing places like Fossil Butte, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone. I will have my laptop with me, but obviously I will not be updating this blog every day.
I have no intention of leaving you all high and dry, though. I have been stockpiling a few posts for while I am away, and I would like to know if there is any particular topic you would like me to write about. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments.
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A Northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon) at the edge of a pond, photographed in Mount Kisco, NY. Many thanks to everyone in the comments who helped with the identification!
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Apologies to everyone who has tried to leave comments since last evening. ScienceBlogs was getting a server update to (hopefully) fix all those submission timeouts and other problems. Everything should be working now, but if you are still having problems commenting make sure you hold on to the little pearls of wisdom you wish to share and try again later. Thank you for your patience.
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Even though I regret dropping it due to time constraints I am glad the paleo carnival The Boneyard has taken on a life of its own. The latest edition, which is quite excellent, is up at The Dragon's Tales. I especially liked the chronological sequence of this one, and many thanks to Will for including so many of my posts!
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Mentioning Richard Dawkins is a quick way to polarize a conversation. One acquaintance once told me that she refused to read anything by Stephen Jay Gould because of Dawkins' criticisms while, on the other hand, many of my friends have voiced their exasperation with the English biologist's attacks on religion. Regardless of whether you consider him a saint or a sinner, though, Dawkins is one of the most controversial scientific figures working today, and Fern Elsdon-Baker has contributed The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin's Legacy to the ongoing arguments about the "…
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A harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), with a common goldeneye in the background, photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
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A West African long-tailed hornbill (Tropicranus albocristatus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
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I have been feeling a little down this afternoon, so rather than blog something new I thought that I would share something that has cheered me up a little bit: the trailer for the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. Enjoy.
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Yesterday the 13th edition of The Giant's Shoulders was posted over at Skulls in the Stars. It is an excellent edition in a "guided tour" format. The next iteration will go on display next month at The Dispersal of Darwin.