laelaps | June 17, 2009
The "common cuttle-fish." From Mysteries of the Ocean.
About three decades before On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection would forever change biological science, the aspiring young naturalists Pierre-Stanislas Meyranx and Laurencet submitted a paper on mollusks to France's prestigious Academie des Sciences. For weeks they waited for a patron from within the scientific elite to recognize their work, but no response came. Ultimately they decided to take the more direct route of having the paper examined by a commission, and in 1830 the naturalists Pierre-Andre Latreille and…
laelaps | June 17, 2009
California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and their trainers, photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | June 16, 2009
In case you missed the last announcement, author Tom Levenson has been running a multi-part series on the genesis of his latest book, Newton and the Counterfeiter (Available now. Pick up a copy!). One of the most recent entries is about, to borrow from Tom's title, "writing the damn thing", to which Chad Orzel has replied. Given that I still have a helluva lot of writing to do I am in a different place than both Tom and Chad, but I think my experiences might be of interest to other neophytes who are thinking of making the blog-to-book transition.
One of the greatest obstacles I had to…
laelaps | June 15, 2009
The skull of a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit.
[Author's note: This post gets a little bit graphic, so those who are made squeamish by taphonomy might want to skip this one.]
There was something funny about the assemblage of Homo erectus fossils found at Dragon Bone Hill in Zhoukoudian, China. There were plenty of teeth and skulls but scarcely any post-cranial remains. Where were the bodies?
The majority of Homo erectus fossils from Zhoukoudian were discovered and studied by an international team of scientists during the 1920's and…
laelaps | June 15, 2009Paleo-blogger Zach has revitalized the long-dormant Boneyard carnival over at When Pigs Fly Returns. He has collected a nice assortment of links, but if you want to submit some more, Zach's the guy to talk to. I am sorry that I no longer have the time to run the Boneyard myself, but I am glad that others are going to keep it going. Thanks, Zach!
laelaps | June 14, 2009
The skull of the Taung child (Australopithecus africanus); the fragmentary remains of Orrorin; the scattered bones of Homo erectus from Dragon Bone Hill; a skullcap of a young Paranthropus from Swartkrans, South Africa. What do all these hominin fossils have in common? They all bear the tell-tale marks of predators, from birds of prey to gigantic hyenas, and run distinctly against the notion that humans have always dominated the landscape. There have always been toothy shadows that stalked the night during our history, and the significance of this fact is the focus of Donna Hart and Robert…
laelaps | June 13, 2009This past January I had the pleasure to re-visit Duke University's lemur center in North Carolina. I really recommend that you stop by if you have the chance (I'm hoping to head back to North Carolina sometime this summer myself), but if NC is beyond your reach the center has posted a number of videos of the non-anthropoid primates in residence. Among my favorites are the aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis), which you can see in the videos below;
laelaps | June 12, 2009
There is no time like the summer to make a dent in my reading list. I am by no means a speed reader, but during this time of the year I can usually get through the average trade book in about 2-3 days. This year is a little different, though. I am digging deep in my research for my book about transitional fossils (now tentatively called Written in Stone), so this is not the time to get too distracted by titles unrelated to my work.
Still, it is good to take a step back and read works that I enjoy every now and then, no matter how unrelated to my work they might be. I'm working up a list of…
laelaps | June 11, 2009The Telegraph has just released the trailer for the forthcoming film adaptation of the book Annie's Box, which focuses on Charles Darwin's personal struggle with science and religion. It is called Creation;
What do you think?
[Hat-tip to Michael Barton for sending this along.]
laelaps | June 11, 2009
The exceptionally preserved skeleton of Darwinius, known popularly as "Ida." From PLoS One.
Even though it has been about a month since Darwinius (or "Ida", if you like) hit the public scene there is still plenty to talk about. From uncertain evolutionary relationships to the interaction between scientists and the media, this controversy has given us plenty to discuss. One of the most worrying aspects of this entire ordeal, however, has been the prospect that media companies influenced the scientific study of Ida.
As Earle Holland wrote on the Ohio State University On Research... blog, the…
laelaps | June 11, 2009
An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware
laelaps | June 10, 2009It's a difficult time for paleontologists. Young scientists struggle to find a place in an ever-dwindling pool of jobs and academic positions, and established scientists can sometimes have the rug pulled right out from under them. This latter misfortune befell the paleontologists at the University of Wyoming. Due to a $18.3 million cut to the Wyoming's budget the museum at the University of Wyoming will be closed and the two paleontologists who work there will be laid off (in addition to 43 other jobs cut at the school).
This is truly a shame. The museum is not only essential for research,…
laelaps | June 10, 2009
A red fox (Vulpes vulpes), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware
laelaps | June 9, 2009
A restoration of the skull of Thylacoleo. From The Ancient Life History of the Earth.
Without a doubt, the extinct marsupial predator Thylacoleo was one of the strangest carnivorous mammals ever to have evolved. This predator from ancient Australia did not have piercing canines but instead bit into prey with large, forward facing incisors, and it sheared flesh from its kills with huge, cleaver-like premolars. Even though it evolved from herbivorous ancestors, we now know that Thylacoleo was most certainly a carnivore.
The preferred diet of Thylacoleo has not always been so clear-cut,…
laelaps | June 8, 2009
An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware.