laelaps | April 2, 2009Even if it is only due to repetition almost everyone is familiar with a few geological dates. That the non-avian dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago and the earth is around 4.5 billion years old are figures that are at least familiar to many. (There are a few folks who would prefer to jam the entirety of geologic time into just a few thousand years, of course, but I will not worry over them here.) It truly is wonderful that we have been able to lay out such a detailed map of Deep Time but this was not always so. Today's standard geologic time scale, with all its time…
laelaps | April 2, 2009
A scimitar oryx (Oryx dammah), photographed at the National Zoo. This species may be extinct in the wild.
laelaps | April 1, 2009
A model of the skull of Megaladapis From A Guide to the Fossil Mammals and Birds in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural History).
At a meeting of the Royal Society in 1893 the English geologist Henry Woodward read a communication from his Swiss colleague Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major on a new, recently extinct genus of giant lemur from Madagascar. He called it Megaladapis, and it was a lemur with a skull as large a modern gorilla's. Particularly interesting were the thick rims of bone around its eyes which appeared to be oriented slightly upwards.…
laelaps | March 31, 2009
A cast of the lower jaw of Dryopithecus available through Ward's Natural Science Establishment.
For most of anthropology's history tools had been thought to be the exclusive hallmark of humanity. That only our species could use and manufacture tools was a sign of our superiority, be it the result of evolution or divine fiat, at least until it was discovered that apes could make tools, too. Though anecdotal accounts of tool use by primates had existed for centuries it was Jane Goodall's research at Gombe in Tanzania that truly shattered the "Man the Tool-Maker" image. When told of her…
laelaps | March 30, 2009
The "reincarnated" Cohoes Mastodon. You can see him today at the Cohoes Public Library. (From Natural History)
For decades we have been hearing of the designs of some ambitious scientists to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. I first heard of such plans in the 1980's when I was a young child but they continue to pop up every now and again. Perhaps we could make a mammoth-like creature through the selective breeding of living elephants or a little developmental engineering, but I doubt that a true Mammuthus primigenius will ever exist again. They are long gone.
It may be that what makes…
laelaps | March 30, 2009
Rokan, a male Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) really wants to go inside. Photographed at the National Zoo.
laelaps | March 29, 2009
The skull of Dorudon, photographed at the National Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | March 28, 2009Earlier this week Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum moved their blog, The Intersection, over to Discover. I think it was a good move for them, but their fresh start was immediately marred by a horde of hooting numbskulls. Many others have already covered this story, but in case you haven't heard Sheril was greeted by a number of comments like "mmmmmmmm........... wo-man."
Sheril has posted her own response, and I think Scicurious had one of the best takedowns of the whole dust-up. How are comments on Sheril's appearance in any way appropriate? Some have said that such comments are harmless…
laelaps | March 28, 2009
The skeleton of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), photographed at the National Museum of Natural History. Notice the bone pathology around the roots of the teeth in the upper jaw.
laelaps | March 27, 2009
A giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), photographed at the National Zoo.
laelaps | March 26, 2009
A mother gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and her child. Photographed at the National Zoo.
It may not be accurate to call our species "the third chimpanzee", but there can be no separation between apes and humans. We are apes. This realization has only come recently. There has been a long tradition of scholars who have tried to find something, anything, to draw an unbreakable line between us and our nearest relatives. As Henry Smith Williams wrote in a 1900 biography of Ernst Haeckel published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, however, perhaps we have engaged in such efforts because apes are so…
laelaps | March 26, 2009
A mother gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and her child. Photographed at the National Zoo.
laelaps | March 25, 2009Last week I spent some time writing about Dimetrodon and the various functions paleontologists ascribed to its sail (from a literal sail to a sign of coming extinction). It can be easy to forget that no two sails were exactly alike, though, and paleo-artist Michael Skrepnick (see my interview with him here) was kind enough to remind me of a rather spectacular example of this point.
Two views of a Dimetrodon gigashomogenes with a pathological sail. Courtesy of Michael Skrepnick.
Just like any other bones the osteological supports for the sail of Dimetrodon would have been subject to injury…
laelaps | March 25, 2009
A cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) marking its territory. Photographed at the National Zoo.
laelaps | March 24, 2009Last week I wrote about the shuffling and reshuffling of relationships between whales, hippos, pigs, and an extinct group of mammals called raoellids. One aspect of the paper I did not comment on, however, was the problematic placement of the enormous predator Andrewsarchus.
In November of 1924 Henry Fairfield Osborn described the huge skull of a predatory mammal discovered during a American Museum of Natural History expedition to Mongolia. Unfortunately there was little other than the skull left of the great beast, but Osborn thought it belonged to a gigantic omnivore. Osborn named it…
laelaps | March 24, 2009
Tai Shan the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), photographed at the National Zoo.
laelaps | March 23, 2009You may recall that last December I shared a clip or two from Isabella Rossellini's delightful short film series on the mating habits of insects called "Green Porno." Some viewers were fascinated, others horrified, but regardless of your reaction you might be interested to know that on April 1st Rossellini will be back with a slew of new shorts for the second season of Green Porno.
Whereas the original run focused on insects the new season will feature sea creatures. (Among the episodes are "Why Vagina", "Whale", and "Angler".) Here is a promotional clip for the upcoming shorts;
I can't…
laelaps | March 23, 2009
A number of people have been asking me about the status of my book lately. I only wish I had something interesting to report!
By mid-January I had completed about 100 pages, or roughly one third of the book. With that goal reached I began to draft my proposal but I began to feel discouraged. How could I, a no-name science writer, make my work appear unique and important among the tidal wave of evolution books being released this year? I have no authority to trade in on and the quality of my work must stand for itself (as well it should).
At present it appears that the best thing for me to do…