laelaps | October 1, 2008
A reconstruction of Megalosaurus from Life in the Primeval World.
Dinosaurs were in ample supply when I was a kid. There were enough documentaries, cartoons, books, trading cards, and misshapen plastic toys to keep me occupied for all my days. They were the ultimate brand; freely available to be printed on anything by anyone, and they most certainly were. (Why eat just any cereal when you can eat dinosaur-shaped cereal?) This prehistoric popularity is so widespread that it is not unusual for children to go through a "dinosaur phase," in which they master Greek & Latin terminology and…
laelaps | October 1, 2008
An Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | September 30, 2008Is it just me, or have some science blogs been running out of steam lately? I know earlier this year we had a number of people (either on their blogs or privately) express that they were considering giving up blogging to concentrate on other things. I haven't been paying attention for that long, though, so I thought I would open up the question to whoever might want to chime in. Particularly in the case of long-time science bloggers, are you just as enthusiastic about science blogging as you were a year ago (or when you started)? How have things changed?
For my own part, a number of changes…
laelaps | September 30, 2008
The next edition of the paleo-themed blog carnival The Boneyard (#24) will be on exhibition next Tuesday, October 7th, at The Other 95%. It would be nice if, in honor of the host, we could get some cool invert posts in this one (ammonites, rudists, bryozoa, you name it). Whatever paleo posts you might have will work just fine, though, so get them to me or Kevin before next Tuesday if you want in on the next edition!
laelaps | September 30, 2008The Field Museum curator of mammals, Bruce Patterson, has recently returned from his field work in Tsavo, Kenya, and he has posted some of his excellent photography in a Kodak gallery. The shots are absolutely breathtaking; they almost make me want to sell all my stuff and take off for Kenya.
[Update: You can see more photos from previous trips here.]
As outlined on his biographical webpage, Patterson runs a number of projects, but lions are his focus at Tsavo. Made famous (infamous?) by the thriller The Ghost and the Darkness a few years back, there's actually much more to learn about the…
laelaps | September 30, 2008This Sunday, October 5th, Drexel University paleontologist Ken Lacovara will be giving a lecture on Patagonian dinosaurs called "Giants at the End of the World." It will be at the recently re-opened New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, and it starts at 4 PM (and is free!).
I don't know whether I'm going to be able to make it or not, but if you're in the area I definitely would recommend checking it out. Maybe he will even have something to say about Aerosteon!
laelaps | September 30, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | September 29, 2008
Two updates in one day? Well, I was productive enough for it. There are still a few more things I have to add, mainly fine details and a few more examples (i.e. pneumatization in dinosaur skeletons), but the meat of the chapter is now in place. Soon I'll have to undertake the more difficult task of editing it down to an acceptable length (presently it stands at 41 pages).
I am, as ever, somewhat behind my ideal schedule, but I think the extra effort is worth it. The easy thing for me to do would be to plainly and dryly present the arguments as I have found them. Such a book would merely be a…
laelaps | September 29, 2008During the 19th century most discussions of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, focused on its relationship to other fossil reptiles, whether or not it could fly, and what it indicated about the origins of flight. A bird would not be a bird without song, though, and at least two authors attempted to imagine what sounds the early bird might have made had it tried to sing. The first was Eden Phillpotts in the fictional book Fancy Free. In one particular chapter an Archdeacon describes a fantastic Mesozoic safari (with a tomcat named Peter by his side), describing that and as he relaxed by…
laelaps | September 29, 2008
After a lot of work, I finally got to covering what happened during the 1960's and 1970's in the bird evolution chapter. There are basically three phases that dominate the section; 1860-1926, 1968-1980, and the explosion of research spurred by the discovery of feathered non-avian dinosaurs. The first two sucked up quite a bit of my time, and I spent most of the weekend digging for material to revise the notion that paleontologists thought dinosaurs were just "big lizards" prior to the discovery of Deinonychus.
Indeed, even in 1946 there were suggestions that dinosaurs were so successful…
laelaps | September 29, 2008
An Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | September 28, 2008
Sandpipers, photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware.
laelaps | September 27, 2008moar funny pictures
Eliza and Madeline, two kittens I fostered over the summer. (They have good homes now.)
Given my fondness for cats, I guess the result of this quiz isn't all that surprising, either [hat-tip to John];
Your result for The Which Discworld Character Am I Test...
DEATH
You scored 98 intelligence, 48 morality, and 48 physical strength!
YOU ARE SMART, SAVVY, AND KNOW WHAT DEDICATION TO THE JOB IS...MOST OF THE TIME. YOU ENJOY YOUR WORK, AND EVEN HELP OUT OTHER ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATIONS FROM TIME TO TIME. RECENTLY, YOU'VE LEARNED WHEN TO BEND THE RULES, MUCH TO THE…
laelaps | September 27, 2008Whatever the hell it wanted. A few years ago, though, there were plenty of shows that played up the debate over whether the famous dinosaur was a scavenger or a predator, and below is one such program. Called "T-rex: Warrior or Wimp?" the show is full of dramatic music cues and interviews with paleontologists like Peter Larson, Ken Carpenter, Chris Brochu, Jack Horner, and others. (A few months ago Horner answered a few questions about his work, which you can see here. For a good, critical look at the scavenging vs. hunting debate, though, see Thomas Holtz's contribution to the new…
laelaps | September 27, 2008
A bit of shell on a sandy pedestal. Photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
laelaps | September 26, 2008I haven't reviewed any bad movies lately, but this new cheese-fest is making me consider starting up again. For your viewing pleasure (?), Shark In Venice (warning: badly done blood & gore ahead);
Shark In Venice - Trailerby ohmygore
Stock footage, bad CGI, and a lesser Baldwin brother? How can I possibly resist?
laelaps | September 26, 2008So far, the Rutgers football team has lost every single game it has played this season. It's not too late to give up hope for a major turnaround, boosters say, but the atrocious performance of the team is leading many to have serious doubts about whether the $102 million stadium expansion is a good idea after all.
In a speech made this past week, university president Richard McCormick once again apologized for the "lack of transparency" in athletic department dealings, namely an audit that revealed shady accounting practices and off-the-books spending for the benefit of Big Football. To…
laelaps | September 26, 2008The latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology is now available via BIOONE, and it's packed to the gills with neat stuff. Of particular interest are;
A paper on Georgiacetus that also establishes a new cladistic arrangement of ancient whales, the Pelagiceti.
A study of vertebral pachyostosis in the spine of the mosasaur Carentonosaurus.
A new aetosaur from Texas. [For more from one of the authors of the paper, see Chinleana.]
A new skull of a juvenile Heterodontosaurus tucki.
New postcranial material of the tyrannosauroid Stokesosaurus.
A new paper on the biogeography…
laelaps | September 26, 2008
A Ceratosaurus attacks a Stegosaurus.
Most everyone who is interested in dinosaurs has either seen images of or heard of the famous Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in England, but not as many are familiar with the "antediluvian monsters" reconstructed at Carl Hagenbeck's Zoological Park at Hamburg. I certainly had not, at least not until I just happened to be flipping through a copy of J.W. Gregory's 1915 book Geology of To-Day.
Triceratops, with a Mastodontosaurus in the foreground.
When I first saw the images, like the one of the Ceratosaurus nibbling a Stegosaurus above, I wasn't sure if I…
laelaps | September 26, 2008
A dead, sand-encrusted fish, photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware.