laelaps |
By now most of you are probably familiar that this blog takes its name from a tyrannosauroid dinosaur originally named Laelaps by E.D. Cope but changed to Dryptosaurus by O.C. Marsh when it was discovered that the name Laelaps was preoccupied by a kind of mite. According to a taxonomic note in the latest issue of the Journal of Paleontology, a similar change-up is now in order, this time involving the ceratopsian dinosaurs Diceratops (Lull, 1905) and Microceratops (Bohlin, 1953). As it turns out, both Diceratops and Microceratops were originally applied to insects in the order hymenoptera (…
laelaps |
Update: You can get a look at some fossils and diagrams from the University of Oslo team here.
In 2006 the BBC ran an article about a team of scientists from the University of Oslo that uncovered a "treasure trove" of Jurassic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pliosaurs, including an extremely large pliosaur informally dubbed "the Monster." According to a follow-up report released today, the "Monster" (it is still awaiting formal description) is the largest pliosaur yet known, estimated as being 20% larger than the famous Kronosaurus.
Although the team initially hoped that the skeleton would be…
laelaps |
The UC Berkley hyena colony is facing a funding crisis; after being sustained for 22 years by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, the organization has decided not to renew funding for the studies undertaken at the institution. An emergency grant from the NSF will keep the colony going for about another year, but many animals have already been shipped to zoos and two older animals have been euthanized in order to make things more manageable in the present situation.
You can learn more about the dilemma via this article in Science (hat-tip to Behavioral Ecology Blog), but I sincerely…
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Even though it has a blurry spot, this is one of my favorite photographs of the orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) at the Philadelphia Zoo. The enclosure for the animals wasn't a very good proxy for their native habitat, but it's possible (even likely) that the orangutan will become extinct within my lifetime. As a professor of mine who studied them once told my class, if you want to see them in the wild, do not delay.
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I hope someone records this and puts it up on YouTube; tonight Bill O'Reilly is going to have a special "Factor Investigation" report asking "Did global warming kill the dinosaurs?" Who they hell did they get to do this "investigation"? I know I shouldn't watch (I don't have the brain cells to spare), but I just won't be able to look away...
Terry "Bucky" Gates, lead author on last year's paper describing Gryposaurus monumentensis, is the paleontologist that is going to be interview on O'Reilly's show. That doesn't clear things up very much, although I have to say I'm enjoying the speculation…
laelaps |
You may recall how I blogged about Norman Silberling's inappropriate comments involving Aetogate the other day, specifically his tacit charge that there's a conspiracy of young paleontologists who are out to get Spencer Lucas for some unknown reason. If you're one of those wretched un- or under-emplyed paleontologists, though, you can proclaim it to the world with some new t-shirts made by ReBecca ("Dinochick") available through her Cafepress store.
[Hat-tip to the Ethical Palaeontologist]
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It's times like this I wish I still had television; tonight the PBS show NOVA will have a special called "The Four-Winged Dinosaur" all about Microraptor. You can see a few brief clips from the show and some behind-the-scenes shots in this promotional video;
As with any show involving puppets, though, there were plenty of shenanigans that didn't make the cut for the final program;
More information about the show can be found at this website, and hopefully some of you who can tune in can blog it for the rest of us.
laelaps |
Today marks the 25th anniversary of my birth, and even though this particular day isn't especially extraordinary I figured that I should at least write a few thoughts about hitting the quarter century mark.
As regular readers know, I've been a bit frustrated with my academic career up to this point; I feel like I'm straining at the leash to get out and get to work, and my university hasn't made it especially easy for me. Still, as embarrassing as it might be to still be completing my undergraduate work, I have benefited from taking the "scenic route" and now have a better idea of what I want…
laelaps |
Back in elementary school, I was told the great dividing line between tortoises and turtles was that turtles are aquatic and tortoises are terrestrial. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule to greater or lesser degrees, but the first time I saw a Galapagos tortoise (Geochelone elephantopus) wallowing in a pool at the Philadelphia Zoo I was a bit surprised. This is a normal behavior for these giant tortoises, though, and they seem to enjoy spending time in the bath.
laelaps |
On June 30, 1860, T.H. ("Darwin's Bulldog") Huxley and Samuel ("Soapy Sam") Wilberforce met at Oxford to debate the concepts put forward in Charles Darwin's recently published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, an encounter that is often celebrated even though the details of the event are lost to history. The famous debate was not the first time that Wilberforce publicly aired his criticisms of Darwin, though, as Wilberforce penned a detailed review of Darwin's famous book that raised a number of objections to evolution still heard from the creationist camp today.…
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Amanda's got the latest edition of The Boneyard up over at her blog; check it out, and remember that the next iteration will be right here at Laelaps on March 8. (Given that the film 10,000 B.C. will be out that weekend, it would be cool if we could have a Pleistocene theme.)
Elsewhere in the blogosphere, two of my colleagues have picked up on the continuing aetosaur controversy. Dr. Free-Ride and Dinochick have both posted their thoughts on the ongoing investigation. You can keep up with the story via Mike Taylor's frequently updated website about the case.
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Last month I met up with hordes of bloggers & journalists at the 2nd annual Science Blogging Conference, but it seems that readers of Sb are increasingly organizing their own meetings. Rather than turn away in a huff muttering "Well I guess you just don't need us anymore," many of us Sciblings want to encourage this emerging behavior among our readers, and a good way to get started would be to join the ScienceBlogs.com fan club on Facebook. It may be a little primitive, but you can browse the list of fans and see who's in your area if you wanted to organize your own meet-up. I have no…
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Most of the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) photos I post here are of an older female named Zeff at the Bronx zoo, but during my earlier visits I often saw another of the several individuals rotated through the public viewing enclosures. The tiger pictured above is named Sasha, a relatively young male that has usually been out for viewing during my visits. It can be somewhat difficult to tell individuals apart, but as I've said before each tiger has their own unique stripe pattern, and even the marks on the side of their faces can be useful in telling one animal from another.
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It can be a dangerous thing to let me loose in a used book store. The Cranbury Bookworm is having a "spring cleaning" sale in which everything in the store is half-off, and even though I was limited to $50 I returned with a dizzying amount of books. Here's a list of today's haul;
Our Face From Fish to Man (1929) - William K. Gregory
In the Shadow of Man (1971) - Jane Goodall
A Fossil-Hunter's Notebook (1980) - Edwin Colbert
Braindance (1992) - Dean Falk
Lucy (1981) - Donald Johansen & Maitland Edey
Adam or Ape (1971) - Louis Leaky and Jack & Stephanie Prost
The World of Natural…
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A baby giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) peers over a fence. The species name of the giraffe comes from a mixing of "camel" and "leopard," giraffes exhibiting a body shape similar to a camel but the spots of a leopard. This sort of nomenclature also has its root in older, long discarded beliefs that some species could be made via unnatural matings between existing species. How a leopard would be able to successfully get a camel in the mood, though, I wouldn't hazard a guess.
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When I was younger, there always seemed to be some show about science on television. Outside of the documentaries on PBS, the Discovery Channel, or even A&E, there was a whole slew of science shows for kids that generally have become extinct without replacement (although some still live on in reruns). Here are the intros to the shows I can remember watching on Saturday mornings and after school;
[I couldn't find the intro for Beakman's World, so here's a clip about elephants instead.]
There may be one or two that I left out, but even if I did there was obviously a…
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Henry de la Beche's "Duria Antiquior," an image of the carnage that must have taken place on the shores of the ancient Dorset.
Years ago, when touring dino-mation exhibits were all the rage, my parents took me to "see the dinosaurs" at the Morris Museum. I was terrified. I had seen dinosaur skeletons before, but the moving, roaring beasts sent me scurrying around the corner, peeking around it as if from a blind. My father walked up to a Triceratops and touched it to show me I was safe, but even though I was so excited about seeing dinosaurs I could not contain my fear when confronted with…
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Last month I blogged about the ongoing ethics case in which paleontologist Spencer Lucas and several of his colleagues were accused of claim-jumping research from a number of individuals and institutions involving ancient archosaurs called aetosaurs. Mike Taylor has been keeping track and all the developments on an exhaustively-detailed website, and some of the latest news is most disconcerting.
On February 21, 2008, it became known that the Department of Cultural Affairs was holding a third inquiry into the case, an article published that very day in the Albuquerque Journal announcing the…