Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
Pterosaur fans, rejoice! Today marks the launch of Pterosaur.net, a website entirely dedicated to the famous flying reptiles. Put together by an all-star team of paleo bloggers, it is the best resource for information on pterosaurs available on the web. Go check it out!
Zeff the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
A chipmunk, photographed near Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.
A female mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), photographed in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
A comparison between the complete skull of a Glyptodon and the skull fragments of a fetal specimen. (From Zurita et al, 2009)
Early in 2009 a team of paleontologists led by Philip Gingerich announced the discovery of a baby archaeocete (early whale) embedded inside the skeleton of an adult of…
A gull in the process of taking off. Photographed at Spring Lake, New Jersey.
Lichen Moss growing on a tree at a turnout near Tower Falls in Yellowstone National Park. (Many thanks for the correction! Shows how much I know about plants...)
Tiktaalik is practically a household name. Since its description in 2006 the flat-headed "fishapod" has appeared in books, on t-shirts, and has even starred in its own music video. Hailed as a "missing link", Tiktaalik has become a poster child fossil for evolution, but it is hardly the first such…
A restoration of Mammalodon by Brian Choo (published in Fitzgerald, 2009).
In the introduction to his 1883 lecture on whales, the English anatomist William Henry Flower said;
Few natural groups present so many remarkable, very obvious, and easily appreciated illustrations of several of the most…
Meerkats (Suricata suricatta), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo.
How can you turn a monkey into a man? By feeding it "Rex" Brand Extract of beef, of course!
I might just have to throw in a bid on this Victorian promotional card. In bizarre fashion it combines several mythical elements common to popular depictions of human origins; that we evolved in a…
A Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
An African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
A red panda (Ailurus fulgens), photographed at Turtleback Zoo in New Jersey.
Ever since my first book, Written in Stone, found a home at Bellevue Literary Press I have had a number of people ask me how to publish their own books. How does a book go from being an idea to a real, dead-tree product? I will be discussing some of the details of this process (especially using…
With a few hours left in 2009, now seems as good a time as any to take stock of what I have accomplished during past year.
The year got off to a pretty good start. After participating in the ScienceOnline09 conference I decided to get serious about science writing, both on blogs and "dead tree…
A red wolf (Canis lupus rufus), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo.
Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
A restoration of the skull of "Pithecanthropus" erectus by Manonvrier.
"Pithecanthropus" erectus, described by the Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois, was an immediate sensation. Known from a skullcap, a femur, and a tooth discovered on the island of Java, it was the first fossil that could be…
During the past year scientists have been celebrating the work of Charles Darwin for the insight the 19th century naturalist had into how evolution works. It is truly amazing how much Darwin got right, but there was also a lot that Darwin didn't know. Indeed, Darwin recognized a group of…
Small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
"Yeah, well like they say, it takes as much faith to believe in science as religion."
I had just been suckerpunched. After spending the last several minutes explaining evolution and its relevance to the history of our species I was hit between the eyes with that old one-liner. Even worse, there was…
A Gelada baboon (Theropithecus gelada), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
A reconstruction of Xiphactinus at the Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.
A reconstruction of Ceratosaurus at the Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.
There was perhaps no Victorian naturalist so well-known and so misunderstood as Richard Owen. He could be warm to friends, but to his scientific peers he was an obstinate autocrat. He was among the first scientists to start publicly considering life in evolutionary terms, yet he never fully…
A female pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) and two fawns, photographed in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.