Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
October 26, 2009
Last week I reviewed part 1 of the upcoming NOVA miniseries, "Becoming Human." It was a fair introduction to early human origins even if it was marred by persistent references to an illusory onward-and-upward march of human progress. Where the first episode primarily concerned itself with…
October 26, 2009
A cast of Dimetrodon in the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point, Utah.
October 25, 2009
A storm approaches Dinosaur National Monument in northern Utah.
October 24, 2009
The view behind our campsite at the Green River Campground at Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.
October 23, 2009
The stench emanating from the putrefying mammoth carcass carried for miles.
Though kept out of the sun by the long shadows of the surrounding pine trees, the corpse reeked as the flesh, sinew, and bone of the mammoth's body were slowly parceled out into the ecosystem by scavengers. The woolly…
October 23, 2009
A black bear (Ursus americanus), photographed in Grand Teton National Park. It was the first of two my wife and I saw walking along the Leigh Lake trail that afternoon.
October 22, 2009
If you have not heard enough about fossil primates in the past month already, I will be on today's edition of BBC Radio 4's "Material World" to talk about Ida and Afradapis. My interview will follow one about Ardipithecus ramidus with Tim White and Yohannes Haile-Selassie, so if you are interested…
October 22, 2009
With a park ranger so close, this Yellowstone bison (Bison bison) makes sure to cross at the intersection.
October 21, 2009
The restored lower jaw of Afradapis. From the Nature paper.
This past May a 47 million year old fossil primate named Darwinius masillae, better known as "Ida", burst onto the public scene. The lemur-like creature was proclaimed to be the "missing link" and the "ancestor of us all", but the…
October 21, 2009
Mudpots at the Artists' Paint Pots area in Yellowstone National Park.
October 20, 2009
[Note: Once again I have found myself with too many writing projects and too little time. Expect something substantial to appear here tomorrow, but for now enjoy an old tale about the "Nevada Giant."]
The role petrified bones and footprints have played in the origin of myths and legends has been…
October 20, 2009
A lizard (perhaps the common side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana?), photographed at Antelope Island, Utah.
October 19, 2009
How our species appeared on this planet has traditionally been a touchy subject. For centuries different religions pushed their creation myths as the answer to the persistent question "How did we come to be here?", but as naturalists examined the world around them the less the "Book of Nature" fit…
October 19, 2009
The Riverside Geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.
October 18, 2009
A chipmunk gnaws on a sun chip in a parking lot in the Mount Naomi Wilderness in Utah. Free range cattle were also a common sight along the trail.
October 17, 2009
An old dead tree in Leigh Lake at Grand Teton National Park.
October 16, 2009
Three restorations (top, left side, and bottom) of the skull of Andrewsiphius. From the Journal of Paleontology paper.
During the past 30 years the evolution of fully aquatic whales from terrestrial ancestors has gone from one of the most enigmatic evolutionary transitions to one of the best…
October 16, 2009
North American river otters (Lontra canadensis), photographed in the Lamar Valley at Yellowstone National Park
October 15, 2009
My new favorite illustration from the technical literature; a baseball player compared to the glyptodont Doedicurus clavicaudatus. From the Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper.
In the introduction to his most famous work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the Victorian…
October 15, 2009
An arabesque orbweaver spider (Neoscona arabesca) photographed on Antelope Island, Utah. This species, about the size of a quarter, was a common sight among the sunflowers.
October 14, 2009
Things have been a little slow around here this week, but for good reason.
As you might expect I have been hard at work on my first book, Written in Stone. It is a challenge, but the process has its own little rewards, and I am putting the majority of my effort into making it the best book that I…
October 14, 2009
A female grouse (I'm not sure of the species), photographed in Yellowstone National Park.
October 13, 2009
A view across the Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park.
October 12, 2009
I love flipping through old paleontology textbooks. Many times the text and images inside them have been reproduced from other sources or bear a close resemblance to similar titles published at about the same time, but every now and then I find something really unusual. Such was the case while I…
October 12, 2009
The partial remains of a large animal entombed in a thermal feature in Yellowstone's Mud Volcano Area.
October 11, 2009
The battered skull of a cougar (Puma concolor), photographed at the Utah Museum of Natural History.
October 10, 2009
Hidden Falls, photographed in Grand Teton National Park.
October 9, 2009
Chucking stones at baboons; the first hominin passtime? From The Making of Man.
For the Australian anatomist Raymond Dart, the fossilized bones scattered among the caves of South Africa were testimonies to the murderous nature of early humans. The recovered skulls of baboons and our…
October 9, 2009
Sunset over the Great Salt Lake, as photographed from Antelope Island, Utah.
October 8, 2009
Today marks two years since I started writing here at ScienceBlogs. To tell you the truth, I lost track of how long it had been. I did not know it was my own blogiversary until other people reminded me this morning. Nevertheless, many thanks to all my readers, regardless of whether you have been…