Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
February 22, 2008
I'm sorry I still haven't put up my post about dinosaurs & mythology as yet; I've had a bit of a stressful/depressing day and I just wasn't up to the task of finishing it. I'll definitely finish it tomorrow, however, just in time for the next installment of The Boneyard over at Amanda's place.…
February 22, 2008
John Martin's 1838 depiction of an Iguanodon attacked by a Megalosaurus.[source]
The other day I received a review copy of Ralph O'Connor's fantastic book The Earth on Show, and it has quickly become one of my most favorite tomes. (I know I'm a bit behind on reviews; I hope to get some done this…
February 22, 2008
Unfortunately I don't have any photographs of charismatic carnivores in the snow, but here's another shot of Zeff the Amur Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) on a cold February morning. I could probably get some today or tomorrow, but being that the snow is still coming down it's probably safer not…
February 21, 2008
I cringed when one of the video captions used the phrase "missing link," but other than that the clip is a good summary of what it took to reconstruct Tiktaalik. I wish I had some degree of artistic talent; I've always admired the reconstructions, restorations, and mounts on display at the AMNH…
February 21, 2008
Nebraska Man as restored in the Illustrated London News.
As I made my way around the lab table during my last human osteology practical, examining the yellowed and cracked teeth in the hopes that I'd be able to tell an upper molar from a lower one, I came across a particularly strange tooth. I…
February 21, 2008
Two members of the three-cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) coalition at the Philadelphia Zoo.
February 20, 2008
Expert On Anteaters Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters
[Via the Onion]
February 20, 2008
Several nights ago I was attending a lecture, reading Lyman's Vertebrate Taphonomy, when I noticed someone standing beside me. A thin male student in a long grey coat walked into the room halfway through the lecture, peering around the classroom for someone or something. On a normal day I wouldn't…
February 20, 2008
PZ and Josh may have beat me to the punch, but I agree that this belongs on a t-shirt.
February 20, 2008
I would assume that most people who go out to the movie theater now and then have at least one experience similar to my own. You're sitting there, already halfway through your bag of popcorn, and the lights dim for the trailers. Some of the upcoming movies look good, others are just eye-candy (but…
February 20, 2008
Amanda is already far more prepared than I am for the next Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting that will be held in Cleveland, Ohio this coming October. I'm hoping to be there, but somehow I get the feeling that my own experience is going to be a relatively last-minute mad dash to get…
February 20, 2008
Last November news broke of at least one Florida school district opposing new education standards that would bring the term "evolution" to the state's students for the very first time. Since that time opponents to the view have attempted to rally but never quite got their act together, and now it…
February 20, 2008
I had nearly forgotten about this photograph of a sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), but it's one of my favorites. Don't let their name or insect-based diet fool you, though; they can move quite quickly and are can be very dangerous to encounter. This is not because they are especially aggressive, but…
February 19, 2008
I had something of an interesting experience this afternoon. I stopped into a local Stop & Shop to pick up a new razor and a few other necessities, and because I only a had a few items I decided to use the self check-out. On my way over someone dropped two boxes of cereal on the ground as I was…
February 19, 2008
The next edition of The Boneyard is coming up on the 23rd of the month (Saturday [short notice, I know!]) over at Self-Designed Student. After that it'll be back on the regular two-week schedule, the 15th edition showing up right here. The slate after that is wide-open though, so if you'd like to…
February 19, 2008
This morning I was browsing YouTube in an attempt to find some nutty creationist argument no one had seen yet, but instead I came across a few cable TV "debates" between creationists and defenders of evolution. They were painful to watch; the creationists proffered the same nonsense and the various…
February 19, 2008
While petsitting for a friend this past summer, I noticed that every afternoon a female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) would bring several fawns into the yard to forage every afternoon. Most days I had to photograph them from the house, the sound of a door opening sending them off into…
February 18, 2008
As T. Ryan Gregory recently pointed out in his paper "Evolution as Fact, Theory, and Path," it is a shame that the English language is so impoverished as to cause the concept of evolution to be so controversial. Within the evolutionary lexicon, "theory," "saltation," " macroevolution," "direction…
February 18, 2008
Over the last several hundred years, humans in North America have unwittingly selected the species that are going to be coexisting with humanity in the future. Rare native flora and fauna have disappeared, but some organisms have flourished in the modified landscape. White-tailed deer, coyotes,…
February 18, 2008
A few days ago I wrote about my experience with an ice storm that hit the city I live in and my experience walking home in it. Things warmed up a little after that, but I was not expecting to wake up and find out that the temperature was 60 degrees Fahrenheit at 6:00 this morning! I wish I had to…
February 18, 2008
A snow leopard (Panthera uncia) cub snacking on a bit of bone at the Bronx Zoo.
February 17, 2008
The American mastodon (Mammut americanum), illustrated in one of Cuvier's memoirs.
I've had a bit of a rough weekend, but I did read something last night that brought a smile to my face. I was reading Paul Semonin's American Monster and I came across an unintentionally amusing quote from Thomas…
February 17, 2008
Greg has the latest edition of the Boneyard up on display, featuring snippets of William Stout's fantastic new artwork on display at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Greg has uncovered a rich assemblage of posts, so be sure to have a look.
I was also hoping that fans of the Boneyard might be…
February 17, 2008
Like yesterday's photo I was not able to get close enough to this animal to get a better shot, but given the difficulty I had photographing this chipmunk (Tamias sp.) I was still happy I was able to get a shot at all.
February 16, 2008
The fiberglass skull of Barnum Brown's second Tyrannosaurus rex fitted on the revised mount now standing on the 4th floor of the AMNH.
I guess it's appropriate that I just posted the trailer to the new Indiana Jones film, because as soon as I heard that there's a Tyrannosaurus up for auction on…
February 16, 2008
When I was younger I wanted to have Indiana Jones' job when I grew up (just going after dinosaurs instead of archaeological relics). I had an official Indiana Jones hat that I wore everywhere I went, and my father used to tell me that he could see me becoming an adventuring professor one day. Now…
February 16, 2008
Yesterday's brief post about "impostor syndrome" recalled the following Monty Python sketch. I don't think "aggravated student" would be listed as a profession, but at least I'm good at it;
February 16, 2008
I don't have a powerful enough lens to take close-up photographs of birds (yet), but I think you can still see how robust this particular red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) is. I photographed him in July of last year, singing to stake his claim to his territory, and I don't think I've seen…
February 15, 2008
When I wrote about the new species of predatory dinosaur, Carcharodontosaurus iguidensis, this past December, I made a note of how interesting it was that in Cretaceous Gondwana there seems to be a certain triumvirate of predatory dinosaur groups. According to the data presented in Brusatte and…
February 15, 2008
I've been reading so much about mythology & religion as it relates to natural history lately that I've decided to revamp on old post of mine on that very subject. (It was already monstrous to begin with, but given what I intend to add it may get out of control.) I hope to have it up sometime…