Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
February 8, 2008
The American mastodon (Mammut americanum), illustrated in one of Cuvier's memoirs.
When I taking biology in high school science seemed so simple. Lyell was a uniformitarian hero, Cuvier was a brillant anatomist (but sadly a narrow-minded catastrophist), Charles Darwin was the hero of all biology…
February 8, 2008
It's been a while since I've posted a meme here, but I was recently tagged by Dr. Vector and I simply must continue this one. Indeed, I've been hit with the Writing Meme, which says that I should;
1. List 3 writing tips
2.Tag 3 people whose writing style you admire.
When Matt tagged me he wrote…
February 8, 2008
Over the past few years I've made a number of trips to the Bronx Zoo to photograph the animals there, and if I didn't know better I would swear that the melanistic leopards (Panthera pardus) in the"Jungle World" exhibit are statues. They're always asleep and I've never seen one so much as twitch,…
February 7, 2008
I've generally avoided putting up these commercials so far, but I think I've run through just about every other paleo-advert I've been able to find lately. I remember most of these spots from Saturday mornings (and I've thrown in two dinosaur-themed cartoon intros), and I expect some of you might…
February 7, 2008
Even though they'll never admit it, I imagine the creationists allied with the Disco institute are hurting pretty bad right now. Other bloggers have already covered the carnage so I'll just put up some links rather than write up a summary of what's already been said, but the beating ID has received…
February 7, 2008
I know today has been a little light on posts (I've been working on a lab report and on a presentation I'll be giving on "Evolution Sunday"), but I thought I would write up something. Given that I'm taking a course in Human Osteology, osteometric points on the skull are important to know and are…
February 7, 2008
Bioephemera is now live on ScienceBlogs; head on over and give Jessica a warm welcome. I hope her presence here on Sb is anything but ephemeral.
February 7, 2008
This is a photo I took a little less than a year ago of Tai Shan, a giant panda cub (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. You can see the pandas at the National Zoo via a webcam on the official website.
February 6, 2008
Update: Michael has been kind enough to track down a copy of A Discourse on the revolutions of the surface of the globe..., although it looks like I'm going to have to learn French if I want to read Researches on fossil bones.
I've been reading a lot about Cuvier as of late, but I realized that I…
February 6, 2008
Following one of the great "rules" of paleontological fieldwork, a team of paleontologists and volunteers from the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois, came across the toe bones of a theropod dinosaur at the very end of their field season. With no time to dig out the specimen,…
February 6, 2008
Bora just notified everyone to a bit of a paleontological challenge; the blog A natural history of Runswick Bay has an enigmatic fossil that seems to be reminiscent of a belemnite with a surrounding body impression, but the experts contacted about the fossil were unable to figure out what it might…
February 6, 2008
"Toucan Sam" might be the most famous toucan, but the Toco Toucan (Ramphastos toco) is the one you're most likely to see during a visit to the zoo. This particular species prefers more open habitats than other related species which prefer closed forest, and it may be that the toco toucan…
February 5, 2008
PZ's got Henry Rollins, I've got Lewis Black;
February 5, 2008
Update: The paper this post discusses is available online and is open access. It can be found here.
A new ScienceDaily piece reports on new molecular clock data that suggests modern birds have an "ancient origin" about 100 million years ago. My first thought upon reading the brief article was "This…
February 5, 2008
Yesterday was a good day as far as books went; I read G.G. Simpson's Splendid Isolation from cover-to-cover, two review copies arrived in the mail, and a book I've long been wanting to read also arrived at my door. That book is Johannes Weigelt's Recent Vertebrate Carcasses and their…
February 5, 2008
I didn't think it was going to air so early in the year, but apparently David Attenborough's latest program (and last in the "Life of..." series), Life in Cold Blood, is now airing in the UK. The Telegraph recently published an article about the joy of watching Attenborough's documentaries, and I…
February 5, 2008
One member of a three-cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) coalition at the Philadelphia Zoo.
February 4, 2008
The new crocodylian Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi. [Image source].
Living crocodylians have often been referred to as "living fossils," creatures that have survived "virtually unchanged" for hundreds of millions of years. In truth, crocodylians as we recognize them today (i.e. aquatic ambush…
February 4, 2008
The grey-faced sengi (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis). From Rovero, et al. (2008).
Several years ago, while on a visit to the Philadelphia Zoo, I first saw a creature I had never heard of before; the black and rufus sengi (Rhynchocyon petersi). The exhibit caption simply called it a giant elephant…
February 4, 2008
The above photograph is of the forelimb claws of the giant ground sloth Megalonyx wheatleyi, first named by E.D. Cope in 1871. The genus name for this animal was assigned to a similar animal at the close of the previous century, however, Megalonyx first being assigned to fossils that first found…
February 3, 2008
I usually try to avoid putting myself into shots that make it into "Photo of the Day," but I couldn't resist sharing this one. It was inspired by a particular scene from the film Young Frankenstein (one of my most-favorite films), and although I couldn't find the specific part of the movie here's…
February 2, 2008
I just passed the 325-page mark in Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, which puts me in the middle of chapter 4. Chapter 1 was perhaps the most difficult, the abstracts at the end of the opening section being a bit cumbersome. Once I got into chapter 2, however, the sailing was a little…
February 2, 2008
Over the course of evolutionary history there have been a number of animals that have sported elongated neural spines, the structures sometimes aiding in the support of a hump (as in bison) and other times as the framework for a great sail (as in Spinosaurus). Of the group of "sail-backed" and "…
February 1, 2008
As if things weren't contentious enough around here already, I've got another subject for general discussion that I'm sure will lead to some debate. In science there has long been a tradition of trying to engage the public, whether it be through public debates/lectures, books, etc. As Stephen Jay…
February 1, 2008
As I mentioned not too long ago, the natural world is more weird and wonderful than anyone can imagine, and yet another example of the diversity of life is the giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus). This super-sized worm was thought to be extinct by the 1980's, but a number of the worms…
February 1, 2008
The new crocodylian Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi. [Image source].
I guess this one slipped by without getting proper attention. In October of 2007 research described a new genus of species of crocodylian, Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi (pictured above) in the journal Zootaxa. It was a late…
February 1, 2008
Yesterday I ran into an old friend of mine while shuffling between classes (I was carrying a copy of Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory at the time, so a shuffle was the best I could manage), and we got on the topic of anthropology & science books. My friend mentioned Jared Diamond…
February 1, 2008
Smilodon is perhaps the most famous of all the saber-toothed cats, but the level of notoriety it has received has led to a number of misunderstandings. As a child I remember hearing in a documentary (complete with somewhat hokey stop-motion giant sloths) that sabercats became extinct because their…
January 31, 2008
Apparently Sb has been snapping up quality science bloggers at an extraordinary rate, and the latest member of the collective is Maria of Green Gabbro. It's definitely good to have another geo-blogger in the house.
January 31, 2008
A little more than two years ago, I asked the woman who is now my wife to marry me as snow began to fall in Central Park. The ruse I employed to get her out to the spot was the excuse that I wanted to make sure I saw the special Darwin exhibition before it moved elsewhere (which was true), knowing…