Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
laelaps
Posts by this author
November 14, 2007
Up until a few years ago I had never seen a Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) in captivity, but the Bronx Zoo has had great success in keeping the big cats as well as breeding them. In addition to taking in "Leo," a male Snow Leopard on loan from Pakistan, on June 7, 2006 the adult female Mei Mei gave…
November 13, 2007
A female Lowland Gorilla at the Bronx Zoo in a familiar pose.
The other day I hyped the NOVA special "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial," a documentary that I have been looking forward to for quite some time. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I visited the official website for the…
November 13, 2007
It's that time of year again*; the final deadline for the 2nd edition of The Open Laboratory (featuring the best of science writing from around the blogosphere) is fast approaching. Coturnix (of A Blog Around the Clock fame), inexhaustible as ever, has compiled a list of all the submitted posts…
November 13, 2007
This is one of my favorite shots of the Snow Monkeys (Macaca fuscata, also known as Japanese Macaques) resident at the Central Park Zoo in New York. While most primates are tropical to subtropical in their ranges, Snow Monkeys (as they name would imply) are the furthest north in the Northern…
November 12, 2007
There are some blog posts that I have in mind for a long time before they make it to Laelaps, others that are written in a more spur-of-the-moment fashion, usually about one topic or another that has left me aggravated and incised with no recourse except unloading my thoughts on the internet.…
November 12, 2007
What's this? A photo of a creature that isn't a large charismatic mammal? Although my affinity for carnivores and artiodactyls is difficult to miss, I have taken many photographs that I'm quite pleased with of other sorts of animals, although I don't often post them because I'm not entirely sure…
November 11, 2007
Climate Audit tied the far superior Bad Astronomy Blog for "Best Science Blog" this year, and the above photograph illustrates all I have to say to those who deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change.
November 10, 2007
Just in case you didn't get your crocdylian fix today, here's a clip from the documentary "The Crocodile's Revenge" that I stumbled across while on YouTube which I remember watching as a kid;
I haven't seen it in years (and I'm going to have to get a VHS player if I want to), but I recall the…
November 10, 2007
Some movies, like the recently released cheese-fest Dragon Wars, are so utterly terrible that you can have a good time poking fun at everything that's wrong with them. Other films are downright painful to watch, and the killer-croc film Lake Placid falls into this latter category. Who would of…
November 10, 2007
As I have been tagged by Julia, here is the "Meme of Four";
4 jobs I have had:
1. Police Department Road Crew (painting lines in the street, fixing traffic signs, etc).
2. Blockbuster Video/Suncoast Video/Hollywood Video Sales Rep.
3. Target stockroom/sales floor
4. Biopesticide…
November 10, 2007
Chris has the 9th edition of The Boneyard up at the Catalogue of Organisms. Diseased bones, mass extinctions, some wonderful scientific artwork, and cursorial early birds are all featured, so be sure to check it out! Also, don't forget that the next edition of the geo-carnival The Accretionary…
November 10, 2007
One of the three male Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) at the Philadelphia Zoo. While many cats are known for their solitary habits, cheetahs can be quite social (although they do not possess the some sort of social system seen in Lions [Panthera leo]). In the wild males often will form coalitions of…
November 9, 2007
I'm definitely glad to see, through comments and the occasional link, that so many readers of Laelaps have made the jump over from the Mk. 1 blog on Wordpress to my fancy new digs here on ScienceBlogs. Still, I'm sure there are some who read but never comment, others who are new, so if you've got a…
November 9, 2007
A brief clip of a Siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus) vocalizing.
Some mornings in the forests of Indonesia, a male and female gibbon will perform a musical duet. The pair will call out, staking their claim in the forest, often answered by neighboring pairs, their treetop display the result of…
November 9, 2007
Many of the details of the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case are common knowledge among science bloggers and online communities concerned with evolution, but I have to wonder how many people really know about the background of the case? Fortunately, PBS will be airing a new…
November 9, 2007
The theme for the 2nd annual Alliance for Science National High School Essay Contest has been announced; the 2008 theme is going to be the extremely interesting and relevant subject of "Climate, Agriculture, and Evolution." Indeed, it's good to see changes in ecology integrated with evolutionary…
November 9, 2007
[The image has been removed as it seemed to be part of a spamming scam.]
I guess this just goes to show that if you throw enough species names around on your blog it'll fool the ranking mechanisms on these things. If you want to give it a try yourself, you can do so here. (I don't think Laelaps…
November 9, 2007
The quintessential sabercat may be Smilodon, but it's importance in terms of our own evolution pales in comparison to another sabercat that hominins shared the landscape with in Africa and Europe: Megantereon. Various hypotheses have been put forward about the relationship of our early ancestors…
November 8, 2007
Just in case you needed more evidence that the young earth creationists of Answers in Genesis are boldfaced liars, they've published a new webpage advising students how to start "Creation Clubs" at their public schools. AiG has sworn up and down that it doesn't want to force their (appallingly…
November 8, 2007
Wolves are among my favorite carnivores, but they're often shy even in zoo settings, making them difficult to photograph. During my visit to the National Zoo this past spring, however, this Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) came down to get a drink from the pool at the edge of the enclosure,…
November 7, 2007
The whole of natural history fascinates me, but everyone has their own favorite topics, and one of the most intriguing subject areas (to me, at least) is predator/prey interactions. Herbivores are interesting in their own right, surely, but for me it is the predators that are the most thought-…
November 7, 2007
Today's photo, like yesterday's, was taken at the Philadelphia Zoo, and I was fortunate enough to be able to catch the Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) as they were entering the water. I'm sure everyone has heard of their aggressiveness via television documentaries and other sources, but few have…
November 6, 2007
Back when I was a blogging greenhorn, right about this time last year, an evangelical YEC thought he had come up with an intellectual coup de grâce to make me see "the light"; "Antony Flew believes in a god, so there." (Ok, so I'm paraphrasing just a bit) Chalk it up to ignorance, but I had never…
November 6, 2007
I apologize, dear readers, that today I probably won't be able to keep up with my more usual prolific rate of posting. The reasons for this today are as follows;
I have two major exams today, one in my "Soils & Water" "Soils and Society" class and my Computers midterm (which for some reason…
November 6, 2007
The Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is a very interesting Indonesian species of felid that doesn't seem to mind getting wet. Living on the margins of rivers, swamps, and smaller bodies of water, these cats often swim and (as their name implies) are quite fond of freshly-caught fish. Indeed,…
November 5, 2007
The fiberglass skull of Barnum Brown's second Tyrannosaurus rex fitted on the revised mount now standing on the 4th floor of the AMNH.
The AMNH in New York is home to some of the most impressive biological collections in the world, the institution playing host to various students of natural…
November 5, 2007
Even though I didn't get to go to SVP this year, my friends Julia and Neil were in attendance and were kind enough to send me a *signed* copy of Don Prothero's newest book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters. Although I was already in the middle of a book when Prothero's book…
November 5, 2007
A mother Tyrannosaurus rex and her offspring at the end of the WWD live show.
Robotic dinosaurs have long been a thorn in the side of students of paleontology; the rigid, roaring robots of the "DinoMotion" craze of the 1990's did little more than get more people into museums without providing…
November 5, 2007
I'm a little late on this, but if you haven't already, head on over to Greg Laden's fancy new digs here at ScienceBlogs! Be sure to stop by the Sandwalk, too, as it's celebrating it's first blogiversary.
Update: Also, Chris is celebrating his 100th post with a brand new carnival about…
November 5, 2007
For all of you who enjoy the various photographs I post here every day, I've now opened a CafePress store featuring some prints, mugs, and calendars emblazoned with some of the best photographs I've taken in 2007. There are shots of various creatures, big and small, from the Bronx, Philadelphia,…