Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
January 11, 2010
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!
January 10, 2010
Zeff the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
January 10, 2010
A chipmunk, photographed near Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.
January 9, 2010
A female mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), photographed in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
January 8, 2010
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 the…
January 8, 2010
A gull in the process of taking off. Photographed at Spring Lake, New Jersey.
January 6, 2010
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...)
January 6, 2010
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…
January 5, 2010
An orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), photographed at the National Zoo.
January 5, 2010
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…
January 4, 2010
Meerkats (Suricata suricatta), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo.
January 4, 2010
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 straight…
January 3, 2010
A Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
January 3, 2010
An African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
January 2, 2010
A red panda (Ailurus fulgens), photographed at Turtleback Zoo in New Jersey.
January 1, 2010
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…
January 1, 2010
A bobcat (Lynx rufus), photographed at Turtleback Zoo in New Jersey.
December 31, 2009
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…
December 31, 2009
A red wolf (Canis lupus rufus), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo.
December 30, 2009
Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
December 30, 2009
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 regarded…
December 29, 2009
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…
December 29, 2009
Small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
December 28, 2009
"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…
December 28, 2009
A Gelada baboon (Theropithecus gelada), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
December 27, 2009
A polar bear (Ursus maritimus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
December 26, 2009
A reconstruction of Xiphactinus at the Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.
December 25, 2009
A reconstruction of Ceratosaurus at the Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.
December 24, 2009
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…
December 24, 2009
A female pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) and two fawns, photographed in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.