Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
November 5, 2007
The American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) is so common in northern New Jersey that many people don't need to go to a zoo in order to see one. Although there have been occasional sightings of the animals in New Brunswick, I've only once seen a Black Bear in the wild, a large individual that…
November 5, 2007
The next edition of the paleo-carnival The Boneyard is coming up this Saturday at Catalogue of Organisms, so be sure to get your entries to me (evogeek at gmail.com) or Chris (gerarus at westnet.com.au) soon!
November 4, 2007
Today's photo comes from the National Zoo in Washington D.C., the only place where I have seen the Gavial (Gavialis gangeticus) in captivity. This crocodylian is one of the most endangered in the world, and the National Zoo has a male and female pair (and I can only assume that the zoo staff hopes…
November 3, 2007
During the 1990's I can scarcely remember a time when one television station or another wasn't playing at least one of the four JAWS movies, TBS, TNT, or WPIX often devoting an entire day to films about killer oceanic creatures. Still, of the four films JAWS 3 (or 3-D, if you like) was one of the b…
November 3, 2007
After many false starts I've actually started to write my "treatise" on evolution, some of the pages I've been turning out being in note form (I want to get the ideas down and then fill in the exact details later when I can pick up the proper reference books from the shelf) while others resemble…
November 3, 2007
Today's photo is of a Lesser Tree Shrew (Tupaia minor), sitting still for a split second allowing me to get a somewhat blurry shot. I wasn't initially thinking of putting this one up today, but I thought it would be a topical choice given a new study in Scienceout this week that suggests Colugos (…
November 2, 2007
Mark of SB's own Denialism Blog has asked other science bloggers who use animals in their research to speak up and discuss what they do either in their own posts in the comments. I do not participate in lab research involving animals, but I have taken an interest in the subject, especially when non…
November 2, 2007
Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) have always been favorite animals at zoos and aquariums, but the current problem of anthropogenic global climate change has popularized them further by making them extinction's poster species. While many documentaries show the loss of ice as one of the primary factors…
November 1, 2007
I still am a bit disappointed that I had to miss SVP this year, but fellow paleo-blogger Amanda has suggested that everyone who wants to attend the 2008 meeting put a little progress bar on their blog to remind themselves to start saving up for the trip (you can make your own using this word cash…
November 1, 2007
A close-up B&W shot of the Willamette Meteorite. The holes the riddle one face of the meteorite were not caused by "cosmic collisions" but by the bolide rusting away in the ground prior to its removal from the Oregon soil (it consists of 91% iron).Virginia Hughes is an editorial assistant here…
November 1, 2007
Yesterday may have been Halloween, but today I learned of a real horror story; the BBC is going to cut "a third of its 180 production staff, including 10 out of 35 producers, nine of 17 assistant producers, 23 of 33 researchers and 11 of 37 production manager jobs," from the Natural History Unit…
November 1, 2007
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending one of the Science Communication Consortium's (SCC) panel discussions on communicating science (moderated by blogger Kate of The Anterior Commissure), and for those who missed the last one another discussion is fast approaching. On November 15th the…
November 1, 2007
This past July my wife and I left at 2 AM on day to reach the southernmost point in New Jersey by sunrise, and after a long 3 hour drive this was the sight we were greeted with. It's not the best photo I've ever taken, but I like it all the same, and it reminds me of the cover of my copy of Aldo…
October 31, 2007
Funding is a difficult thing to obtain, but if you're a paleontologist with a published paper Paleonturology '07 is still accepting submissions. Dr. Vector, last year's winner for his paper "Postcranial Skeletal Pneumaticity in Sauropods and Its Implications for Mass Estimates," tipped me off about…
October 31, 2007
What's Halloween with black cats? While the superstitious may dread a black cat crossing their paths, I live with one that follows me into the bathroom every morning to watch me shave (I don't know what she finds so interesting about it). Her name is Charlotte, and even though my wife and I…
October 31, 2007
Creature-features are fun to watch any time of the year, but they're an absolute must on Halloween. Although there are many excellent SF and horror films to choose from, this year I'm going to have to pick John Carpenter's The Thing.
Based on the Don A. Stuart (AKA John W. Campbell, Jr.) story "…
October 31, 2007
Looks like I've got an editorial war on my hands. Yesterday I announced that my refutation of Brad Pironciak's "Social Darwinism" piece was printed in the college newspaper, The Daily Targum, and now I've received an editorial reply from English major Justin Fruhling. I don't have time to respond…
October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween, everyone! In searching for a somewhat frightening image (I already recently used Prestosuchus and Amphicyon), I recalled this photo of the AMNH Tyrannosaurus rex mount. Most of the photos I have of the reconstruction are of the whole head or body, but I especially like this one…
October 30, 2007
The sculpted skull of the AMNH Deinonychus mount.For nearly as long as I can remember, artistic depictions of Deinonychus and related dromeosaurs have featured the dinosaur as a pack hunter, often pouncing on a hapless ornithischian like Tenontosaurus (see here, here, here, and here for examples).…
October 30, 2007
Yesterday I wrote about an absolutely horrible opinion piece that appeared in the Rutgers newspaper The Daily Targum, the author suggesting that those he deemed stupid deserved to die. Although I gave a detailed response on this blog, I wanted to address the Rutgers community as a whole and I shot…
October 30, 2007
Most of the wildlife photographs I feature here were taken at zoos, but every once in a while I get a chance to photograph some indigenous creatures, White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) being the only relatively large mammal in the area. In fact, New Jersey has an overabundance of the deer…
October 29, 2007
It was bound to happen sooner or later; books were starting to overflow onto the floor and living room table, so a great bookcase reorganization needed to be undertaken. This is a snapshot during the carnage, my little cat Charlotte coming to help ("help" meaning crawl all over the books and push…
October 29, 2007
Matt has put up the latest and greatest edition of The Boneyard, guiding visitors along a haunted fossil-picking tour of the best paleo-blogging from the past two weeks. Trust me, this one is not to be missed. I'm still looking for a host for the week after next (and into the foreseeable future),…
October 29, 2007
Female Snow Leopard twins born last year at the Bronx Zoo.When I initially started posting pictures on my blog, I didn't know if anyone would have anything to say about my pictures. I frequent zoos, museums, and aquariums, usually shooting between 200 and 600 shots per trip, the handful of good…
October 29, 2007
A little more than a week ago, scientist James Watson made a complete idiot of himself with some despicable and racist comments about the intelligence of white people and black people, and Greg Laden justifiably kicked his arse over the ill-founded statements. I was certainly surprised, then, to…
October 29, 2007
There are some animals that seem to exist in a bit of taxonomic confusion (at least in the literature; I don't think zebras lose sleep over their species names), the Plains Zebra being one of these. The animals pictured above are from the Philadelphia Zoo and listed as being members of the species…
October 28, 2007
This is Cali and Summer, two California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Both rescued from wild populations (Summer was abandoned by her mother and Cali's mother died soon after Cali was botn), the two were raised by human keepers and so require a lot of…
October 27, 2007
Until I saw this 1972 film I had no idea that amphibians wanted to rule the world, but apparently they are cold-blooded masterminds bent on destroying Homo sapiens, or at least wrecking a crotchety old man's birthday. Oddly enough, however, Frogs doesn't even live up to it's own name, there being…
October 27, 2007
I can't say that I'm a fan the music choice, but I have to admit, this bird can dance to the beat better than I can. This is Snowball, "a medium sulphur crested Eleanora cockatoo," who's apparently a big fan of the Backstreet Boys.
October 27, 2007
The interplay of light and shadow on yesterday's Photo of the Day (Amphicyon) reminding me of another photo I recently took of a far more benign creature, the Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon petersi). I had never seen or heard of these animals until a little more than a year ago, but…