frivolous nonsense
tetrapodzoology | May 4, 2008
Ok, signing off for a while now. Among other things, the above will get discussed when I get back: the image on the right (from here) might look somewhat, err, 'inspired' if you're familiar with the original produced by Mark Witton (see here and here). So long for now. Oh, actually, one last thing...
You all know that 2008 is Year of the Frog. As I discussed back in December 2007, tiny sums of money (relatively speaking) are all that are needed to get individuals of many endangered amphibians into captivity, and hence away from the chytrid fungus that is making them extinct in the wild. And…
tetrapodzoology | March 21, 2008
Dr David Hone is well known for many scientific achievements. For the description of the new rhynchosaur Fodonyx (Hone & Benton 2007a). For his papers on Cope's rule and macroevolutionary trends in archosaurs (Hone & Benton 2005, Hone et al. 2005). For his PhD work on the phylogenetic position of pterosaurs (Hone & Benton 2007b). For the organisation of the awesome Munich pterosaur meeting. And for the philanthropic wonder that is the Ask A Biologist site. But even such a noble creator can spawn a monster. Yes world, I give you the horror that is lol-sauropods, brain-child of…
tetrapodzoology | March 4, 2008
Yes yes, well done (almost) everyone: yesterday's so-called mystery picture was indeed of a takin calf Budorcas taxicolor, and yes it's the offspring of the individuals that I was talking about seeing at Marwell Zoological Park back in 2006. This particular photo was taken by Graeme Elliott (I think)...
Besides the thickset look of the whole animal, clues that give away the calf's identity include the dark vertebral stripe, the chunky forelimbs, and the big, bulky lateral hooves (or dewclaws). Takins use their big dewclaws to aid their footing on hilly, rocky places. Takins occur today in…
tetrapodzoology | March 3, 2008
You all love the 'identify the mystery animal' posts so much I thought I'd produce a whole string of them. Minimum effort, maximum result ('min eff, max res', as I always say). Go go go!!
tetrapodzoology | January 26, 2008
2007 - Tet Zoo's second year of operation - has come and gone. The previous article was a brief personal review of the year, and here's more of the same (sort of) if you can handle it...
As if Tet Zoo wasn't enough to deal with, in September my partners-in-crime Mike P. Taylor and Matt Wedel [shown here; Mike is the less big one] decided, with me, to start up a new zoological blog, but this time devoted to something a little more specific: namely, sauropod vertebrae (and nothing else, pretty much). So on October 1st, Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week, or SV-POW!, was born. Despite…
tetrapodzoology | January 24, 2008
January 21st 2008 was Tet Zoo's second birthday, but due to its clashing with the launch of the EDGE amphibian site I didn't have the chance to write about it. So, better late than never, I'm doing that now. It's time to reminiscence on a year gone by, on a year when so much happened in the world of Tetrapod Zoology...
The move to Science Blogs
The real personal big deal for 2007 was, of course, the migration of this blog to the wonderful world of Science Blogs. I initially decided that this wouldn't change my blogging habits, but eventually it did, as the constant quest for more hits has…
tetrapodzoology | January 8, 2008
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you read Tet Zoo, you're in very good - nay, famous - company. I've lost track of how many famous zoologists, palaeontologists, artists, TV personalities and Hollywood starlets are among the regular visitors. Among the many is Mike Skrepnick, who of course needs no introduction. Inspired by my previous article on that god-awful How to Keep Dinosaurs book, he told me about a similar project he's been working on himself...
And here are some pictures to prove it. The image above features a Daspletosaurus, a tyrannosaurine tyrannosaurid…
tetrapodzoology | January 2, 2008
As a dinosaur specialist I often get asked about Robert Mash's 2003 book How to Keep Dinosaurs (Mash 2003). It seems that most people (usually those who haven't read it) think that this book is good, or funny. Don't get me wrong - I think a book dedicated to dinosaur husbandry is an excellent idea; the problem is that Mash didn't do it well.
I should explain to begin with that How to Keep Dinosaurs is set on a parallel Earth where Mesozoic non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and other ancient reptiles live alongside humans. A while back I reviewed How to Keep Dinosaurs for Fortean Times and,…
tetrapodzoology | December 17, 2007
If you're on my hallowed List of Correspondents you'll already have received the image here as an attachment (and at slightly higher resolution: email me if you want a higher-res version). For the other several thousand of you, happy Christmas and all that. I've never been one to bother with paper Christmas cards, so the digital revolution gave me a good excuse to create senseless tat and send it round to my friends, ostensibly in the spirit of Christmas. For a previous effort you can see the 2006 card on ver 1 here (the 2005 card used to be viewable at Steve Bodio's Querencia but is no…
tetrapodzoology | December 11, 2007
You can knock it
You can rock it
You can go to Timbuktu
But you'll never find a nessie in the zoo
You may see an anaconda, or giraffe and kangaroo
But you'll never see a nessie in a zoo
More soon, really. For now, I'm afraid all you get is this poxy teaser post... plus some of the lyrics to The Family Ness, staple viewing for my 9-year old self.
tetrapodzoology | December 9, 2007
If you read the ceratosaurid article from yesterday (here), you'll understand what's going on here. I drew it in a diary in 1992 (specifically, on Wednesday 29th April 1992, the day I learnt that Toby the cat had died, and also the day on which the borg [of Star Trek: The Next Generation] made their first appearance on British TV). The caption reads 'Ceratosaurus and Thylacinus contemplate their predicament'. Anatomical errors abound, but I can live with that.
tetrapodzoology | November 28, 2007
Late in the evening I sat in an airport lounge, finally reading Robert Twigger's book on python hunting, my head full of Robert Appleby's legacy, fossil giraffes, giant mustelids, and the song from the end of Portal. I thought about the wolfhounds I'd seen, the bullfinches, stock doves and plovers; the bones we'd found; the teeth and vertebrae I'd handled or photographed; a futile search for hares and about the leverets I discovered in Germany once; the pile of correspondence I'd gone through; and the work I had yet to do on all those hundreds and hundreds of unlabelled diagrams. I thought…
tetrapodzoology | October 22, 2007
For, like, the second time in the last six years we're going on holiday. So, goodbye. Back soon. Just received a copy of Gasparini et al.'s Patagonian Mesozoic Reptiles; looks awesome. Anurans, beluwhals, red panda empire, and really, really bizarre new sauropods when I get back. Yesterday I went rat-watching, and the adjacent picture shows how good I was at it :)
PS - remember to keep an eye on one of the Tet Zoo sister-sites, SV-POW!
tetrapodzoology | September 6, 2007
Once more it's that time again, I'm leaving for conference # 3 (well, I'm not leaving right now, but I won't have the chance to blog before I do)...
It should be great, and in particular I look forward to the fist-fights and rock-throwing that will doubtless ensue over whether Anhanguera really is synonymous with Coloborhynchus, over the mass of Quetzalcoatlus, and over skim-feeding habits (or lack of) in tupuxuarids. On Dave Unwin's advice, rest assured that I will get Mark Witton all beered-up in front of an audience so that he'll stand before all and relate the Thalassodromeus flume of…
tetrapodzoology | September 3, 2007
I'm back, and thanks to all readers for still checking on the blog even while I was away (I can tell all this from the visitor stats). I returned yesterday from the best conference ever: more info forthcoming, but not yet as I'm still in conference season, with the pterosaur meeting now only a week away. This meeting (the 55th SVPCA) was held in Glasgow; it was excellent to meet lots of people for the first time, and in particular I enjoyed meeting Dave Hone, Steve Wroe, Steve Brusatte, Neffra Matthews, Brent Breithaupt, Neil Clark, Julia Heathcote (The Ethical Palaeontologist now finally…
tetrapodzoology | August 23, 2007
Well done to whomever gets the most enlightenment out of the images shown here. As before, they're relevant to the conference I'm about to leave for and, again, all will be revealed when I get back. Many thanks to those who have been assisting with financial aid, and I look forward to meeting further Tet Zoo readers whom I haven't met before.
By the way, Tet Zoo the book is now go. As for the TV series...
tetrapodzoology | August 21, 2007
Have now returned: much more on the details later. Think chickcharnies, giant pigeons, mekosuchines, 40 years of the Patterson footage and Patty's hamstring tendon, Siberian roe deer Capreolus pygargus in England, and statistics and sea monsters. A fun time was had by all.
Oh, and on the way back home Jon McGowan and I discovered the adjacent road-killed Polecat Mustela putorius at Bere Regis, Dorset. Anyway, all I have to do now is prepare for conference # 2. Yikes, a week to get ready. Alas, the silence will continue.
And many, many thanks to Michael Traynor, Aaron Kralik and T. Keesey!…
tetrapodzoology | August 16, 2007
Farewell my friends: I go on to a better place. Or: conference # 1 is now go, I will be back soon. And no chatting about the above image while I'm away (even though many of you know full well what it's about). Oh, and please remember to assist the Tet Zoo survival fund if you are at all able (see paypal button at extreme lower left). Byeee.
tetrapodzoology | July 26, 2007
Hello loyal readers: I know you're still there. Yet again I can't resist the lure of posting something new when I really shouldn't. Most of you, I'm sure, think that archaeopterygids - the archaic basal birds of Late Jurassic Germany (and Portugal too if Weigert's (1995) identification of isolated teeth is correct) - are long extinct, but here is evidence indicating otherwise. Ha ha ha. This is actually a monument at Dotternhausen in Bavaria; it's near a bridge that crosses the Altmühl, but I forget the exact location. If you want to see more of those archaeopterygid statues...
... below is…
tetrapodzoology | July 23, 2007
Just a very quick post before I get back to work... Regular Tet Zoo readers will know that - for my shame - I'm a pathological collector of toy/model animals [for more, go to the ver 1 articles here and here]. One of the things I did over the weekend was acquire some fantastic new models, all produced by the German toy company Schleich. They are so awesome I just had to share the news. Clockwise from right to left, the animals on the ground are a musk ox, Smilodon, cave bear and Torosaurus. The cave bear is awesome. The Smilodon isn't tremendously good, and I admit I bought it because I…