mammalogy
tetrapodzoology | July 11, 2007
Today I had good reason to send to Markus Bühler - my good friend and an avid Tet Zoo supporter - several images of entelodonts. What the hell, I thought, why not share one of these images with the rest of you. This awesome life-sized model depicts the Oligocene-Miocene North American entelodont Daeodon (formerly better known by its synonym Dinohyus) and is on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It's a shame there's no scale in the photo: Daeodon was huge (c. 1.8 m tall at the shoulder). The model is fantastically accurate: it even has snot in its nostrils.
As was previously…
tetrapodzoology | July 9, 2007
This photo depicts an assortment of hominid species, including most of the australopithecines and Homo ergaster (front left, facing camera). A neanderthal is at top right. The reconstructions (obviously, these are photos of the models) were produced by Wolfgang Schnaubelt and Nina Kieser in co-operation with GEO-magazine; an exhibition displaying the models opened in 1998 at the Landesmuseum, Darmstadt (Germany), which is where this photo was taken. Photo taken in 2005 by D. Martill.
Oh yeah, and...
... (given that it was only a matter of time before someone made the 'grad students' joke)…
tetrapodzoology | June 27, 2007
Many, many thanks to everyone who took the time to think about, and comment on, the Erongo carcass (featured on Tet Zoo yesterday). As you might know if you checked the news article, this naturally mummified carcass was discovered in 2002 (or so) in a cave in the Erongo Mountains, Namibia. Local people were unable to identify it, and it was brought to my attention by Dr George Tucker who was able to view and photograph it in 2003. George attempted to determine the carcass's identity by asking various experts, but was unable to solicit a definitive response. I'm not a professional mammalogist…
tetrapodzoology | June 21, 2007
Well done and many thanks to everyone who tried identifying the mystery skull published on the blog yesterday. And as several people correctly worked out...
.... it belonged to a pinniped, and more specificially to an otariid, and to a sea lion. Well done in particular to Andrés Rinderknecht and Rafael Tosi: it is indeed the skull of a Southern sea lion Otaria byronia (more appropriately termed the South American sea lion or Patagonian sea lion), and a big old gnarly male at that (like the one pictured in the adjacent image). The specimen was collected from the Falkland Islands in the 1930s…
tetrapodzoology | June 13, 2007
Regular visitors will no doubt have noticed the failure of my promise to post a picture a day. Well, alas, I'm going to have to take a much more relaxed approach, as it has proved impossible to find time even for that. So, I might post a new picture every day on the blog, and I might not. My weekend was taken up with various social events, and since then there just hasn't been the time to add new stuff... other than the sheep article of course. And what about my promise to, err, stick only to the things I've nearly finished writing but have yet to complete? Well, stuff that too. Today,…
tetrapodzoology | June 11, 2007
My plan at the moment (in terms of blog-related writing) is to do nothing other than complete all those nearly-finished articles that I've been promising to do over the last weeks... or months... We begin with the second post on sheep, thereby completing what I started in the first sheep post (the first post is required reading before you launch into this one). As discussed back then, sheep are generally divided into three genetic groups: the Asian argaliforms, the mouflon-like moufloniforms, and the mostly American pachyceriforms. I covered the argaliforms last time and, of the…
tetrapodzoology | June 7, 2007
Today's image shows the ever-interesting Maned wolf, the so-called 'fox on stilts' Chrysocyon brachyurus, kindly supplied by Anne-Marie of Pondering Pikaia. Anne-Marie studies these animals for her honors thesis. Maned wolves are well known for being predators of large rodents (like pacas) and similar-sized vertebrate prey, but they consume a surprising amount of plant material, and are particularly fond of the 'fruta da lobo' (hence its name). Often regarded as specialised for the Argentinean pampas, fossils show that they evolved in North America - they are just one of a whole bunch of…
tetrapodzoology | June 4, 2007
If you've read the series of posts on Marc van Roosmalen's new Amazonian mammals, you should, by now, be fairly open-minded to the possibility that large terrestrial mammals await discovery and description. And if you follow rumours about new mammal species, you'll have heard of the alleged new big cat species that ornithologist and missionary Peter Hocking (of the Natural History Museum in Lima, Peru) has reported from the Peruvian Amazon (Hocking 1992, 1996). Eleven years have passed, and where are those cats now?
Peter Hocking was born in Peru to American missionary parents, studied at…
tetrapodzoology | June 1, 2007
Yet more on Marc van Roosmalen's new Amazonian mammals, first disclosed on his excellent website. Before proceeding, you will need to have read part I, part II and part III first. Here in part IV we get to the most important stuff and wrap things up. But before that, there are yet more new animals to look at. For me, they are the most exciting of these proposed new species: a new large anteater, and a new large cat...
Arboreal giant anteater
The new anteater is closely related to the strictly terrestrial Giant anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla (this species reaches c. 3 m in total length and…
tetrapodzoology | June 1, 2007
Yet more on the multiple new Amazonian mammals that have been discovered or documented by Marc van Roosmalen. If you haven't already done so, please read part I and part II. Here in part III we're going to look at the monkeys, as Marc has continued to discover various forms that don't match any documented species...
They include a new grey saki (pictured at left: it is larger with longer fur and a less pronounced face than the only similar species, Pithecia irrorata), a new black saki (Chiropotes), and several new spider monkeys, including the Rio Purús black spider monkey, Silvery bellied…
tetrapodzoology | June 1, 2007
More on Marc van Roosmalen's new Amazonian mammals: in the previous post I introduced the new dwarf tapir, as well as the whole topic of Marc's discoveries and the coverage that they get on his new website. Part I is required reading. Here in part II we look at yet more of these animals: this time the deer, more peccaries, new small carnivores, and some big rodents...
We'll begin with the artiodactyls: in addition to the Giant peccary (see part I and the ver 1 post here), Marc has also encountered what appear to be two additional types of peccary. One of these [shown in image above] is most…
tetrapodzoology | June 1, 2007
Arguably the most exciting concept in the entire field of zoology is the thought that new large terrestrial tetrapod species await discovery. And despite statements from journalists and scientists, history demonstrates that the continued discovery of such animals is not an extraordinary or unexpected event. You will know this if you are familiar with such animals as the Saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis (named in 1993), Giant muntjac Megamuntiacus vuquangensis (named in 1994), Truong Son muntjac Muntiacus truongsonensis (named in 1998), Leaf deer M. putaoensis (named in 1999), Dingiso…
tetrapodzoology | May 31, 2007
Yet another rhino - there is an inadvertent theme going here. This amazing fossil is an embryo of the diceratheriine Subhyracodon occidentalis from Upper Eocene-Lower Oligocene USA (Subhyracodon often went by the name Caenopus in the older rhino literature). Discovered in rocks of the Brule Formation in Wyoming, the baby was (reportedly) not recovered from the body of a mother, but found on its own. Its total length is 76 cm. As an adult, Subhyracodon was a big tridactyl rhino as much as 4 m long. It was hornless, but males possessed paired ridges on their nasal bones. Good news everyone:…
tetrapodzoology | May 30, 2007
The amazing skull of a giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis, courtesy of Mark Witton. This presumably wasn't an old individual (you can clearly see the sutures of most of its bones), nor does it have the enlarged ossicones and general gnarliness of mature males. The specimen also has a low median hump; in mature males this is generally taller and more like a short horn. Note how shockingly gracile and stretched the premaxillae and dentaries are. For a previous Tet Zoo post on giraffes go here. Proper post hopefully coming later today (though not on giraffes).
tetrapodzoology | May 30, 2007
Apologies to all for total lack of proper posts recently - I am just too busy. However, several posts will - in theory - appear very soon, and I hope that they will prove really, really interesting (especially to people interested in our views on the diversity of extant mammals. And please don't try and guess: I'm not telling). The theme for today's picture of the day is, obviously, rhinos.. again. This photo shows a Ceratotherium simum, the animal that (for an as-yet-unknown reason) we call the White rhino (and, no, that stuff about 'white' being a corruption of 'wide', 'wijd', 'weit' or…
tetrapodzoology | May 28, 2007
The skull of the immense Pleistocene rhino Elasmotherium sibiricum, with reconstructed horn, as displayed at the Natural History Museum in London. Relatively well known as fossil rhinos go, E. sibiricum is the largest and best known species of the diverse rhinocerotid clade Elasmotheriina. I have a post planned on elasmotheres, it's called 'Giant unicorn rhino and pals', but I don't know when I'll get round to posting it. I have rhinos on my mind at the moment: on Wednesday I'm attending Save the Rhino's Mayday event at the Zoological Society's meeting hall at Regent's Park.
tetrapodzoology | May 21, 2007
I promised myself not to bother, but what the hell. Last week I assisted journalist Marc Horne in his research on rabbit-headed cats, and the result was an article in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper that you can read here. I'm not going to write anything new on these cats, but the article does raise a couple of things worth commenting on...
Firstly, my quotes are - I hope - appropriately sceptical. I am not pretending to be a world expert on small cat morphology so, while the skull of the Dufftown cat does look morphologically unusual to me, I tempered my opinion with the caveat that we…
tetrapodzoology | May 10, 2007
I just couldn't resist covering this, sorry (though, technically speaking, it's old hat). On June 17th 2004, the reign of Hogzilla - an immense pig estimated to be nearly half a ton in weight and 3.7 m in length - was brought to an end. The animal 'rampaged' across southern Georgia until it was shot in a hunting preserve and, amusingly (for fans of Family Guy, the best thing on TV), the hunter's name is Chris Griffin. Now comes news that the story of Hogzilla will hit the big screen sometime in the near future...
After exhuming the carcass in October 2004, a team of researchers working for…
tetrapodzoology | May 4, 2007
As some of you now know, finally I have something that might be considered close to a dream job: I'm now a researcher for Impossible Pictures, the company that did Walking With Dinosaurs, Primeval and a host of other things (website here). This job isn't going to be forever, but it's a start, and it doesn't make me feel any less bitter about being unable to get a job in academia. It means lots of expensive commuting (I don't live in London, where the company's based), and it also explains the recent lack of blog posts. But I'm not complaining. So, after turtle genitals and ostrich dinosaurs…
tetrapodzoology | April 22, 2007
A week ago I went on a tetrapod-finding trip - with my good friends Mark North and Jon McGowan - to the Isle of Portland. Portland isn't an island: it's a promontory, sticking out from the south coast of Dorset into the English Channel. The plan with this post was to show off some of the neat photos that resulted, and perhaps accompany some of those photos with a little bit of text. As with previous attempts to produce 'text-lite' posts of this sort, I failed miserably...
What's been happening at Tet Zoo lately I hear you ask? Besides that long-awaited British dinosaurs paper, I've had a few…