picture of the day

This incomplete fossil skull was collected from the coast of northern Africa by Dave Martill and is suspected to represent a new species. It's one of those annoying back-burner projects that sits there on your desk for months and months.. eventually the months turn into years and still have you haven't gotten round to dealing with it.. Anyway, work on it is far from complete but I've had a go at identifying it. Who wants to try their luck © and have a go at doing likewise... In the composite here, it's shown in left lateral and dorsal view. Note the ruler... Here it is in palatal view,…
Here's a fossil I described recently. Does anyone want to have a go at identifying it? Don't worry, I know what it is (or, at least, I and my colleagues think I do), but why not go ahead and have fun. Note the scale bar... Here's a close-up of part of it... Coming next: SEA MONSTER WEEK!
There's a big crossover, sure, but I often wonder if everyone who visits Tet Zoo also visits SV-POW! Today is the day we put that to the test. To find out more about this image.... .... you must, by law, go here. Next: oh no, it's the giant killer opossums!
You wouldn't know it from Tet Zoo's content, but for many, many months now I've been working continually on ichthyosaurs, the 'fish lizards' of the Mesozoic. I'm not ready to talk about the project yet, but will do at some stage. An awful lot has happened on ichthyosaurs since the late 1990s, mostly thanks to the research of Ryosuke* Motani and Michael Maisch and their collagues, but to be honest things have become quieter in the last few years and we certainly are not in any sort of 'ichthyosaur research renaissance' as we are with plesiosaurs, dinosaurs, pterosaurs and Mesozoic…
This is the third time that Tet Zoo has featured a dead giraffe (for the first time go here, and for the second go here). It's not that I don't like giraffes - quite the contrary - it's just that anything and everything about them is fascinating. Lions Panthera leo are incredibly adaptable, and seem not only to develop special techniques that allow them to successfully tackle such formidable prey, but also to take advantage of special conditions that put the prey at a disadvantage. It is widely reported that lions have learnt that giraffes are disadvantaged when forced onto paved roads: they…
A very famous image, and you probably know what it is. But - really.. look at it very closely, what is it really? No, this is not a trick question: I'm just proposing that people really look in detail at all of its features. More terror birds soon, also tree-climbing dinosaurs, the last anurans, squirrels, and more lake monsters.
Only time right now for one of those brief Dave Hone-inspired Tet Zoo picture of the day posts (or TZPOTDPs, yeah), and what with all the azhdarchoid news lately (Lü et al. 2008, Witton & Naish 2008) it's only fitting that we have more pterosaurs. Here's a photo I took back in the days of Tet Zoo ver 1 (June 2006): it shows what we might call The Birthplace of Pterosaurs, or God's Workshop or, more prosaically, downstairs at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth... You'll note the tupuxuarid model that you might previously have seen in its blue phase,…
Another busy week, so no time yet to finish any new articles, sorry. The photo here - kindly supplied by Mary Blanchard - depicts the little-known Collared nightjar Caprimulgus enarratus, a Madagascan endemic associated with humid evergreen forest and primary lowland forest (though it has also recently been reported from mangroves and brush forest). Its broad rufous collar is distinctive, and it is easily distinguished from the paler, more streaky-patterned Madagascar nightjar C. madagascariensis (these two are the only nightjars on Madagascar). The cryptic patterning deserves no comment,…
Tone and I recently threw out* tons of old clothes, and among the many t-shirts I'd been hoarding was the one shown here: I had it made in 1993 for the Jurassic Park premiere, how sad is that. Consider it a protest directed at Spielberg's hideous feather-less dromaeosaurs (recall that, even in 1993, many of us were confident that dromaeosaurs should be depicted with feathers). The wording says 'Scaly protobirds no thanks! Feathering the theropods: a matter of principle' (kudos if you know the derivation, though it's horribly obvious). I never got beaten up for wearing the t-shirt in public,…
What the hell is this? As usual, I'm sure that many people will get it, but oddities (clues?) to note include the paired shallow concavities on the dorsal surface, the rugose laterodorsal patches and the clusters of large foramina. Have fun... PS - I'll post the answer on Sunday night.
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…
This is not a world of reality TV, fashion, big-screen sport and daily newspapers, but one covered in seas, mountains, forests, ferns, beetles, frogs and birds - get out there and look at it. The good thing about living in a country with a depauperate herpetofauna is that you can go out on a day and see nearly everything. On Sunday I and other people from the Southampton Natural History Society went into the field with members of the Herpetological Conservation Trust to look at reptiles at Town Common, Christchurch (Hampshire)... Alas, we did not see Smooth snakes Coronella austriaca or…
The unusual fossil mammal skull posted here yesterday was, of course, that of the astrapotheriid astrapothere Astrapotherium magnum, as many as you said. But I'm a bit surprised that more people didn't get it straight away, given that astrapotheres were covered and covered again at Tet Zoo only a couple of months ago. However, I suppose that reading about something doesn't necessarily mean that you know how to identify its fossils... I'm still planning to post a write-up of the CEE Functional Anatomy meeting here ASAP, but haven't had time to finish it yet. Meanwhile... ... the modern animal…
Yesterday I attended the Centre for Evolution and Ecology workshop 'Modern Approaches to Functional Anatomy', held at the Natural History Museum (and organised by the Royal Veterinary College's John Hutchinson). Whoah: what a meeting... Bipedal chimps and orangutans, leaping lemurs, autralopithecines, 'When Komodos destroy', pliosaurs and marsupial lions, hominid wrists, elbows and ankles, over-engineered dwarf elephants, how elephants use their sixth digits, the non-conservativeness of Sphenodon, self-righting turtles, bat canines... and McNeill Alexander! Shock horror, even the talks on…
Well done everyone who had a go at identifying the lizards from yesterday. Dead easy, as both species are highly distinctive and easy to identify (and both were previously mentioned in the Tropiquaria article)... The armour-plated lizard shown with and without the effects of the flash was a Sudan plated lizard Gerrhosaurus major, also called the Rough-scaled plated lizard or Great plated lizard. It lives up to the last name, reaching 48 cm in total length. Plated lizards eat arthropods and molluscs, with the larger species (like G. major) eating smaller lizards as well as some plant…
It's going to be a busy month, what with the run-up to 'Dinosaurs - A Historical Perspective', and other stuff. So I regret I haven't had time to knock up any new articles: but hey, I know you don't mind what with the recent 'mammals are amphisbaenians' article, and the panda stuff. So... I figured I might try and get the whole 'picture of the day' thing going again. So here we go with some lizards, and the game - if you want to play - is to identify the species. It's dead easy and I've provided the answers before anyway! The pictures above show the same animal photographed with and without…
This picture borrowed from wikipedia. Full story later (about wahs, not wikipedia).
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…
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…
While googling for astrapothere images recently I came across the image used here: wow! This is a life-sized reconstruction of the gigantic Miocene alligatoroid Purussaurus, first named in 1892 for P. brasiliensis from the Upper Miocene Solimões Formation of Brazil. Most of the salient features that are diagnostic for Purussaurus can be seen in the reconstruction: the snout is incredibly deep, wide, rounded at its tip, and decorated with bumps and ridges, the dorsal surface of the snout is strongly concave, the external bony nostril opening was proportionally huge and anteroposteriorly…