picture of the day
tetrapodzoology | September 18, 2007
The day-job, a dinner date, a committee meeting, and some work identifying Tanzanian reptiles from photos means that I don't have time to post more conference thoughts on the blog today. In, as always, an effort to keep hits coming in (remember: visit, visit, and visit again), I'll therefore default to the 'picture of the day' game...
By now, I'm guessing that everyone who's been reading the stuff on the Wellnhofer pterosaur meeting has seen the above pic: Mark Witton used it in his talk on pterosaur mass estimates - he discusses that issue here, and I'll say things about it whenever I post…
tetrapodzoology | September 4, 2007
Here is another thrown-together collection of things relating to SVPCA... well, I photographed the Short-billed echidna Tachyglossus aculeatus and Platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus in the Zoology Museum at Glasgow (during SVPCA); the photo of the echidna checking out the camera came from elsewhere. Monotremes have been in the news recently, what with the alleged recent rediscovery of the poorly known Attenborough's echidna Zaglossus attenboroughi Flannery & Groves, 1998 (photo below). I think this is the second taxon named after Sir David: the other is the controversial basal plesiosaur…
tetrapodzoology | September 3, 2007
In celebration of the upcoming Flugsaurier conference (conference # 3), I thought I'd post some nice pterosaur pictures. I'm speaking at the meeting, so am spending 'spare' time on pterosaurs and not much else (I am happy to report that I'm able to continue with the day-job on marine reptiles - more on that in the future). The large picture is yet another I've nicked from Mark Witton: it depicts the Lower Cretaceous Chinese dsungaripterid pterosaur Dsungaripterus weii Young, 1964, and for the full-size version of the picture (this version is cropped and resized) you need to go here. Mark was…
tetrapodzoology | August 9, 2007
I figured: if I just keep calling them 'picture of the day', you might be less inclined to come have a look. So here's another mystery photo: can you identify the animal involved? Some people who visit Tet Zoo (that includes you Tommy Tyrberg, as well as members of a certain research organisation that involves a certain group of animals) have already seen the image in its entirety, so no cheating please.
All is still progressing slowly on the conference preparation front. I booked my flight for SVPCA Glasgow yesterday, so that's one less thing to worry about; all I have to do now is prepare…
tetrapodzoology | August 5, 2007
Among the most popular of areas I've covered on Tet Zoo ver 2 has been speculative zoology. Those of you who know the articles in question (go here) might recall Steve White's picture of future animals, which I'm posting here again. I've recently learnt that Steve now has his own blog, Thunderlizard, and in this article he explains some of the thinking behind the animals in the piece. I must elaborate on my own contribution some time: surely you all want to hear more about the future evolution of eusocial miniaturised naked mole rats. I blame Chris Lavers (see Lavers 2001)...
The finches are…
tetrapodzoology | August 3, 2007
The other day I had to prize the skeletal jaws from a dead hedgehog. Well, ok, I didn't have to... And what's with all the Green woodpeckers Picus viridis that are around at the moment? Still, I remain very very busy with day-jobs and conference preparation, but in the interests of - as promised - keeping Tet Zoo ticking over, here is a lovely picture that will have many of you cock-a-hoop with excitement. My god, I'm turning into Mark Witton...
... no, of course not. The picture depicts (left to right) the basal placodont Placodus gigas from Middle Triassic Germany, the cyamodontid…
tetrapodzoology | July 30, 2007
My job at Impossible Pictures finished last week (though I am still doing the odd day here and there and am likely to go back to them in the future). Sigh, so much for digging myself out of that immense financial pit I'm still in. Anyway, today I start work on a new job involving... marine reptiles. I'll say more about it in the future. Partly as a result of this, I post here another picture very kindly supplied by Mike Skrepnick, and used with his permission (image © Mike Skrepnick, used with permission). Created for a new mural at Dinosaur Provincial Park, it depicts a scene in the…
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 17, 2007
You all know that I'm just dying to publish those articles on biarmosuchians, dinocephalians and edaphosaurids, not to mention the dinoceratans, astrapotheres, pantodonts, pantolestans and nesophontids that I've been busy with lately. Then there are the stem-group monstersaurian lizards, the palaeophiids, the miniature ground sloths, the meiolaniids, the giant iguanas; and those long-overdue articles on Piltdown, de-hominization, knuckle-walking, amphisbaenians, tortoises, kinglets and (cough) Eotyrannus. The fact is, I just don't have the time. And time is such a problem right now...
...…
tetrapodzoology | July 16, 2007
Among the many, many groups I have yet to cover on Tet Zoo are stem-group synapsids: Synapsida is the tetrapod clade that includes mammals and all of their relatives, and there is a long tradition of referring to non-mammalian synapsids as 'mammal-like reptiles' (other names include protomammals and paramammals). Because synapsids are not part of Reptilia*, referring to them as 'mammal-like reptiles' is both technically incorrect and misleading, hence the push to use their proper name.
* Reptilia and Synapsida are sister-taxa within the tetrapod clade Amniota.
The photo here was provided by…
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 | July 5, 2007
To date, I would say that all the 'mystery pictures' I've posted have been way too easy, as is demonstrated by the fact that the vast majority of visitors are able to guess them correctly straight away...
A baboon skull. Frogmouth bristles. A paca's head. The problem is, when you're preparing such a picture it's quite difficult to know how easy or difficult it is. Take this picture here. To me the identity of the creature is really obvious, but that might be because I am, obviously, familiar with the original image. So I think it's dead easy, and maybe it is. I won't be surprised if you all…
tetrapodzoology | July 3, 2007
Ok, the game is up - let's all just pretend that that ugly little paca episode never happened (it has been consigned to 'below the fold': view at your peril). Just so you feel you're getting your money's worth, here's another picture, but not one where you're supposed to guess what it is, as of course you don't need to. It is the amazing brachiosaurid skull HMN t1, discovered at Tendaguru Hill, described by Janensch in the 1920s and 30s, and displayed today at Berlin's Museum für Naturkunde. HMN t1 is c. 70 cm long, and with a mouth c. 22 cm wide (and it is not small for the size of the…
tetrapodzoology | July 2, 2007
No temnospondyls for you: mystery pictures strike back! Congratulations in advance to the bright spark who can successfully identify what's shown above - and you don't have to get the identification down to the species, the genus will do. To the rest of you, commisserations in advance. No time for a post today, but coming next: Crassigyrinus, giant Carboniferous tadpole from hell (© Tet Zoo 2007. All rights reserved).
UPDATE (added 3-7-2007): the answer is...
As so many of you correctly guessed, it's part of a frogmouth, and in particular a Tawny frogmouth Podargus strigoides, the only one…
tetrapodzoology | June 25, 2007
Another mystery photo for everyone to guess at. And in fact this specimen isn't just any old dead animal...
... it's internationally famous, having been widely discussed in the news media [see article here], and the subject of correspondence between mammalogists across the USA. It has variously been identified as a dinosaur or as some sort of embryo, but is clearly the mummified carcass of a mammal. It was discovered in a cave in Namibia. This photo was kindly supplied by George Tucker, who is keen to determine its identity: I regret that we need to retain the rights on the image, hence the…
tetrapodzoology | June 21, 2007
Given all the fun that everyone had recently with the Southern sea lion skull, I thought you'd all enjoy the chance to have a go with another specimen. This one's a lot easier, no prizes for getting it right. Let battle commence!
PS - yesterday's artice on sea lions was ver 2's 100th entry - wahey!
tetrapodzoology | June 20, 2007
I can't see that I'm going to have the chance today to post an article, so here's another picture. Sorry it's not the best photo in the world. But the question is...
... whose skull is it? Well, I know what it is of course - but do you? Invariably the reaction from laypeople has been that it must be from a dinosaur. But then, I lost count of how many children identified a horse skull as that of a Tyrannosaurus rex at the recent Springwatch festival. And no cheating from those who have seen the exact same photo before! This reminds me - I never gave Adam Yates his prize for being king of the…
tetrapodzoology | June 15, 2007
Among the most surreal snakes are (in my opinion) the turtle-headed sea snakes, or Aipysurus-group hydrophiids...
They are specialist predators of fish eggs: with their reduced compliment of stiffened labial scales, they scrape the eggs off rocks, and also use the spike on the snout tip to dig eggs out of the substrate. Their jaw musculature is unique (probably because they employ suction to get the eggs into the mouth), and they have a strongly reduced dentition. I published two articles on sea snakes on ver 1 here and here, and have yet to get round to publishing the promised third article…
tetrapodzoology | June 8, 2007
Here is a cool photo, taken by either Steve Salisbury or Dino Frey, and previously published in a short article of mine on crocodilians. Initially I was going to use a really neat photo I have of a Cuban crocodile Crocodylus rhombifer leaping vertically from the water to grab a dead hutia, but then I became unsure about copyright and opted for something else. The photo featured here is of an Indopacific/Estuarine/Saltwater crocodile C. porosus. Unlike other Crocodylus, C. porosus possesses twin longitudinal ridges running along the length of the snout, and it lacks postoccipital scutes. It…