All of this yet to come...
... vampire finches....
.... vampire bats...
... more on vampire bats...
... and a remarkable interpretation of a group of pterosaurs. Sigh, if only there were more hours in the day. Also coming soon: Britain's lost tree frogs, Confessions of a part-time quadrupedal hominid, Gilbert White's pet tortoise, War rhinos, and more. I will be in the field this Saturday, in quest of bizarre finches. Watch this space.
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So in the previous post - required reading before you get through this one, sorry - we looked at the various hypotheses that have been published on the origin of sanguivory (blood feeding) in vampire bats. We saw that only two hypotheses matched with the phylogenetic pattern of feeding styles…
It turns out that Cretaceous troodontid dinosaurs had asymmetrical ears. This makes them like owls, which also have asymmetrical ears. But not all owls have asymmetrical ears and, what's more, the story of ear asymmetry in owls is itself a pretty remarkable one....
Before getting distracted by…
Readers in the UK might be aware of Primeval, an ITV drama series featuring a time portal that connects the present day with the past. The main premise of the series seems to be that various animals from the past - including a pareiasaur, a gorgonopsian, dodos, a mosasaur, pterosaurs and some…
Sorry, another one of those really annoying teasers. But, come on, you love it really. Coming later this week...
... at long long last, those lost tree frogs...
... proto-narwhals and the case of the beluwhals...
... the amazing social life of the Green iguana...
... and maybe something on…
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That sounds almost as interesting as vampire finches and vampire bats!
I assume the pterosaurs refers to Dave Peters' interpretation of Jeholopterus. The 'vampire' anurognathid. IT certainly is a remarkable interpretation.....
Thanks for your comments. On the anurognathids... don't worry!
...War rhinos...
There's a line in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel about Zulu shock-troops, riding domesticated Rhinos, crushing the Roman empire. But it didn't happen because Rhinos are not suitable for domestication. It stuck in my mind because of the awesome imagery it conjured in my brain. I'm looking forward to your descriptions.
For those who are unfamiliar with that book, a major theme is describing the importance and the process of animal domestication.
Yeah - but woah woah woah, don't spoil the surprise for everyone :) Lots more to come on this after a certain movie makes its cinema appearance later this year...
Without a time machine?
Has anyone ever seriously tried...? I guess not...
Please wait for the post, when all will be revealed. I will tell you that the 'rhinos cannot be trained' thing is NOT correct (though note that I didn't use the term 'domesticate').
Lots more to come on this after a certain movie makes its cinema appearance later this year...
You can't claim that The Transformers are tetrapods. They evolved on a different planet!
Hello Darren, congratulations on your move.I'm not _certain_ which movie you're referring to, but I think I might've just saw a trailer for it the other day.
To David- you have a good point with regards to rhinos,
their sexual maturity ratios are similiar to camels.Perhaps
rhinos don't make over all good beasts of burden?Domestication may be hard to achieve in large animals with long maturation periods, low reproductive rates
and pronounced lack of sociability.Only white rhinos seem capable of being tamed out of what is a largely anti-social clade.
Hi Darren....
Talking about Vampires... Here in Brazil, There are the blood-sucking Candiru Fishes (Trichomycteridae) from Amazonas. These creatures are the true water vampires. Some future post on?
There is or was a White Rhino at the Olympic Game Farm that was very docile. I don't know about how trainable he was but given that Lloyd was good at training bears, how hard could a Rhino be?
There was also the Quaaga which was used to pull wagons in Europe. Since horses had to be similar to Quaaga at the time they were first domesticated or perhaps tamed, then the Quaaga might have made a decent riding critter.