April 6, 2009
Welcome to day 2 of Stuffed Megamammal Week! [day 1 here]. This time round, it's an eland. The individual's slim, pointed ears and prominent forehead tuft show that it's a Common eland Taurotragus oryx rather than a Giant or Derby's eland T. derbianus. Elands are the largest antelopes, weighing up…
April 5, 2009
I said the other day that I was going to have go all 'text lite' for a while. Here is my solution: a series of short posts, one per day, each of which features a different stuffed megamammal. Yes, welcome to day 1 of stuffed megamammal week. All of the stuffed megamammals you're going to see were…
April 4, 2009
I've been seriously thinking about letting Tet Zoo lay fallow for a while, as I have a lot on right now and it's a horrendous distraction that I really shouldn't spend time on. Producing long articles like the one on the Sakhalin Island carcass are very satisfying, but they soak up a lot of time.…
April 2, 2009
Here are assorted relevant things that happened in March: ahh, what a month. First of all, another sea monster. It's the famous fishy-crustaceany monster thing at Plymouth Hoe Barbican...
Here's a dead Mute swan Cygnus olor I found among all the rubbish during the Chessel Bay clean-up. I have its…
April 1, 2009
.... but the whale had been sitting around, decomposing, for several days...
Pity the person who came back to collect their parked scooter at the end of the day...
March 31, 2009
It has often been proposed that large reptiles, such as monitor lizards and crocodiles, might have provided the origin for the dragon myths of the world. There might be some truth to this, but the possibility that rather more spectacular reptiles might have played a contributing role is rather…
March 31, 2009
I used to receive random unsolicited emails from an individual who strongly promoted the idea that birds could not not not not be dinosaurs, that the entire dinosaur family tree was screwed up beyond belief, that 'dinosaurs' had evolved from random assorted diverse archosaurs, that cladistics was…
March 29, 2009
Every now and again a carcass of a large marine animal washes up on a beach somewhere: local people and journalists identify it as a monster, and all hell breaks loose. Inevitably, the carcass turns out to be a decomposing whale or shark. Typically, it now becomes known that a person who arrived…
March 28, 2009
I may as well finish what I started. Inspired by the two recent brontothere articles, Dan Varner and Mike P. Taylor were kind enough to supply the pictures you see here. Both feature Megacerops specimens displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
This classic photo shows…
March 27, 2009
Yesterday's brief look at brontotheres was such a rip-roaring success I thought I'd do a little bit more on them (on members of Brontotheriidae that is, not on rip-roaring successes). No time for a proper article: all I've done here is to take screen-shots of various powerpoint slides (from a…
March 26, 2009
Here's a photo Matt Wedel took in the Raymond Alf Museum in Claremont, California. The lined-up skulls belong (I think) to Megacerops, the large to very large Late Eocene brontothere previously known as Brontotherium. Like most other brontotheriine brontotheres it has reduced, globular upper…
March 24, 2009
By complete coincidence - honestly! - we looked yesterday at discovery rates among terrestrial mammals. All indications are that many species remain to be discovered. It should also be well known, and I hope it is, that the same is true for large marine vertebrates: recent discoveries, and…
March 24, 2009
Last weekend I did the beach clean-up thing again, and again I went along with my son, my mum (Sandra), and about 40 other people. There's always something new to say about the problem of litter and plastic pollution: once again, I thought I'd pen some random musings on the experience, and on the…
March 24, 2009
By complete coincidence - honestly! - we looked yesterday at discovery rates among terrestrial mammals. All indications are that many species remain to be discovered. It should also be well known, and I hope it is, that the same is true for large marine vertebrates: recent discoveries, and…
March 23, 2009
Hopefully it is well known that we still have a lot to learn about the planet's extant macrofauna. And, by 'macrofauna', I'm not talking about nematodes, molluscs or insects but, yes, about such things as mammals. In fact, on mammals specifically, discovery rates indicate that we really should…
March 22, 2009
Tales of animals that have undergone reconstructive surgery, or end up with prosthetic attachments, always make the news: wheels in place of tortoise legs [example] and that sort of thing. As reported in the Mail online (and other sources) a few days ago, during December 2008 an unfortunate 3-m…
March 20, 2009
Before I start: TIANYULONG TIANYULONG TIANYULONG TIANYULONG TIANYULONG.
Ok, moving on...
It is the contention of some that the field of Mesozoic reptile research is plagued with bizarre, nonsensical hypotheses. You may or may not agree with me that skim-feeding giant pterosaurs, wind-surfing sail…
March 18, 2009
Firstly, happy Tianyulong day! How incredibly cool. Secondly, this is an annoying teaser - full post to appear soon. Sorry, but c'est la vie.
March 17, 2009
Ok, here we are: welcome to the fifth and final part of that 'month in dinosaurs (and pterosaurs)' series (for previous parts: part I, part II, part III, part IV). This time, more pterosaurs...
In the previous article we looked at the new tiny pterosaur Ningchengopterus (a juvenile Eosipterus?),…
March 16, 2009
Already the article you're reading is several weeks late, and I had to make a real effort to finish it before those weeks became months. Anyway, I present here the penultimate in the 'month in dinosaurs (and pterosaurs)' series (for the previous articles please see part I, part II, and part III).…
March 13, 2009
No time. Too busy. Toy pelicans from Marwell Zoo. Accompanying thoughts from Dave Hone here; involves azhdarchids. Bye now, sorry for lack of substantive content.
March 12, 2009
Yeah, like it says in the title.. what is wrong wih this hippo? (photographed at Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery). Or, 'was' wrong.. given that it's now dead. I really should say more about hippos at some stage. So far there's only this, and that's just not good enough.
March 10, 2009
What fun we've all had, discussing corpses and decomposition. Thanks to all who participated. I'm going away for a couple of days. For no good reason other than that it looks good, find here a slide from a talk I do called 'Britain's changing herpetofauna'. I think it's pretty self-explanatory!…
March 9, 2009
Like some most virtually all hopefully all people interested in animals, I have a dark, guilty secret: I covet and collect dead bodies. In fact I'm of the opinion that if you're interested in animals and are not interested in dead bodies, there's something wrong with you. How can you not be…
March 6, 2009
Like many 'generalised' carnivores, the Common or Harbour seal Phoca vitulina is a surprisingly adaptable predator, even if it is rather conservative in diet and choice of foraging habitat (e.g., Tollit et al. 1998). This photo, taken by Philip Kirkham, is part of a sequence in which a seal stalks…
March 4, 2009
Not only am I now unable to edit my blogroll (a very minor thing, but one that bugs me nonetheless), I am also incapable of understanding how ResearchBlogging is supposed to work. I registered, but cannot get my posts to appear there, so am going to give up. Oh well, it's not like it matters I…
March 2, 2009
More on those rorquals: part I is required reading. To those who have seen this stuff before: sorry, am going through a busy phase and no time for new material (blame dinosaurs and azhdarchoid pterosaurs... and baby girls). Oh, incidentally, I recently registered Tet Zoo with ResearchBlogging: I…
March 1, 2009
Sorry, nothing new: time again for something from Tet Zoo ver 1...
Late in the 1920s, plans to replace the old whale hall of the British Museum (Natural History) were fulfilled. Thanks to the new, steel-girdled hall, the Blue whale skeleton - by now kept in storage for 42 years due to lack of…
February 28, 2009
Dave Hone - who's had more than his fair share of mentions here at Tet Zoo over the past several days - accompanied me on a visit to Marwell Zoo yesterday. We had a great time, but unfortunately got all too little paper-writing done :) (after all, this is what scientists normally do when they meet…
February 26, 2009
More snakes, because - thanks to Dave Hone - I have some more pictures to use (and, I'll be honest, at least some of my posts are 'picture-driven'). We've looked previously at the unusual, mostly small, worm-like, burrowing snakes grouped together as the scolecophidians here. In that article,…
