February 26, 2009
Anyone who's anyone has heard of the Anaconda. But in fact 'the' Anaconda is the Green anaconda Eunectes murinus. Most zoologically-informed people know that there's a lesser-known, smaller relative of this large species, namely the Yellow or Paraguayan anaconda E. notaeus. Usually only reaching 3…
February 25, 2009
Yes, more snakes: after yesterday's horned snake article (thanks to everyone who chipped in with ideas and comments) I've decided to stick with snakes for a while. I can knock these articles up in a few minutes, and unfortunately I just don't have time at the moment to finish the backlog of…
February 23, 2009
Dave Hone (of Archosaur Musings and Ask A Biologist) kindly provided the photo you see here of two captive West African gaboon vipers Bitis rhinoceros (NOT East African gaboon vipers B. gabonica: see comments), and initially I was going to use it in a 'picture of the day' post. One thing led to…
February 22, 2009
More stuff from the archives... or, from Tet Zoo ver 1 anyway. The following article is about the bizarre jerboa Euchoreutes naso. Back when I wrote the article (2006), there were no photos of this species available, and I had to resort to using a single painting. However, a glut of good photos…
February 21, 2009
I picked up a lot of dead stuff in Morocco. One of the neatest things I brought back was this very large owl pellet (now broken into bits), discovered by Dave Martill at the same place where we were awoken at night by big, hooting owls assumed to have been Desert eagle owls Bubo ascalaphus [back-…
February 20, 2009
While checking a few details on kiwi skeletal anatomy the other day, I discovered some old material I'd written on these strange birds. I've updated it, and here's the first lot of it.
Kiwi have been known to science since 1813. In that year George Shaw (then the Keeper of Zoology at the British…
February 19, 2009
Well, arguing about the physiology of Mesozoic archosaurs has been fun but I just can't put the time into it. Moving on, here's something entirely different...
Excuse my crappy photographic skills, and well done you if you can identify any/some/all of the species concerned. To those who don't know…
February 17, 2009
Just when I'm in the middle of talking about the new dinosaurs and pterosaurs that were published in January (part I, part II, part III), February is turning out to be just as interesting. Yesterday saw the debut of the new basal sauropodomorph Panphagia protos (Martinez & Alcober 2009), and…
February 17, 2009
Inspired by the kiwi weirdness looked at here recently, I thought I'd focus on some other ratite skeletal stuff. But the idea here isn't to identify the animal. This is obviously the skeleton of an ostrich Struthio camelus. The question for you is a simple one: what's going on with the pectoral…
February 15, 2009
More musings on dinosaury things from January 2009. For the back-story you'll need to see part 1 and part 2, both of which are on theropods (and, specifically, on maniraptorans). This time we look at ornithischians...
One ornithischian in particular has been the subject of much discussion lately.…
February 14, 2009
Better late than never... what was the identity of that unusual string of vertebrae I featured here however-many-days-ago? Most of you realised - correctly - that it was the neck of a bird, and several of you guessed moa. This wasn't a bad guess, but it wasn't the right one. The correct answer was…
February 13, 2009
Those of you who notice such things might have wondered where I've been over the last few days: after all, I'm now pretty much in the habit of posting to Tet Zoo every day. I've been 'absent' due to internet problems (now resolved, for the time being at least)... though, yeah, I've got other…
February 9, 2009
More dinosaury stuff from January 2009: for the background story, please see part I.
Last time we looked at therizinosauroids. Alvarezsaurids have also been the subject of much discussion lately. This is thanks to Ceratonykus oculatus, a new taxon from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia (Alifanov…
February 9, 2009
First of all, many many thanks to everyone (both here and at SV-POW!) for the congrats regarding baby Emma. I am, shall we say, a little tired right now, but as you'll know if you've visited SV-POW! this morning, the good news as goes blogging is that I've been able to get lots of stuff prepared…
February 7, 2009
I am happy to report that, at 9-43am this morning (Saturday 7th), Mrs Toni Naish gave birth to baby Emma. Things started round about 5am and, needless to say, the entire day has been taken up with baby duties. Some of you might know that southern England has been badly affected over the past week…
February 5, 2009
Let's have some fun. Try and identify this tetrapod: and you have to get it down to genus. Good luck.
February 5, 2009
No time for anything new: too busy desperately trying to make money. So I'd like to bring your attention to Head et al.'s (2009) paper on the amazing new gargantuan snake Titanoboa cerrejonensis from the Palaeocene of Colombia, and also to Ed Yong's fine discussion of the paper at Not Exactly…
February 3, 2009
In 2006, the second series of the BBC's Planet Earth was screened. If you saw the series, you'll know that it included a lot of awesome stuff. One thing that got an awful lot of people talking was the amazing footage - included as part of episode 2 ('Great Plains') - showing the elephant-killing…
February 2, 2009
Welcome to the third, and last, of the rhynchosaur articles. The other two are mandatory reading: part I is a general intro, part II is on jaws and teeth. This time round, we look at the form and function of the postcranial anatomy (well, predominantly at the limbs actually), and also at…
February 1, 2009
In the previous rhynchosaur article we introduced these remarkable Triassic reptiles [adjacent Hyperodapedon restoration from wikipedia]. Their amazing, specialised jaws and teeth were mentioned and discussed in passing, but I skimped on the details. Make yourself some strong coffee and be sure…
January 31, 2009
The White stork Ciconia ciconia is a well-known migrant, moving from Europe down to Africa (either via the Iberian Peninsula or via the Middle East) during the winter. Increasingly, however, birds are choosing to over-winter in Europe. The numbers are startling: in southern France, eight birds…
January 30, 2009
'... [it] clambers up and down trees because it cannot fly ... it purrs like a cat and smell like a posy of fragrant flowers ... it allows itself to be picked up and handled without demur or apparent concern' (Vietmeyer 1992, p. 69).
Another Ten Bird Meme bird (use the search bar if you need more…
January 28, 2009
Last year Dave Hone (of Archosaurs Musings) and Mike Benton published their analysis of the English rhynchosaur Fodonyx spenceri. Ever one to make promises that I'm unable to fulfil (in the short term, at least), I vowed to cover the group at some stage. Neil Kelley recently reminded us that 2008…
January 27, 2009
Over the weekend Will and I visited another local museum: this time Westbury Manor Museum, Fareham (Hampshire, England). I particularly liked the several bird paintings they have on display, one of which - the one you can see here - was duplicated and enlarged and used as the back-drop to a case of…
January 26, 2009
The mystery skull from the other day is indeed that of a charadriiform: more specifically that of an auk and, most specifically of all, that of a Razorbill Alca torda. Well done Dartian and Kryptos18, and well done everyone else for trying. I admit that I deliberately showed the skull in 'front…
January 24, 2009
Test your skills and impress us all by identifying the object! Dammit, missed Atomic Betty...
January 22, 2009
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Britain there is a very entrenched tradition of 'feeding the ducks'. People go on walks (usually at the weekend), and they take with them bagfuls of bread (sometimes even whole loaves). They then proceed to throw all the bread in the water. After a…
January 21, 2009
It's very funny how things sometimes work out. I had absolutely no plans whatsoever to cover cats at Tet Zoo this week. Then, on Friday, I watched the documentary that featured the pogeyan* and, obviously, decided that it was worth covering. And, during the County Museum visit on Saturday, my…
January 20, 2009
Oh my god. Two years at ScienceBlogs have passed, and Tet Zoo has now been going for three years. It all started on January 21st 2006 when, for no good reason at all, I started a blog over at blogspot.com. Yes, Tet Zoo is three years old. Time to look back at the past year of operation.
For…
January 19, 2009
Over the weekend I and a bunch of others from the Southampton Natural History Society visited the collections at the County Museum, Winchester (Hampshire, UK). This is a research collection and local repository, and is not open to the public. We saw tons of stuff and had a great time. I took Will…
