Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Portsmouth, UK) who mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs. He also studies such things as the swimming abilities of giraffes and fossil marine reptiles. An avid interest in modern wildlife and conservation has resulted in many adventures in lizard-chasing, bird-watching and litter-collecting. I've been blogging since 2006 and a compilation of early Tet Zoo articles is now available in book form as Tetrapod Zoology Book One. Additional recent books include The Great Dinosaur Discoveriesand Dinosaurs Life Size. For more biographical info go here. I can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. PLEASE NOTE: I am now completely unable to keep up with email correspondence. I do my best to respond to all queries and requests, but please don't be offended if I fail to reply. I blog from and about conferences - please contact me for more info. Follow me on twitter:
So I've done the pterosaur meeting; now you all know all about it. But what about the 55th Symposium on Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, held at the University of Glasgow between August 29th and September 1st, and described for some reason as 'The best conference ever', I hear you…
It's my birthday this week (the 26th), so how timely that that most long-awaited of books - Tom Holtz and Luis Rey's Dinosaurs should arrive this morning (Holtz 2007). This huge, lavishly illustrated work - it's one of those volumes that will get called 'the ultimate dinosaur book' a lot - has…
If I hadn't spent so much time yesterday socialising and celebrating Will's 6th birthday, then this post - the third part in my series on the events of the Wellnhofer pterosaur meeting (part I here, part II here) - might have been finished earlier. Oh well, priorities and all that. Before I start…
On to more of my thoughts about the outstanding Wellnhofer pterosaur meeting, held at the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie (Bavarian State Palaeontological Collection - BSPG) in Munich last week. For part I go here, and for initial thoughts on what a neat conference it was…
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…
I've caught up on my sleep; I've watched the Star Wars trilogy and The Wicker Man; I've listened to at least one Kate Bush album (well, two.. ok, three); and I've spent an appropriate amount of time catching up with my family (on Sunday we went to Longleat Safari Park). While it's true that I have…
As a famous lady recently said: "I'm back". At last - having just returned from the Peter Wellnhofer Flugsaurier Conference (held at the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie [BSP] in Munich) - conference season is at an end and I can try to return to normal life. At the risk of spouting…
Once more it's that time again, I'm leaving for conference # 3 (well, I'm not leaving right now, but I won't have the chance to blog before I do)...
It should be great, and in particular I look forward to the fist-fights and rock-throwing that will doubtless ensue over whether Anhanguera really…
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…
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 -…
I'm back, and thanks to all readers for still checking on the blog even while I was away (I can tell all this from the visitor stats). I returned yesterday from the best conference ever: more info forthcoming, but not yet as I'm still in conference season, with the pterosaur meeting now only a…
Well done to whomever gets the most enlightenment out of the images shown here. As before, they're relevant to the conference I'm about to leave for and, again, all will be revealed when I get back. Many thanks to those who have been assisting with financial aid, and I look forward to meeting…
Have now returned: much more on the details later. Think chickcharnies, giant pigeons, mekosuchines, 40 years of the Patterson footage and Patty's hamstring tendon, Siberian roe deer Capreolus pygargus in England, and statistics and sea monsters. A fun time was had by all.
Oh, and on the way back…
Farewell my friends: I go on to a better place. Or: conference # 1 is now go, I will be back soon. And no chatting about the above image while I'm away (even though many of you know full well what it's about). Oh, and please remember to assist the Tet Zoo survival fund if you are at all able (see…
In another desperate effort to bump up the number of hits, I thought I'd go with a provocative title. There is, sorry, no such thing as a Frasercot: but it is, however, the answer to the question... to what animal, exactly, does that mysterious skin actually belong? No, it was not feathers, nor…
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…
I just saw the above on Stephen Bodio's Querencia, where it was posted by Matt Mullenix, and just had to steal it (sorry).
Long-time readers will know that mammal-killing eagles have been a Tet Zoo mainstay since the very beginning (and then here and here, with Haast's eagle here). I'm on lunch…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
Just a very quick post before I get back to work... Regular Tet Zoo readers will know that - for my shame - I'm a pathological collector of toy/model animals [for more, go to the ver 1 articles here and here]. One of the things I did over the weekend was acquire some fantastic new models, all…
It isn't every day that your friends make the cover of Science magazine. Belated congrats to my friend Randy Irmis and his colleagues Sterling Nesbitt, Kevin Padian and others for their neat work on the dinosauromorph assemblage of Hayden Quarry, New Mexico (Irmis et al. 2007). Exciting stuff. Why…
Long-time blog readers will know that I am atrocious at keeping promises. And I will confess that part of the reason for titling an article 'Goodbye Tetrapod Zoology' was to cause a burst of panic, a rash of visitors (the strategy didn't really work: look at the counter... no spike on the graph).…
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…
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…
Hooray: another of those articles that I've been promising to publish for weeks and weeks.
Thanks mostly to the importance of the species in the international pet trade, the Green iguana Iguana iguana is typically imagined as a rather uninspiring lizard that sits around on branches all day long,…
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…
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-…
At last, I fulfill those promises of more temnospondyls. Last time we looked at the edopoids, perhaps the most basal temnospondyl clade: here we look at the rest of the basal forms. Scary predators, marine piscivores, late-surviving relics, and some unfortunate beasts burned alive in forest fires…
