Posts

April 18, 2013

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“P” is for Ptilodus. P was a particularly difficult letter for which to select an appropriate genus. There are many very important “P” genera, including: Plesiadapis and Phenacodus. So I covered a bit about Plesiadapis here, and will cover a … Continue reading →

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7:37 AM | Long and short-necked sloths of the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology

Back in 2010, SVPCA was held in Cambridge. (It was the year that I gave the “why giraffes have short necks” talk [abstract, slides].) While we were there, I took a lot of photos in the excellent Cambridge University Museum of Zoology, which was just across the courtyard from the lecture theatre where the scientific sessions [...]

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2:36 AM | Mephitic

I’m part of a Facebook group associated with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The group is all the WriMos from the Rochester, New York region. NaNoWriMo is a November thing, but writers write year-round. For fun, we’ll occasionally challenge each … Continue reading →

April 17, 2013

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11:49 PM | Almost Complete Silurian Trimerus Trilobite

These pictures show an almost complete Trimerus delphinocephalus trilobite. It was fossilized intact but was found in two pieces. Some of the last thorax segments and the pygidium (tail) had broken off this specimen. It is still missing part of its feeding/digging scoop and small pieces of segments missing from the rear section of the trilobite. Visually it appears to be about 95% complete.After some effort, I was able to find the broken off tail section of this trilobite. It was not […]

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11:00 AM | “O” is for Oxyclaenus

“O” is for Oxyclaenus Oxyclaenus was a scansorial mammal. That means it lived in the trees, rather like squirrels do today. Its relationships to other mammalian groups is a matter of discussion right now, but it does seem to potentially … Continue reading →

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9:45 AM | Falhas

Descubra as falhas: a) geológicas; b) no ordenamento do território. Imagem: Luís Azevedo Rodrigues (Abril 2013) Local: Praia da Salema, Vila do Bispo.

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2:32 AM | When Bibliophiles Wed

It could be a new series on Lifetime. Maybe. I hang out on Facebook with a lot of local writers, mostly NaNoWriMo participants. For some reason we starting comparing notes about who had the most books. Well… Let’s just say … Continue reading →

April 16, 2013

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10:33 PM | Arguments from personal incredulity versus inductive arguments from sampling

All I want to do in this post is make people aware that there is a difference between these two things, and occasionally that affects those of us who work in natural history. In one of his books or essays, Stephen Jay Gould made the point that in natural history we are usually not dealing [...]

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4:49 PM | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Chinleana/~3/JcXxVisdhwI/a-new-interpretation-of-material-of.html

A new interpretation of material of an armored archosauriform from the Middle Triassic of Germany that solves the mystery of the purported Middle Triassic aetosaur. Instead this specimen is from a taxon more closely to Doswellia kaltenbachi. This new taxon supports the growing realization that doswelliids had a broader range geographically and temporally. Schoch, R. R., and H.-D. Sues. 2013. A new archosauriform reptile from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian) of Germany. Journal of […]

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11:05 AM | “N” is for Nannodectes

“N” is for Nannodectes Nannodectes is a member of the Plesiadapiformes, this group of mammals that are considered closely related to modern primates, if not truly primates themselves. I said a bit about them in my discussion of Chiromyoides. Nannodectes … Continue reading →

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10:00 AM | Feeding at both ends of the food chain

In terrestrial environments, predator body size is largely correlated with prey body size. The opposite is found for many predators in the marine environment – baleen whales in particular comprise some of the world’s largest mammals and yet they feed … Continue reading →

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7:56 AM | When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing

It was Enrique Jardiel Poncela who said that “When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing”. I would have guessed at someone like Mark Twain, or maybe G. K. Chesterton, but there you go. A couple of months ago, I sent an eight-page submission to the House of Commons BIS [...]

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4:30 AM | New publication, or - The little whale that (almost) could: survival of Herpetocetus in the Pleistocene

Last week saw the publication of my most recent article, a short paper in Naturwissenschaften regarding a new specimen of the archaic baleen whale Herpetocetus from Northern California. The new fossil is surprisingly young in geological terms for this genus – early to middle Pleistocene. In this post I’ll discuss the new specimen and its implications, as well as what exactly we know about the Pleistocene […]

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12:00 AM | What an articulated giraffe neck looks like

The cervical series of Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis FMNH 34426, articulated by Mike and me and photographed by Mike back in the summer of 2005, cropped and composited by me recently, not previously posted because there’s just too much cool stuff, man. But we’re working on it. By the way, if you want the details on [...]

April 15, 2013

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10:22 PM | Runner’s High

So it’s happened. Something bad – really bad – went down at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I’m not going to hypothesize who did what, or why, or how it happened, or if it was an accident. I’ll … Continue reading →

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8:54 PM | Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dreaming of Dinosaurs

Have you ever dreamt of dinosaurs? John Rice surely did, and was thus inspired to write a fine book of poetry about them. Fortunately, his poems tend to be either jolly whimsies or meditations on the meaning and significance of dinosaurs in a temporal context - as opposed to being incomprehensibly surreal and containing psychosexual themes that, on waking reflection, have terrifying implications for one's mental wellbeing (or is that just me?). In line with the mix of tone in the poems, Charles […]

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6:04 PM | The Tale of a Sinosaurus Tooth

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of wandering the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles dinosaur …

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4:53 PM | Episode 15: Micropalaeontology

Perhaps one of the most overlooked areas of palaeontology, within the public eye, is micropalaeontology. Micropalaeontology is an umbrella discipline, covering a diverse range of organisms, with representatives from many of the highest level biological groupings. Although small in size, microfossils prove invaluable for research into palaeoclimatology and are also one of the most commercially

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11:00 AM | “M” is for Mixodectes

“M” is for Mixodectes Mixodectes is a member of the mammalian Order Insectivora, which is a bunch of mammals grouped together because of they appear to be insect eaters. As it happens, this grouping is best considered a ‘grade’ rather … Continue reading →

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7:37 AM | Seriously, Mendeley people, what did you expect?

I think the most painful part of the Elsevier-eats-Mendeley deal has been watching good people acting as apologists for Elsevier and then feeling hurt when people don’t accept their protestations. You can see a good example (but far from the only one) in the comments to Danah Boyd’s post on her #mendelete. I don’t what [...]

April 14, 2013

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12:43 PM | The values of social media and blogging for academics

This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=517 At this years European Geosciences Union General Meeting (Vienna), I’ve been asked to be on a panel discussion describing the ways in which I think using social media and blogging can enhance academic careers. Sometimes, … Continue reading →

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8:00 AM | They look like burrowing owls…

Stink Bug Saturday. It’s become a regular thing on this blog. I write a chapter every week to continue the story that started with a silly photo of a stink bug in my home office quite literally blocking my escape. … Continue reading →

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5:19 AM | Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A terebratulid brachiopod from the Middle Triassic of southern Israel

Sure, I could have picked a pristine shell from our collection, but I like the rugged character of this one. It is the terebratulid brachiopod Coenothyris oweni Feldman, 2002, from the lower Saharonim Formation (Middle Triassic) of Har Devanim, southern Israel. I picked it up, along with a dozen others, during our 2010 Israel expedition. [...]

April 13, 2013

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9:37 PM | Stink Bug – Chapter 5

I stared closely at the white cliff wall as I climbed down. It was crystalline and beautiful, like snowflakes compressed together. As I moved downward, different crystal surfaces lit up and twinkled in the sunlight. The cave entrance had all … Continue reading →

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7:33 PM | Expanding Your Horizons in Geology

Wooster, OH – The Wooster X-ray Lab hosted girls from the Expanding Your Horizons program, a series of workshops aimed at encouraging young women to pursue careers in the sciences. The geology workshop focused on minerals and their wide variety of uses. One popular use of minerals is in beaded jewelry. Our goal was to [...]

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4:40 PM | The evolution-or-revolution debate at the Oxford Union

I was really excited to get an invitation to the evolution-or-revolution debate in Oxford, partly for historical reasons. I thought the Oxford Union was where C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and their friends held various debates. Sadly, it turns out I was mistaken, and it was merely the stomping ground for a bunch [...]

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4:37 PM | On Group Selection

A reader picked up on my parenthesised comment on EO Wilson’s kin selection paper in this post, which led to a substantial e-mail conversation on group selection, which I will distill here to show you that the noise against group selection doesn’t hold much water anymore. Explaining the existence of altruism has always been one [...]

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12:00 PM | “L” is for Litocherus

“L” is for Litocherus Litocherus is a little mammal in the Order Erinaceomorpha. Modern members of this order include the completely adorable hedgehog. Prior to research in The Breaks, Litocherus lacunatus was known only from the Tiffanian (though the genus … Continue reading →

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7:01 AM | New Albany Shale Fossil

Reading the Indiana Department Geology and Natural Resources Twenty-First Annual Report W.S. Blatchley State Geologist 1896, I came across a plate image and description of the Parenchymophycus asphalticum found in the New Albany Shale of Clark and Floyd Counties in Indiana, USA. The New Albany Shale was named by a local geologist in the 1800s named William Borden. The shale dates to the Late Devonian Period.Below is an image of a New Albany Shale fossil that might be what is described in the […]

April 12, 2013

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9:26 PM | My opening statement at the Evolution Or Revolution debate

I mentioned earlier that I was in Oxford yesterday — mostly to participate in the debate at the Oxford Union, “Evolution or Revolution in Science Communication?” I was on the revolution side, with Jason Hoyt (PeerJ), Amelia Andersdotter (Swedish Pirate Party MEP) and Paul Wicks (Patientslikeme). The “evolution” side was represented by David Tempest (Elsevier), Graham [...]