Tetrapod Zoology
Tetrapod Zoology has moved
Posted by Darren Naish on November 8, 2011 You are currently at the old, defunct version of Tet Zoo. To see new stuff (from July 2011 to present), click here. See you there.
Goodbye Tet Zoo ver 2. This really is the end.
Posted by Darren Naish on July 5, 2011 On January 23rd 2007, Tet Zoo ver 2 – the ScienceBlogs version of Tetrapod Zoology – graced the intertoobz for the first time. There was rapturous applause, swooning, the delight of millions. Looking back at it now, that very first ver 2 post is rather odd. It’s on the blood-feeding behaviour of oxpeckers (Buphagus) and…
Inside Nature’s Giants: polar bear special
Posted by Darren Naish on June 30, 2011 So sorry for the very short notice. The following airs here in the UK tonight (Thursday 30th June 2011), Channel 4. I look forward to it.
Geckos love Tet Zoo
Posted by Darren Naish on June 29, 2011 If you didn’t know, I’ve been away. The last four articles that have appeared here were all scheduled to publish in my absence. I’ve been in Romania and Hungary where I had a great time – saw lots of neat animals (fossil and living) and hung out with some neat people. I’ll talk about some…
Hoopoes and woodhoopoes
Posted by Darren Naish on June 27, 2011 Yet more from that book project (see the owl article for the back-story, and the hornbill article for another of the book’s sections). Hornbills, hoopoes and woodhoopoes are all similar in appearance and have been classified together in a group termed Bucerotes. Vague similarities with other long-billed, forest-dwelling birds (like woodpeckers, long-billed cuckoos and such…
What does it feel like to get bitten by a ground hornbill, I hear you ask?
Posted by Darren Naish on June 24, 2011 Suppose you’re interested in the anatomy and biology of ground hornbills. Now suppose that you get the chance to make physical contact with one of these awesome birds. Here, at last, is the opportunity to get bitten!! Surely you’ve always wanted to know what it feels like when a ground hornbill bites you. No? Ok,…
An introduction to hornbills
Posted by Darren Naish on June 22, 2011 More from the bird book. For the back-story, see the previous owls article. Hornbills are among the most distinctive and spectacular of Old World tropical birds. Often flaunting bright colours and sometimes reaching huge sizes (the largest species have wingspans of 1.8 m), they’re well known for their enormous, curved bills and large bony crests.…
When books die. And owls. I don’t mean “when owls die”… I just mean: owls. As in: this article is mostly about owls.
Posted by Darren Naish on June 20, 2011 There’s something they don’t tell you about freelance writing. It’s about all the fails: the many, many projects that get pitched, worked on and made into proper presentations that then get sent to book fairs, interested companies and so on, but ultimately explode on the launch pad, or die a slow, lingering death. I don’t…
The bearded pigs
Posted by Darren Naish on June 19, 2011 One of the most remarkable pigs has to be the Bornean bearded pig Sus barbatus, one of two currently recognised bearded pig species. The other is the much smaller, shorter-faced Palawan bearded pig S. ahoenobarbus of the Philippines: genetic work suggests that S. ahoenobarbus is not a close relative of S. barbatus, but actually closer…
Giant owls vs solenodons
Posted by Darren Naish on June 15, 2011 Here’s something you don’t see very often… This illustration (by Peter Trusler) shows the large Pleistocene Cuban owl Ornimegalonyx oteroi battling with a solenodon. Ornimegalonyx has been mentioned here a few times before (use the search bar), but nothing substantive, sorry. Most sources mention O. oteroi as if it’s the only named species of Ornimegalonyx.…