@tetzoo.bsky.social
Zoologist, author, natural historian Dr Darren Naish | Dinosaurs animals evolution | Books: DinosaursHTLE - DINOPEDIA - AncientSeaReptiles. PREHISTORIC PLANET lead consultant AppleTV | DINOCON leader | Mesozoic Art II out now https://linktr.ee/tetzoo
Went to Lymington quay. Only a single winter plumage Black-headed gull.
One day I aim to finish this book, currently at over 2000 pages and effectively untouched for a few years due to other work. My patreon exists, in part, to raise the funds to get it done.
Views from the pond's shallow end, March 2025. Helping frogs is very rewarding when things go well :)
That looks very familiar to me. This is the end paper illustration from "The Blue Whale" a NatGeo book that I've had forever. Credited to Larry Foster.
No, I do not own this book, and in fact I didn't know about it until now! I will have to track it down :)
#Spawnwatch... the pond is now full of 100s of free-swimming tadpoles, but there's also some unhatched spawn that appeared late in the season, plus some recently hatched masses of tadpoles that are still in the sessile phase...
But it was the art that drew me in. There are a couple of quirky and quite magnificent big features that depict shark and cetacean diversity. These Eurobook agency books were compiled without credit being given to individual artists, alas, but I recognise the sources for various of the images here.
Newly acquired today: Martin Angel and Tegwyn Harris's 1977 Animals of the Ocean: the Ecology of Marine Life, the contents of which are self-explanatory. I like these 'old' discussions of marine wildlife, since they were created when photos were murky and comparatively little was known... cont
Hey look -- merch featuring shoebills, leopard seals and cryptid sea monsters :) tetzoo-store.sumupstore.com
The Tetrapod Zoology podcast lives again. Yes, episode 95 is here: It's Been Haulong? A year and a half of catchup! #TetZooCon regenerates into #DinoCon, 20 years of TetZoo, Haolong, Spinosaurus (URG!), and much more meandering and tangentiality... tetzoo.com/podcast
More inventory. Aiming to add some number of amphibians, reptiles and fishes.
What does the top shelf of the cabinet need, I asked myself? More ichthyosaur.
Time to redesign the display on the top of cabinet 1. Now with sabretooths and spinosaurids...
What does the top shelf of the cabinet need, I asked myself? More ichthyosaur.
Got my hand on @tetzoo.bsky.social book for my first ever Natural History Museum visit in London! What a museum, it’s so big!!!
Time to redesign the display on the top of cabinet 1. Now with sabretooths and spinosaurids...
More inventory. Aiming to add some number of amphibians, reptiles and fishes.
Job fully finished, all edge work completed, all tadpoles and spawn safely returned. If you zoom in you should be able to see spawn clutches 44 and 45 on the raised bank in the pond.
The task today... to rebuild all the edges of pond 2, to grade it into the surrounding ground, and to return all the tadpoles and spawn to home base...
A bit too late for my long Mary Leakey article, but I've just received her 1983 Africa's Vanishing Art. It's big and spectacular and full of incredible images of rock art made over hundreds and thousands of years. A lot of the animal imagery is fascinating. #books
Roughly at a convenient time for a #DinoCon 2026 connection....
Take a 26-minute timeout for this beautiful documentary filmed in Western Ecuador - in search of the the Ecuadorian Dwarf Boa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB9R...
I predict this snake will be found...
@mongabaylatam.bsky.social, @garnglobal.bsky.social, @tetzoo.bsky.social
Well, #DinoConUK is July 25th-26th, so not thaaaat close but not that far away either
Roughly at a convenient time for a #DinoCon 2026 connection....
Mood
A bit too late for my long Mary Leakey article, but I've just received her 1983 Africa's Vanishing Art. It's big and spectacular and full of incredible images of rock art made over hundreds and thousands of years. A lot of the animal imagery is fascinating. #books
Long prior to the evolution of great apes (including humans), ancestral apes were climbers. But what sort of climbers were they? An argument exists that they were slow, leaf-eating 'cautious climbers'. I've just revamped my 2019 article on this subject... tetzoo.com/blog/2019/3/...
... found and studied numerous fossil hominins, including their footprints. She worked with, and married, Louis Leakey, but their relationship sourced in the late 1960s and early 70s at a time when Louis was wrapped up in a very peculiar claimed discovery site (Calico Hills, California)... 4/n
It's also a fitting tribute to the work of an extraordinary researcher. Mary died in 1996 and worked on African rock art, on archaeology of modern humans in Europe as well as Africa, discovered Miocene primates and other fossil animals, and... 3/n
Last year, I finished Mary Leakey's 1984 autobiography Disclosing the Past, and I've just published a long article about it. It's a great book if you're interested in the history of research on east African fossil hominins (and other primates)... 2/n