[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Subject Index][Author Index]
COELACANTHS, CATS AND SEALS
As usual, everything interesting happens at once.
Just when I am in the middle of rereading Keith Thomson's 1991
book_Living Fossil_, I learn that _Latimeria_ has been fished up off
the coast of Indonesia! Where are the newswire reports?
Today, Brooks, Makovicky, Gauthier and Bonde had their _Nature_
paper published on postcranial pneumaticity in _Archaeopteryx_, and
the latest _JVP_ has just arrived.. papers on the long-awaited N.
American alvarezsaur, the new American protocetid (curiously
paralleled by the new _JP_ paper - a taxon I was told was to be
named.. well, something different from _Georgiacetus_ [and both of
these when the library is badgering me to return Thewissen et al's
_Ambulocetus_ monograph], form and function in primitive frogs (and,
as we learnt at SVPCA, little protofrogs are now known from the late
Palaeozoic - stay tuned), and lots more. Now all I have to do is find
the abstracts volume.
And last night, _X Creatures_ covered the big cats abroad in the
British countryside. Aside from the _Architeuthis_ episode, this was
the first one that wasn't ultra-sceptical, and I understand that the
final verdict was that the things are *probably* out there. Having
seen undoubted big cat trackway casts and bona fide 100% definite
video footage of big cats (i.e. _Panthera_), all coming from the UK,
and having interviewed a lot of (IMHO) sincere witnesses, I have no
doubts whatsoever that ABCs are a fact. Which is cool: it's nice
having macropredators around.
Meanwhile, my coastal field study site yesterday yielded a selection
of cat ribs and metatarsals, and a scapula (_Felis catus_), a small
synsacrum and what appears to be a human rib (cool). All we need is
more seals to help sort out the Chilean stuff Stig Walsh and I are
working on. Phocids or otariids.. it's not always easy to tell, but
we do have cf. _Acrophoca_!
And all of this when I am trying to sort out the horrible taxonomy of
the small Wealden theropods for my thesis. Dead cormorants and a
swan, replica azhdarchid bones (Arry II) and an assortment of
Pliocene whales and seabirds have filled up the office. Because the
rooms at home can only fit 70 box files, I am bringing all the marine
mammal stuff to Portsmouth. Which will mean the hire of a truck.
Now you know why I haven't been emailing.
"The tigers of wrath are stronger than the horses of instruction"
DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk