Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
May 22, 2010
A lion cub (Panthera leo) stalking its sibling, photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 21, 2010
A Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer), photographed at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Outside of the trash-grubbing black bears I occasionally come across when driving to hikes in northern New Jersey, I never encounter large predators near my home. The imposing carnivores which once…
May 20, 2010
A gelada (Theropithecus gelada), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 20, 2010
Mammal hairs preserved in amber specimen ARC2-A1-3. a - First fragment; b - Line drawing of first fragment; c - Second fragment; d - Line drawing of second fragment; e - Close-up of second fragment to show the cuticular surface.
About 100 million years ago, in a coastal forest located in what…
May 19, 2010
An Inca tern (Larosterna inca) about to crush a clump of dirt, photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 19, 2010
If for no other reason, I love the American Museum of Natural History because it contains a web of seemingly endless nooks and crannies to explore. One, just far enough away from the main exhibit halls to go unnoticed by most visitors (it is not even denoted on the museum map anymore), is a…
May 18, 2010
A ring-tailed mongoose (Galidia elegans), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 18, 2010
A restoration of Megatherium from H.N. Hutchinson's Extinct Monsters.
For over a century and a half dinosaurs have been the unofficial symbols and ambassadors of paleontology, but this was not always so. It was fossil mammals, not dinosaurs, which enthralled the public during the turn of the…
May 17, 2010
A male lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 17, 2010
The tail of a thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus). From Wikipedia.
Thanks to sensational documentaries and summer blockbusters, we are all familiar with the anatomy of a shark attack. The victim, unaware that they are in peril, is struck from below and behind with such speed and violence that, if…
May 16, 2010
A black leopard (Panthera pardus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 15, 2010
A baby Coquerel's sifaka (Propithecus coquereli), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 14, 2010
Image via Discovery Press Web.
In his monumental 1945 monograph on mammal classification, paleontologist G.G. Simpson appraised the living species of elephants to be "relicts of a dying group." The living African (Loxodonta) and Asian (Elephas) elephants were all that remained of the past…
May 13, 2010
Components of the newly-described Fezouata fauna. a, Demosponge Pirania auraeum b, Choiid demosponge c, Annelid worm d, Organism showing possible similarities to halkieriids e, Possible armoured lobopod f, Thelxiope-like arthropod g, Marrellomorph arthropod, probably belonging to the genus Furca…
May 12, 2010
In the Fayum desert of northern Egypt, not too far from the banks of the Nile, the vestiges of ancient forests are preserved in the sand-covered strata. The fossils are ghosts of a vanished oasis in which prehistoric cousins of modern elephants wallowed in lush wetlands and a host of ancient…
May 11, 2010
The jaws of C. megalodon as restored by Bashford Dean for the AMNH in 1909. Image from the American Museum Journal.
My early elementary reading school choices often got me into trouble. Every week I would pass over the recommended, grade-appropriate sections for the few shelves containing the…
May 10, 2010
The skeleton of Megatherium, as figured in William Buckland's Geology and Mineralogy Considered With Reference to Natural Theology.
There is something fantastically weird about giant ground sloths. Creatures from a not-too-distant past, close enough in time that their hair and hide is sometimes…
May 8, 2010
I know Darren posted about this last year, but it is just too cool not to share again:
For more on the fruit-eating habits of crocodylians, see Darren's post on the subject here.
May 8, 2010
A snow leopard (Panthera uncia), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
May 8, 2010
Written in Stone is now available for pre-sale on Amazon.com (as well as a few other online stores)! The description of the book, author bio, etc. will have to be updated, but otherwise it is good to see it get its own page, and many thanks to the several of you who have already pre-ordered…
May 7, 2010
A close-up shot of a giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), photographed at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
May 6, 2010
One of the fossil fish I found in the Green River Formation of Wyoming.
I had my doubts about whether we were going to reach the quarry. The Toyota Yaris my wife and I had rented for our excursion through Utah and Wyoming was not designed to handle the rough dirt roads which wound their way…
May 5, 2010
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) don't have it easy. Their taste for large mammalian prey puts them in competition with lions and spotted hyenas for both prey and living space, meaning that wild dogs regularly have their kills…
May 5, 2010
Rokan the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), photographed at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
May 4, 2010
The skeletons of female (larger, background) and male (smaller, foreground) Dinornis robustus, with a pigeon skeleton for comparison. From Allentoft et al 2010.
A little more than 700 years ago, multiple species of the gigantic, flightless birds called moas were still running around New Zealand…
May 3, 2010
Way back in 1989 (I was only six!), Eugenie Scott and other members of the National Center for Science Education got together for a mock debate pitting evolutionary scientists against creationist impersonators at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. How things…
May 3, 2010
Breaking down a hyena kill. Given competition with other carnivores, prehistoric hyenas (like their living counterparts) would probably have disarticulated and transported parts of horses they killed. From Diedrich 2010.
In Hollywood films, there is nothing like an assemblage of bones strewn…
May 2, 2010
A keel-billed toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus), photographed at the Central Park, Zoo.
May 1, 2010
The skull of a juvenile white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), photographed in suburban Pennsylvania.
April 30, 2010
I feel like I have been run over by a truck. Between blogging, working on my book, fieldwork, pitching freelance articles, and research, I just didn't have the energy to come up with something new today. Instead enjoy this post, written a little more than a year ago, about how the hip of a fossil…