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All tagged Palaeontology
Back in December 2019, I visited the Sedgewick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge with my little brother, Caio, and our friend, Kemi. I had planned to write about it then, but Covid happened and it somehow just completely escaped my mind. However, I was going through some old photographs and found some gems from that day - hence the belated post.
Last year I, unfortunately, had to miss the first-ever online version of TetZooCon – or TetZoomCon. However, this year, I don’t think much could keep me from attending! I took the day off from work and planned a visit to one of the current exhibitions at the Natural History Museum in London in the morning (more on that on a separate post) followed by an afternoon/evening of TetZoo inspired talks.
I don’t usually write about fish and, in general, don’t tend to focus much on ichthyology – but take me to a natural history museum and you will see me hunting for a Dunkleosteus. Can you blame me? They were pretty impressive creatures, just look at the image above. Talk about science fiction meets reality, right?!
Yes, they were enormous. Yes, they looked like modern dolphins (mammals) or sharks (fish) but they were actually reptiles. And finally, no, they were not dinosaurs. Ichthyosaurs have got to be one of my favourite groups of extinct reptiles and a great example of convergent evolution.
I went to Munich for the first time last week and decided to check out some of their natural history museums. I visited the famous Museum of Man and Nature on Sunday and as expected really enjoyed it. It's a great museum for children and adults alike and definitely worth visiting. However, I decided to write about the rather smaller but oh-so-very-exciting collection of the Palaeontological Museum.
How often have you read an article that takes a piece of scientific research, misinterprets the evidence presented and blows the results way out of proportion? The titles of such articles tend to be the sensationalist types, using explosive statements that are guaranteed to get the general public's attention, aka 'clickbait'. This is pretty much what Ford's presentation sounded like - a bunch of decisive, explosive and sensationalist statements that in reality, meant absolutely nothing.
