🐸🦎🐊🐢🐍🦕🦖
All tagged Zoology
The Oceanário de Lisboa (Lisbon’s Oceanarium) is the largest indoor aquarium in Europe. It holds an impressive 5 million litres of seawater and includes some pretty amazing creatures in its exhibitions. If ichthyology is your thing, you’d be in heaven but if you enjoy marine biology in general this is an absolute must if you’re ever around Lisbon.
In December 2019, I visited the Grant Museum of Zoology in London with a couple of friends, and given our current situation, I thought it would be a good time to write about that visit and daydream about my next one!
Let’s talk about frogs and toads!
I often write pretty lengthy posts about specific species, or subjects relating to manuscripts on which I am currently working. However, I thought it would be fun to write a series of short blog posts that go back to basics on one of my favourite extant orders of the amphibia class – Anura.
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 cannot think of many events to which I look forward as much as TetZooCon every year, and I am glad to report that this year’s event did not disappoint. Once again, Darren Naish and John Conway managed to put together an incredible panel of talks and palaeoartists for all of us Tetrapod Zoology fanatics to enjoy. Prepare yourselves, my friends, because this post will be a VERY long one!
