Once again, it was recently that part of the year where a good number of science enthusiasts, natural historians, wildlife artists, scientists, researchers and interested members of the public gather in London for what we call TetZooCon: the annual Tetrapod Zoology Convention…
Once again it’s time to continue with my slow-burn zoo review series. I’ve just returned from a trip to Tokyo, you see, and while there I visited two zoos. Today we look at the first of them: Ueno Zoological Gardens (usually just called Ueno Zoo), located in Ueno Park in Taito City, central Toyko…
It's time once again to look at squamates…
As remarkable as it might sound, we’re presently in the midst of a ‘modern werewolf’ craze…
You’ll recall that my aim for 2024 is to rescue and revamp a good deal of old squamate-themed material from the Tet Zoo archives….
Ever keen to cover more of squamate diversity – Squamata = snakes and lizards – we here look at a really interesting group of mostly Mexican lizards. They’ve led us on a merry chase with respect to their diversity, taxonomy, phylogeny and historical biogeography…
It’s time to start preparing for TetZooCon – our annual Tetrapod Zoology Convention – and oh boy is a lot of stuff happening this year…
It’s time once more to visit the amazing world of squamates, and again we’re looking at snakes. Today: the extremely obscure Small-eyed or Ikaheka snake of New Guinea and some of the surrounding islands. What’s the deal with this unusual animal?
Within recent days, the world has learnt of the passing of American writer, author, artist and natural historian Richard Ellis (1938-2024), best known for his many works on marine animals and their environment...
It’s time once again to look at a very interesting bunch of snakes…
An updated look at a very special group of remarkable burrowing snakes…
Among the most poorly known of all squamate groups are the dibamids…
For some years now, a prolific amateur herpetologist has published an absolutely extraordinary number of new taxonomic names for snakes, lizards and other reptiles…
The intelligence of non-bird dinosaurs is one of the most-asked questions about their biology...
Regular readers will be aware of my intermittent, occasional articles on the zoos and other animal-based visitor centres of the world, published as and when I remember to do them...
It’s been said that the present is a Golden Age for cryptozoology books, cryptozoology being the ostensible study of creatures known from legend, account or anecdote but not accepted as valid by science...
Now would be a good time to publish a massive and comprehensive overview of where we’re at in our understanding of colubrid snake diversity and phylogenetic history. But that’s not happening today. Instead…
Over 200 modern lizard species possess slits, apertures and folds in the skin that lead to epidermal structures often termed mite pockets…
Among the proudest of my achievements is the publication of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, DHTLE for short, co-authored with Professor Paul Barrett and published by the Natural History Museum, London. I think it’s fair to say that it’s the flagship ‘dinosaur book’ of the museum. It’s also one of only a handful of dinosaur-themed books written at ‘adult level’. “Finally, a modern, intelligent, trade book on dinosaurs for thoughtful readers”, to quote a reviewer at Quarterly Journal of Biology.
Regular readers here, and those who follow me on social media (@TetZoo on Twitter/X and Instagram; I’m on Facebook too), will know that I’m now fairly heavily invested in the Common frog Rana temporaria population that live in the scruffy ‘garden’ areas that surround my house….
