Stories by Darren Naish

What with all the monitor-themed goodness around these parts lately (see links below), it seems only fitting that I provide a re-vamped, substantially updated version of this Tet Zoo ver 2 classic (originally published in September 2007).

Between the later part of the Triassic and the very end of the Cretaceous, the seas of the world (and some of its rivers, lakes and estuaries as well) were inhabited by the remarkable group of swimming reptiles known as the plesiosaurs.

There are lots of reasons for liking wildebeest… or gnus. For me, the main one comes from the fact that they are insanely flamboyant in appearance.

A momentous thing is about to happen. Take a deep breath and prepare yourself. Today is the day when… I finish my series of articles on the crocodiles of the world.

I said in the previous Tet Zoo article on monitor lizards that I really wanted to cover the prasinoids; that is, the arboreal tree monitors of New Guinea, Cape York Peninsula and various of the islands surrounding these areas.

Everybody loves monitor lizards, or varanids. And there is so much to learn about, and to appreciate, in these remarkable, charismatic, complex, sophisticated lizards that scientists across many disciplines are being encouraged to study them and lo to make remarkable discoveries.

Its time to republish this classic article from Tet Zoo ver 2 (originally published in September 2009). The problem Im concerned with certainly hasnt gone away, and in fact is on my mind right now since Ive seen a couple of recent, egregious examples.

Time for more Australian agamids, or amphibolurines, or dragons, whichever you prefer. Last time round, we looked at the water dragons, Moloch and a few other taxa, meaning that all thats left to get through is the remainder.

At long last, somebody has uploaded (at least some of) The Velvet Claw to youtube. Whats The Velvet Claw, I hear you ask? Well, actually, I probably dont hear you ask, seeing as you probably know already.

One of my favourite ichthyosaurs is the generally large, archaic, long-snouted Temnodontosaurus, and if you have an especially good memory youll recall it being mentioned here and there on Tet Zoo over the years (see links below).

The behaviour of long-extinct animals remains an area of major public and scientific interest the great perennial problem being that were always massively constrained, if not crippled, by a frustrating lack of data.

Its January 21st, meaning that, once again, a year has passed and that much-loved internet phenomenon known at Tetrapod Zoology is fully one year older.

Agamids are a widespread, diverse iguanian lizard group that I have a special fondness for and consequently have featured several times on Tet Zoo (see links below).

As a European person, I find European voles (and, to a degree, Asian voles) pretty familiar, commonplace, homely. Still interesting, mind you.

Today: LIZARDS. Even better: obscure Australian agamids, or dragon lizards, or dragons, if you prefer. Ive written about agamids a few times on Tet Zoo but have never gotten to say much (if anything) about the Australian radiation, grouped together into the clade Amphibolurinae.

Youll already know what voles are. Theyre blunt-nosed, comparatively short-tailed rodents with chunky bodies and rounded ears that are mostly concealed by fur.

I assume youre here for the Tetrapod Zoology. If so, youll have been excited and intrigued by one of 2013s best tetrapod-themed books: Mark Wittons Pterosaurs, an enormous, lavishly illustrated encyclopedia of all things pterosaur.

My plan was to get something else finished for Tet Zoo before Christmas but, alas, that just wasn’t possible. So here’s this… And for those of you who want to see more detail, here are enlarged versions… And for all of you Squamozoic fans who need a labelled version… For more on the Squamozoic go [...]

For some considerable time now, there have been rumours of an incredible zoological discovery: a new species of living perissodactyl a tapir due to be announced from the Amazon.

Regular Tet Zoo readers will be familiar with azhdarchid pterosaurs and the debate thats surrounded their ecology and behaviour. Within recent decades, these remarkable, often gigantic, long-necked, long-billed but proportionally short-winged toothless Cretaceous pterosaurs have been imagined as mega-skimmers, as heron-like waders, as obligate scavengers of dinosaur carcasses, and even as sandpiper-like littoral foragers.

It needs to be better appreciated that the vast majority of modern ecosystems and communities are broken or, at least, very much incomplete compared to the situation present within very recent geological history: they lack an often significant number of key component species including some, many or all of the so-called keystone species.

I really like chickens. They are fascinating, beautiful, unbelievably diverse, complicated birds. Im academically interested in them. Oh, and we should probably stop eating them.

My newest book Cryptozoologicon Volume I, co-authored with John Conway and C. M. “Memo” Kosemen is now available (alternatively, it can be ordered here from amazon) (Conway et al.

In recent years it has – I really, really hope – become better known that non-bird reptiles (turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, alligators and so on) are not boring dullards, but behaviourally complex creatures that get up to all sorts of interesting things.