This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Are you interested in the evolution and diversity of tetrapods? In dinosaurs? Pterosaurs? Herpetology, mammalogy, wildlife photography, palaeoart? In speculative zoology, cryptozoology or arcane historical zoology? The answer is surely yes, and, seeing as it is, you very probably need to BOOK NOW for TetZooCon 2014, the world's first-ever Tetrapod Zoology Convention. It’s being held on Saturday 12th July at the London Wetland Centre. For those of you outside the UK -- hey, what's a trans-oceanic or trans-continental flight between friends? Ha ha ha.
As you’ll know if you’ve been paying attention, our schedule is now online (for updates, follow us on twitter: I'm @TetZoo, co-organiser John Conway is @nyctopterus [yeah yeah, I know]). Seeing as this is the first TetZooCon ever, at least some of the speakers are Tet Zoo stalwarts – but that’s good, because they’ll give excellent talks on exciting, happening topics that you’ll just love hearing about, right? Paulo Viscardi (of Zygoma) will be talking about a newly discovered Feejee mermaid ‘species’, Carole Jahme (author of one of my favourite books: Jahme 2000) will be discussing Shakespeare’s Caliban, Helen Meredith of the Zoological Society of London will be exploring ‘What have amphibians ever done for us?’, Mark Witton - author of Pterosaurs (Witton 2013) - is speaking about the ‘post-Mesozoic evolution of azhdarchid pterosaurs’, Mike P. Taylor of SV-POW! is telling us ‘Why giraffes have short necks’ (his talk might mention sauropods), and Neil Phillips of the UK Wildlife Blog will be ‘In pursuit of British tetrapods’! Oh, and, there’s me – talking about the past, present and future of speculative zoology, or something like that (note: speculative zoology, not the huger, broader topic of speculative biology). For a sneak-peek of some of the stuff I'm covering, see the current issue of Fortean Times (Naish 2014).
There’s also a quiz (several Tet Zoo-themed prizes will be available), an interactive palaeoart workshop involving John as well as Mark Witton and Bob Nicholls, and Rebecca Groom’s palaeoplushies!
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Needless to say, I really hope this works out – whatever happens will be discussed here after the event. Assuming it does work out, we’re planning that this becomes a regular event. Anyway – interested? Able to attend? If the answer to those questions is “yes”, please go to our booking site and book now! We really hope to see you there. Be sure to wear your t-shirts.
Refs - -
Jahme, C. 2000. Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution. Little, Brown and Company, London.
Naish, D. 2014. Speculative zoology. Fortean Times 316, 52-53.
Witton, M. P. 2013. Pterosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton & London.
