Happy 30th: The discoveries of 1988

This weekend, I turned 30 years old. It’s a milestone for me, of course, but it reminded me about how much can change in 30 years.  30 years ago the dinosaur film was Land Before Time, when dinosaurs were inspired by the works of Charles Knight and William Stout before the Jurassic Park paradigm took over.  30 years ago,  the Berlin Wall still stood dividing Germany, the first Bush became president coasting in on Reagan’s popularity, and computer graphics in film were limited to a short by Pixar. 

There were many milestone in paleontology as well-new species were described, that would become iconic many years later.  So, I’ve decided to showcase all the fossil tetrapods described in 1988.  I can’t go into any depth about each, but there will be quite a few of them, so hold on your butts.

Species that don't get enough publicity #8. Dakosaurus, Metriorhynchus and friends

Today I’m going to talk about not a particular species, but a family of animals. I couldn’t narrow it down to just one-collectively perhaps only one or two has been featured in dinosaur books, and only one in my memory has made the headlines.  Remember Pristichampsus? Well, prehistoric crocodiles are fascinating to me so you can expect more. This time, it’s about a niche crocodilians exploited multiple times. Don’t worry, I won’t do them all in one go. The Philodosaurs, Dyrosaurs, and Teleosaurs can wait. Today I will restrict myself to a single but giant family of marine crocodiles. Yes, I said marine crocodiles. These are the Metriorhynchids.

Paleontology Wish List for 2014

Everyone has a wish list for their friends or their family to give them.  Some people have political wish lists, or try to get in touch with their spirituality through goals. I myself have wish lists for Christmas and my birthday. However, this is a paleontology wishlist, a list of all the discoveries and insights I hope will happen in 2014.   I know most paleontology is based on the combination of persistence and luck, but here’s hoping at least one of these will happen in the next year

Belated Halloween post: Top Ten Scariest Prehistoric Environments

Sorry this took so long!  I was hoping to get this done by Halloween, but it took a week to get this one out. Next time I’ll do monster posts like this one in installments. Today we’re going for another lighthearted one-yes, we’re going to do a top ten list today. This one’s been inspired by the documentary series Sea Monsters, where host Nigel Martin took the audience through the “top 7 deadliest seas”. In the same spirit, I’ve chosen the top 10 Deadliest Terrestrial faunas, based on the number of large predators. If I missed any that deserved to be on this list, please let me know. This isn’t based on any particular grade, but based on the number of large predators present in the fauna.