Tet Zoo readers with supernatural memories will doubtless recall the January 2012 article ‘Rigid swimmer’ and the Cretaceous Ichthyosaur Revolution (part I) [link below]. I’ll refresh your memory by telling you that the article was all about the PLoS ONE paper on Acamptonectes, a Cretaceous ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the UK and Germany described by Valentin [...]

Tet Zoo regulars will remember the detailed montage I’ve produced that hopefully gives some idea of crocodylomorph diversity (Crocodylomorpha = the archosaur clade that includes modern crocodylians and all taxa closer to them than to croc-branch members of Archosauria like the aetosaurs and rauisuchians. Crocodylomorpha is basically equivalent to ‘Crocodilia’ of tradition; most members of [...]

Over the last few days, I and my friends and colleagues from the University of Southampton’s vertebrate palaeontology research group visited Lyme Regis for the 2013 Fossil Festival, a big, fun event attended by 1000s of people and by most palaeontologically- and geologically-oriented people in the southern half of the UK. There are stalls and [...]

Long-time Tet Zoo readers will know of my various efforts to get through all the temnospondyl lineages. Alas, I just haven’t been able to finish this grand project due to my getting stuck somewhere round about dissorophoids (see below for links to previous Tet Zoo temnospondyl articles). In frustration, here’s a section from late in [...]

Another day, another new paper out in PLOS ONE. Today sees the publication of the new azhdarchid pterosaur Eurazhdarcho langendorfensis Vremir et al., 2013, a new species from the Upper Cretaceous Sebeş Formation of the Transylvanian Basin in Romania (Vremir et al. 2013). ‘Vremir’ is my good friend Mátyás Vremir; he worked together with Alex [...]

Time to talk about another recently published paper I was involved in: this time, the looooong awaited Journal of Systematic Palaeontology paper ‘A new leptocleidid (Sauropterygia, Plesiosauria) from the Vectis Formation (Early Barremian-early Aptian; Early Cretaceous) of the Isle of Wight and the evolution of Leptocleididae, a controversial clade’ (Benson et al. 2012a). Wow, what [...]

I knocked this up in a hurry yesterday but I think it’s good enough to share publicly. The pristichampsine is meant to be trotting along at speed, and that explains why its hat is falling off. Have a great Christmas and New Year – here’s to 2013. 2012 was a crazy year for me (annual [...]

The three talks given at the All Yesterdays launch earlier this month are now viewable online. I’ve been having trouble getting them viewable here at Tet Zoo: here’s mine (with a link to the youtube appearance below)… All Yesterdays Book Launch Talk – Darren Naish For John’s go here; for Memo’s go here. I will [...]

Two weeks ago I and colleagues published a new paper in the august open-access online pages of PLoS ONE. Led by Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery of the Royal Veterinary College, and co-authored by Charlotte Miller, Emily Rayfield, Dave Hone and myself, the paper is titled ‘Pedal claw curvature in birds, lizards and Mesozoic dinosaurs – complicated categories [...]

My latest book, All Yesterdays, is now out (Irregular Books, 2012; details below). Subtitled Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, the book – available both as an e-book and as a hard-copy, actual book book – was co-authored by John Conway, C. M. Kosemen (aka Memo) and myself. It’s fantastically illustrated [...]