A new species of owl called the Rinjani scops owl has been discovered, and it’s unique to the tiny Indonesian island of Lombok. Until fairly recently, it was common practice for scientists to identify owl species based largely on their plumage and morphology. Both features are important in distinguishing all kinds of birds, but can [...]

Flamingos are a pretty underrated bird. But the more you dig, the more you discover how strange they are, from their limbs to their pigment to the erectile tissue in their mouths. One of the most recognisable traits of this leggy bird is how it seems to prefer to stand on one leg– even when [...]

As I’ve pointed out before on Symbiartic, before the modern naturalist movement, nature lovers would shoot and kill the objects of their fancy to get a better look. Audubon himself would take dead specimens and pin them into life-like poses before drawing them and turning them into the prints that are so treasured today. But [...]

The intersection of science and art is bustling with activity. With this weekly-ish post, we’ll try to keep you abreast of the most happenin’ happenings around the country. Don’t miss out! SCIART LECTURES/EVENTS Beacon, NY’s Annual Open Studio Event (Beacon, NY) September 24-25, 2011; 12-6pm | Take a tour of scientific illustrator Chris Sanders‘ and [...]

Any adventures about the more rural parts of the UK typically involve (for me, anyway) a lot of looking at the Rook Corvus frugilegus, a remarkable Old World corvid that occurs from the far western shores of the UK and France all the way east to Japan (it’s generally absent from the cold northern parts [...]

My photography skills – if I can call them that – are pretty atrocious. While on a break in Wales recently, I managed to photograph a sequence in which a Herring gull Larus argentatus (one of our most frequently encountered gulls) swallowed a Common sea star Asterias rubens. Yeah, that’s right, get into the habit [...]

New Zealand is home to several highly peculiar endemic parrots, with three similar-looking species being of particular interest: the Kakapo Strigops habroptila, Kea Nestor notabilis, and Kaka N. meridionalis. Here are taxiderm specimens of all three on display together (with other New Zealand endemic birds*) at Bexhill Museum, Bexhill, East Sussex. I can’t pretend to [...]

We’re all excited by, and interested in, ‘new’ species; that is, those that have been discovered and named within recent years, with “recent years” variously being considered synonymous with “since 2000”, “since the 1970s”, or “since 1899/1900”. In the modern age, species discovered within the 20th century are generally considered ‘surprising’ and ‘recent’, and we [...]

As a regular Tet Zoo reader (right?) you’ll be aware of the petrel series. I’m keen to finish it (hey, just as I am with all the other still-incomplete Tet Zoo series), so let’s crack on. In previous articles, we looked at gadfly-petrels, the members of Fulmarini, and also at the evolution, biology and diversity [...]

Thanks to Ville Sinkkonen, I’ve just learnt of this Finnish news article: it reports wildlife photographer Lassi Kujala’s discovery of more than ten Common redpolls Carduelis flammea killed by Great tits Parus major. A Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella was killed as well. I understand that tits are called titmice in some parts of the world. So, [...]

It’s January 21st, meaning that Tetrapod Zoology is another year older and has now been going for more than seven years. Time once again to look back at the year that’s passed… or, the year as seen from my own personal, Tet Zoo-themed perspective. As per previous birthday events (or, blogoversaries, or whatever), I’m going [...]

Mention ‘peacock’ (or ‘peafowl’) and the vast majority of people will think of Pavo cristatus, the mostly Indian, blue-plumaged Indian peacock. Distinctive features of the males of this species include a face marked with black and white stripes, a crest composed of wire-like shafts tipped with blue, fan-shaped tufts, orange-brown primary feathers, dark-brown-and-white stripes on [...]

Whenever I mention turkeys on Tet Zoo, it’s unavoidable that I (generally) mention or illustrate the turkey we know best: the domestic form of Meleagris gallopavo, the North American bird typically known as the Wild turkey. It’s big, with bronzy-brown plumage, a mostly pinkish head and neck and a wiry ‘beard’ that hangs down from [...]

Galliforms – gamebirds – are among the most spectacularly flamboyant of birds; the males of many lineages are provided with an abundance of elaborate display structures. I’ve written about turkeys and their snoods, wattles, caruncles and showy feathers before. I like the photo above because it depicts two of the showiest gamebirds – Meleagris gallopavo (domestic [...]