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Announcements from the TetZoo-sphere

This isn’t a normal scheduled blog post; instead, it concerns some announcements. Firstly, TetZooCon – the first ever Tetrapod Zoology Convention – is go.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


This isn't a normal scheduled blog post; instead, it concerns some announcements. Firstly, TetZooCon - the first ever Tetrapod Zoology Convention - is go. It will be held at the London Wetland Centre (UK) on Saturday 12th July and you can now book for attendance. Our schedule is pretty much sorted: we have a series on talks on such subjects as dinosaurs, pterosaurs, the role of speculative zoology, cryptozoology, herpetology and conservation biology; there's also a palaeoart workshop (led by co-organiser John Conway, Bob Nicholls and Mark Witton), a quiz, and stalls. We hope to see you there! If the event works out, this will become a regular thing... Check the website for details.

In other news, some of you might recall me saying that my monitor montage - the most recent version of which was featured in the Tet Zoo article on news from the world of monitor lizards - would get used as a t-shirt design at some stage. That day has come, and you can now buy your very own Tet Zoo 'Monitors Are The Best Animals' t-shirt at the Tet Zoo redbubble shop. More merchandise to be added to the site as and when. The t-shirt is available in lots of colours, but I think the red one looks best.

Finally, the latest issue of Science Uncovered magazine (June 2014, Issue 07) features an article of mine that might be of broad interest here: it's titled 'Rediscovering the Dinosaurs', the tag line being 'They are often depicted as huge, scaly beasts - but new discoveries are changing our beliefs about these creatures...' (Naish 2014). It features artwork by Julius Csotonyi (who has a new book out, by the way), Emily Willougby, John Conway and Mark Witton, with 'before' and 'after' images showing how life reconstructions have changed substantially over the years (and a pox on those palaeontologists who are still giving the OK to reconstructions that are objectively wrong and aesthetically offensive). I hope it's interesting and enjoyed by those intrigued by what we know about the life appearance of fossil animals.


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Coming next: ratites part II!

Ref - -

Naish, D. 2014. Rediscovering the dinosaurs. Science Uncovered 7 (June 2014), 68-72.

Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com!

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