A kiwi on moas 24 Sep 2007 This is a nice post by Christopher Taylor at Catalogue of Organisms, a kiwi studying spider systematics (and what’s not to love about that; cephalopods be buggered!) on the species of moas that used to live in New Zealand. I didn’t realise they’d be forest dwellers. It’s a worthwhile blog to get the feed for. Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution Species and systematics
Evolution A schism in the Church of Dick 26 Feb 201018 Sep 2017 I know, it’s just schadenfreude on my part and it’s so very childish, but I can’t help it. The Church of Dick has undergone a schism, with the prophet anathematising previously loyal followers. But, and I state this for the record, it isn’t anything like a religious movement. Nope… Should… Read More
Evolution Teeth and a marsupial lion 16 May 2009 Chris Nedin has another post of great interest (even if it is for a late period, the Pleistocene) which goes into my file of “the older naturalists were great observers”, as he shows how modern chemistry supports Richard Owens’ diagnosis of Thylacoleo as a carnivore, even though it is in… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Australian bees are BETTER than American bees 7 Sep 2007 So, you thought that Colony Collapse Disorder, which is causing billions of dollars in losses in American agriculture, was an act of nature? You poor fools! It’s a plot, I tell yez. We Australians have hardier bees than you do, so they can carry an infectious disease that your weakly… Read More
> cephalopods be buggered Yeah, go on, piss off the people who agree with you about everything else 🙂
Then you’d better get to the NZ Ecological Society conference at the end of this year. “The conference features a major symposium titled “Feathers to Fur: the ecological transformation of Aotearoa”. This is an update of 21 years of progress on the topics that make New Zealand unique, following on from the 1986 conference “Moas, Mammals and Climate” which was published in a special issue of New Zealand Journal of Ecology in 1989.” I spent several days caving with Trevor Worthy examining a new cave system jam packed with the fossils of extinct NZ species, including a number of moa species. Just awesome.