Woah.

Crazy story in Science Daily today about a paper recently published in the Bulletin of the Society of Historical Integrative Tautology. The paper describes Protardosuchus incendiensis, an extinct fossil reptile whose remains were recently discovered in Holocene beach sands outside San Francisco.

The authors suggest that the strange hollow, procumbent dentition were able to expel a pair of reactive fluids which, when mixed together in the presence of atmospheric oxygen would combust. Abundant charcoal in the beach sediments which yielded the sub-fossil are seen as strong circumstantial evidence for this novel adaptation.

Some carabid beetles have developed a similar, though scaled down chemical defense mechanism while among reptiles, a number of species of cobra can spray venom from their fangs. Protardosuchus’ pyrotechnic display was apparently far more impressive. As the Science Daily piece notes, the author’s aren’t certain if this behavior was defensive or related to prey-capture:

“Seriously, dude we have no effing clue,” says Melchior Neumayr, lead researcher on the new study. “It was probably all like ‘fffshhhh’ and then all like ‘BOUSCH!’ And then, then you’re like totally toast brohan. No thanks man, thanks, but no thanks.”

Most interestingly, this discovery marks the first post-Cretaceous occurrence of a hellasaurid hellasauroid hellasauriform in North America (while most authorities consider “Ogopogo” to be a “hellasaur” sensu lato, it’s almost certainly not a true hellasauroid). It’s tempting to imagine that the mythical “dragons” of Eurasian folklore were inspired by extinct old-world protardosuchians whose remains have yet to be discovered. In fact this pan-Pacific distribution would almost certainly confirm McCarthy’s (2003) argument that the Pacific basin didn’t open until the Mesozoic. Dude, seriously.

An artist’s reconstruction of Protardosuchus.

Refs:

Dennis McCarthy (2003) “The trans-Pacific zipper effect: disjunct sister taxa and matching geological outlines that link the Pacific margins” Journal of Biogeography 30 (10)

Neumayr, M et al. (200 “Expirational autocombustion in a recently extinct Hellasaur from coastal California” Bull. Soc. Hist. Int. Taut. 56 (9 or 10)

Putting my photos where my mouth is… (I had to move my foot first)

 

i’ve finally gotten around to putting a Creative Commons license on my Flickr photos.

Appropriate away!

Al-Aqsa Lovers Brigade

Seen at the Maker’s Mark distillery, included for no particular reason…

Way back in the mid 1990s, I cut my teeth as a “science writer” in the pages of the Atascadero Junior High School newspaper with the editorial “What’s wrong with Jurassic Park?” It hit all the usual talking points: over-sized Velociraptors, the under-sized Dilophosaur with its unlikely frill and venomous saliva, the unrealistic presentation of field paleontology.

In short, the editorial had the same tone of self-righteous futility that regular readers of microecos will be all too familiar with; though, to be fair I prefaced the piece with a note that I wasn’t challenging the artistic license of the film-makers, but merely trying to correct any scientific misconceptions fostered by the film.

I’d like to think, all evidence to the contrary, that I’ve loosened-up considerably since my adolescent years–I mean, hey, at least I’m not publishing rants in nationally syndicated teen advice columns railing against “elitist” high school girls¹.

All this navel gazing is sparked by two interestingly divergent recent posts by Messers. Wedel and Naish. First, Matt single-handedly attempts to dislodge a deeply implanted stick in “Get your giant robotic dinosaur on“:

The granddaddy of all ex-paleo objections to pop culture dinosaurs, though, is that…

“That’s so unrealistic! Why, just look at the external nostril! It must be at least two-thirds of the way back in the bony naris–it’s nowhere near Witmer-compliant!”

Yes, it’s true, pop culture dinosaurs always fall short of full scientific respectability. Always. If you can show me a counter-example, I can give you at least half a dozen reasons why it actually sucks.

it’s an excellent read full of the usual seething hilarity we’ve all come to expect from Wedel’s rants. It also earned him free tickets to the Sacramento showing of Walking With Dinosaurs: The Live Experience (which I’m missing as we speak for want of $70 US …bastard!) At any rate it’s an excellent essay, well worth the read, even if you’ve never mocked a three-fingered T. rex or howled at a pterosaur carrying off a buxom cave-girl.

Then–as if to reclaim the honor of sullen paleo-nerds everywhere–Darren Naish published a stinging critique of Robert Mash’s How to Keep Dinosaurs:

This could have been a really interesting experiment in the reconstruction of behaviour, and on whatever imaginary perils and pitfalls might befall any attempt to bring dinosaurs into the human world. But no, it’s just silly. The animals are not portrayed realistically, but as daft caricatures that perform to classical music, do silly dances, play cards and so on.

In this season of political double-speak and bet hedging, I’ll make my position on the importance of scientific accuracy in paleo-pop crystal clear. Art is art and we shouldn’t expect scientific perfection from every plastic cereal toy or stadium robotic dinosaur show, BUT inaccurate portrayal of paleontology in pop-culture offers a wonderful opportunity to correct popular misconceptions through critique and review. Scientists just shouldn’t take themselves too seriously - because then their experiments are probably going to run amok and eat people.

¹ - Oh god, don’t ask. Needless to say, I did not get a lot of play in high school.

An amoeba is smaller than a rat

 

Var. self portraits.

 

 

Web 2.0: boon or deathtrap for middling talent?

Range Maps:

stagnating pool of paraconciousness

“Such highly parallel multitasking - institutional paraconsciousness - while clearly limiting inattentional blindness and the consequences of failures within individual workspaces, does not eliminate them, and introduces new characteristic dysfunctions involving the distortion of information sent between global workspaces.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

web, 2.0: Joyous byte-arcade

PERIOD.

trust me, the name of my new band is Croizat and the rad racers.

actually, it’s Tuftian guerrillas of iconography.

as a I said, damnation: , parallel microtextes:

What Planet Do You People Live On?

Biking home today, I almost crashed into a tree when a small Accipiter clutching a ginormous Fox Squirrel flew just overhead and into a cork oak.  I glanced around to see who else might have seen to share my amazement.  Among the fifty or so cyclists and pedestrians who should have had as clear a view as I did, not a single person had noticed.  Or if they had, they simply didn’t care, which is worse.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t an eagle taking out a deer but still.  Massive, awesome carnage taking place just overhead and you people don’t even notice?

During a 5th grade dodge ball match I glanced up and noticed a strange bird circling with the omnipresent Turkey Condors.  White head, white tail, dark body.  I had never seen a Bald Eagle before.  I leaped up and down and shouted “Everyone, look!  A Bald Eagle.”  Then I got tagged in the face.

Sports suck.  Animals rule.  Wake the hell up folks.

Is That a Moustache?

I bought Paul Sereno a beer.  It was a Shiner Bock.  I also participated, peripherally, in a scheme to get him to pose for photo shoot…well, perhaps I shouldn’t go into that.

And I saw some college bros try to get Bob Bakker to come to their party.  Ah, the mania that is SVP…

I also got to head over to the Hartman Prehistoric Garden with Julia and Lorin this afternoon.  The butterflies were AMAZING, and me without the camera–damn it!

Julia got some photos though, some of them were appropriately enough, of Julias (Dryas julia) although I didn’t realize that at the time.  We also saw Monarchs, Zebra Longwings, and several different Swallowtails including a Pipevine.  Lots of little butterflies, moths, dragons and damsels too although I have no idea what they were, and a huge-ass, er abdomen Argiope orb weaver.

We saw lots of verts too and Chickadees of some type, lots of Great Tailed Grackles (the local weed bird), a Red-Shouldered Hawk being mobbed by some Blue Jays, Squirrels and Turtles.  Snap!

Oh yeah, and there’s some pretty awesome science going on to, but my head is spinning way too fast to write about any of it.  And the night hasn’t even begun yet…

Okay, off to see some bats.

The Squid and the Bus

Okay, I’ve been sitting on this one for awhile, waiting for:

a) BBC to run another squid story, and

b) The chance to stage a photo holding an uncooked calamari squid against one of Davis’ infamous (and hazardous!) double-decker buses

Lo! Much as Darwin was forced to rush his theory of natural selection to publication after a few short decades of musing, I’ve been goaded into action by an irresistible outside force that demands my immediate attention.

So in honor of the First Annual Cephalopod Awareness Day (!) please enjoy this ‘brief abstract’ of which I will someday provide a deep and thorough elaboration upon more befitting the quality writing you’ve come to expect here at microecos. Just think of it as my personal Origin .

Without any further ado, then, let us explore the evolution of the BBC’s celebrated Mesonychoteuthis v. London Double-Decker Bus diagram or as I like to call it, “The Incredible Shrinking ‘Colossal’ Squid”:

BBC NEWS, 2 April 2003 — “Super squid surfaces in Antarctica“

That Sperm Whale looks freaked out.

 

BBC NEWS, 8 January 2004 — “New giant squid predator found“

Oooh-look a border! Hey, where’d the whale go? Oh, eaten by a sleeper shark no doubt.

BBC NEWS, 28 September 2005 — “Live giant squid caught on camera“

Wait, maybe the whale ate the shark. Giant and ‘Colossal’ both get downsized, and makeovers. Who’s the little guy?

BBC NEWS, 28 February 2006 — “Giant squid grabs London audience“

New color scheme! Whale shrinks, Colossal grows back to ? size. Ominous caption: “Scientists admit they know little about the largest of the squid”

BBC NEWS, 14 February 2007 — “Large squid lights up for attack“

Little guy’s back…actually mentioned in the text this time. What he lacks in brawn he makes up for in special effects, apparently swimming the wrong way though.

BBC NEWS, 15 March 2007 — “Colossal squid’s headache for science“

Stasis…

BBC NEWS, 22 March 2007 — “Microwave plan for colossal squid“

“Arghhh! They microwaved me down to shark bait!” Shouldn’t the mass figures be expressed in elephant equivalents?

And just to prove that everything is scarier in Russian:

Hmm, so if ?=20 and ???=25 then ??=uh, carry the one … invert the denominator … cross multiply. Damn, I never was any good at algebra.

Fortunately there’s a handy online calculator that allows me to convert any length into london-bus equivalents: the Size of Wales calculator!

An inky Cephalopod Day to all, go check out the tentacley goodness over at Cephalopodcast.