MetaFilter posts tagged with zoology

The Morae River

HumanComplex — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:18:59 -0800

Brynn Metheny is a freelance illustrator based in Oakland, California who loves to draw imaginary creatures. Metheny has taken this fascination with made-up animals and extended it to the point of conjuring up an entire continent, Orcura, through which flows The Morae River. The river basin has a bestiary and a Classification of Species to describe the animals that inhabit it. (via) (speculative zoology previously)

'The Human Animal,' by Desmond Morris

grillcover — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:44:48 -0800

The Human Animal - a brilliant BBC mini-series documentary by zoologist Desmond Morris that takes an extended look at the curious creatures known as Homo sapiens. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on Google videos. Beautiful and fascinating.

Giants and Spiders and Frogs, Oh My!

Hardcore Poser — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:08:28 -0800

As many as 40 new species may have been discovered near the crater of a volcano in New Guinea. Not to alarm anyone but Fearless Giant Rats, Caterpillars that look like Snakes and Fanged Frogs have been spotted and are said to be at large. BBC producer Steve Greenwood took a small crew from the BBC Natural History Unit in to Mount Bosavi crater. The extinct giant volcano is in the southern highlands of Papua, New Guinea. Partnering with a team from the London Zoo and Oxford University led by George McGavin, the crew recorded some of the team's fascinating discoveries. There were other dangers, besides the Rodents Of Unusual Size:

The area is so remote and inaccessible that no people live in the crater. Even villagers in the few scattered settlements surrounding the volcano rarely ventured in, due to the difficulty of climbing the slopes leading to a 2,800m summit. "'If you fall when climbing in,' one village elder said, 'no one will ever find your body,'" recounts Greenwood.

The series, titled 'The Lost Land of the Volcano' will air on BBC One on Tuesday September 8th, at 2100 BST. The Invertebrate Diary blog has a preview. _{First post, be gentle honest.}

Life on Another World

HumanComplex — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:50:49 -0800

"Everything begins with complex cladograms I scribble down on large sheets of paper. Before any pictures, these family trees serve as the 'backbone' of the project; allowing me to develop the relationships among different animals and derive ideas from one another." Welcome to the beautiful nonexistent world of Snaiad. Inhabitants include Titanoformes, Cardiocetes, Sprogophidians, and Blumbomeniforms. There are also maps and a timeline. Fantastic speculative zoology from Nemo Ramjet.

Barbie Dolphin

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:39:42 -0800

Albino Dolphins are pink.

BIODIVERSIFY!

auralcoral — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:43:47 -0800

British scientists discover hundreds of new species in a remote forest in Mozambique using Google Earth. The pictures are the best part.

The hyena, "our favorite animal"

Kattullus — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:28:15 -0800

"With most animals, males duke it out and the winner gets the girls," says Holekamp. "But with hyenas, females have 100 percent say." They decide when and under what conditions they will tolerate deferential sperm donors. At age 2 or 3 a male leaves his natal clan and wanders off to beg acceptance into another clan. After vicious rejections, he eventually succeeds and reaps his reward: brutal harassment as the clan's nadir, one of the last in line for food and sex. This probation, which biologists call "endurance rivalry," is a test, Holekamp explains: "The guy who can stick it out the longest wins." The trial lasts about two years, after which some females may grant him access. "You do not want to be a male hyena," Holekamp says.

-From an article in Smithsonian Magazine, Who's Laughing Now? Professor Holekamp's hyena site. Also, hyena pictures and The Hyena Pages, a fine site about this fascinating animal.

Another day, another Ankylosaur

mediareport — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:52:38 -0800

Tetrapod Zoology just celebrated Ankylosaur Week. Days 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 1.

Ernst Haeckel's illustrations

nickyskye — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:21:22 -0800

Microorganisms as eye candy: A gallery of illustrations from the marvelous Artforms in Nature, Kunstformen der Natur 1899-1904 by Ernst Haeckel, an eminent, prolific and very controversial German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist, who named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including phylum, phylogeny and ecology. More wonderful images, including hummingbirds, antelopes, shells and sea creatures. The Marine Biological Laboratory: Ernst Haeckel. Evolution's controversial artist by Amanda Schaffer, an excellent slide-show essay. Wikipedia's entry on Ernst Haeckel: The Nazi party used not only Haeckel's quotations, but also Haeckel's broader philosophy of "Monism," which they used as justification for racism, nationalism and social Darwinism. On this page with a substantial collection of illustrations, scroll down to figure J, where he placed Americans. Haeckel promoted Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial "recapitulation theory" claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' entire evolutionary development, or phylogeny: "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" A little about how his naturalist vision impacted art and design around the turn of the century, such as in Art Nouveau. strange foe's excellent previously

Why don't anteaters get sick? Because they're full of anty-bodies!

dmd — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:50:20 -0800

Taking care of an incredibly alien-looking, yet impossibly cute anteater isn't easy — in fact, it's a lot of aard verk!

Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium

Kattullus — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:07:28 -0800

A virtual copy of Historiae Animalium, the first pictorial catalogue of the animal world (lots of pretty pictures, but the text is all in latin). It was compiled in the 16th century by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner, who is considered the father of zoology (and, incidentally, also the father of bibliography [Word Document]).

Indonesia - new species discovered

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 05:16:20 -0800

"Lost World" found in Indonesian Papua (with audio)

Scavenger Filter

alms — Fri, 27 May 2005 20:07:54 -0800

California Condors, including basic condor, condors in history, population history, and condor behavior.

Fantasic Zoology

hama7 — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 18:54:35 -0800

Fantastic Zoology: A graphical interpretation of Jorge Luis Borges' "Book of Imaginary Beings".

COW! CUBE! COWUUUBE!

homunculus — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 14:27:31 -0800

The Zoology Dragon. "Rather than, as has previously been thought, a slow process of evolution, we now know that all animals were created by the Zoology Dragon. Unfortunately, we also know that the current Zoology Dragon is a bit shit." [Flash.]

Walton Ford

hama7 — Wed, 07 May 2003 22:33:56 -0800

Walton Ford, 1,2,3: Nature Boy.

condour75 — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 19:56:49 -0800

Zoological Bloopers and Practical Jokes. Strange Science is a great little page of missteps in the classification and illustration of exotic and extinct animals. It's hard to classify all the links; some are dinosaur screwups, some are just poor depictions of animals from the time before photographs. Most are fascinating. Although, they skip over one of my favorite examples, Michelangelo's Jonah and the Whale.

plinth — Tue, 06 Nov 2001 09:23:37 -0800

The iTunes article reminds me of an important lesson in computer work: always mount a scratch monkey.