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How It Works
©Sergey KrasovskiyThe hypothesized sail of Becklespinax would have had a very similar function to other sails that existed during the Mesozoic (and the Permian as well). Sails have become somewhat less...
View ArticleThree Bones and Some Fame
The three main bones that the entire description of Becklespinax is based on are scant, though not the least number of anatomical elements that have ever been used to describe a fossil animal. Part of...
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A Natural History's History
As far back in recorded Western history as the 6th century philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon began to question the impressions and casts of anatomical structures found in rocks. Great scientists...
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Cuvier's Early Works
I left off yesterday saying that Cuvier's first employment was as a tutor for the Comte d'Héricy. During this time he became interested in fossil animals and, as he was already interested in the...
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The Young Reader's Cuvier
I have been considering how to approach a young reader's version of Cuvier for a good portion of the day. I can share encyclopedia articles written with kids in mind. The University of California...
View ArticleGo Extinct And Don't Evolve
Cuvier, like many scientists regardless of their eras, had his biases and made observations based on his opinions, biases, beliefs, and upbringing. Despite Cuvier's distinction as an anatomist and a...
View ArticleFloods and Essays
The appearance of genera such as Megatherium, Mosasaurus, and Pterodactylus in the historical record are documented very well. Cuvier named these genera in various essays, but it was his Essay on the...
View ArticleProfiling a Master
Just a short note on a rather sticky topic: Cuvier is purported to have been the tiniest bit of a racist and has even been credited with laying out the principles upon which scientific racialism is...
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Names Aplenty
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, Baron Cuvier, Georges Cuvier. They are all the same person. Where Georges came from I have not found as yet. There are videos and books dedicated to him (aside...
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Fast-forwarding Science
A.S. Romer 1922, courtesy of the HPS RepositoryArizona State UniversityWhile not starting out specifically as a comparative anatomist, Alfred Sherwood Romer is one of the most important names in...
View ArticleRomer the Writer
A. S. Romer wrote a lot of quality anatomy books. It was through his study of comparative anatomy, embryology, and paleontology that he was able to write these works and make them applicable to...
View ArticleLight Edition on Father's Day
Rather than doing a full entry today I am linking a site that gives a biographical chronology of A.S. Romer. For many the day is over or almost over and they are tuckered our from all of the fun...
View ArticleSomething Is Missing
Movie Monday does not really exist for many scientists. Biographies for scientists do exist as documentaries, but most of them are for scientists more well known to the general public and, generally,...
View ArticleMore Writing From Romer
A slightly longer biographical memoir of Romer is available online. It was written by Edwin Colbert in 1982. Colbert is the type of person I mentioned yesterday; he is someone with a lot of information...
View ArticleMaking Him Famous
Many, many times over it has been mentioned that Romer was famous because of his writing. What was it about his writing that makes Romer so famous and his writings so useful? The things in the writing...
View ArticleGaps and Dinosaurs
Relationships between form and function were of great importance to the work of Romer. Popular culture, as we have stated many times, does not readily remember Romer as a guy that taught form,...
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Birds and Dinosaurs
Academic lineage is important in many circles; basically it boils down to who taught whom throughout the ages. Anyone can trace their academic lineage and it is usually traced through PhD programs,...
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The Dinosaur or The Bird
©Emily WilloughbyDeinonychus was, and continues to be, a very important dinosaur in the "dinosaur renaissance" that is still ongoing as well as the ever growing list of evidence that birds and...
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Haarlem Flights
In 1855 a slab was recovered from Germany that contained bones attributed to a pterosaur. In 1970 the slab, that had been in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands, was studied by John Ostrom. A...
View ArticleOstrom the Almost Interview
John Ostrom, one of the most influential paleontologists of his day, probably gave many interviews during his career. However, these interviews have not been digitized or made publicly available...
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