why I hate theropods

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium? ...

2009-11-13T21:28:21.785-05:00

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

Thanks for the support! =) Nick

2009-11-13T03:20:00.188-05:00

Thanks for the support!

=)

Nick

congrats on the NASA grant. $is$, and a CV line. I...

2009-11-09T10:29:59.967-05:00

congrats on the NASA grant. $is$, and a CV line. I wouldn't apologize too much. If the blog has suffered because you've been submitting MSs, grants, managing UG classes, and working as a parttime lab tech...then I'm sure the blog understands.

I just stumbled upon this, but I hope you're not s...

2009-11-08T19:11:08.217-05:00

I just stumbled upon this, but I hope you're not still using EndNote - it's usability and functionality is terrible compared to Zotero. Zotero is just better all around. Who cares about a few mb of memory. I was just surprised because I think you're the first person I've ever heard of switching from zotero to endnote and not vice-versa.

Thanks saurian, I can't say there won't be occasi...

2009-09-22T00:05:21.322-04:00

Thanks saurian,

I can't say there won't be occasional posts here and there, but I definitely need to worry more about other things for awhile.

There's a few things coming out I'll probably be commenting on, but other than that, it's probably going to be lonely on the frontier for awhile.

Hi Nick. I'm sorry to hear that your blog is havin...

2009-09-21T17:42:53.223-04:00

Hi Nick. I'm sorry to hear that your blog is having a break but quite understandable never the less.
Good Luck!

Yeah, I don't want a life reconstruction so much a...

2009-09-10T14:27:19.653-04:00

Yeah, I don't want a life reconstruction so much as a skull. You know, for the skull show I'm planning. :-)

You know damn well what I mean by "mammalian dentition." LOL! Maybe I should say "mammal-like dentition," what with molariform teeth and canines and whatnot. Oh, there was a presentation on an amazing croc at SVP last year like that. Complete skull, very nicely preserved. Forget the name, though.

Hi Lucas, Thanks for your thoughts, Lucas! I emai...

2009-09-09T11:13:26.004-04:00

Hi Lucas,

Thanks for your thoughts, Lucas! I emailed you a copy of Jouve (2009). Apparently the DOI given on BioOne isn't correct (which is why the link in the post doesn't work), I've corrected the link to point to SVP's website instead.

The complete citation is:

Jouve, S. 2009. The Skull of Teleosaurus cadomensis (Crocodylomorpha; Thalattosuchia), and Phylogenetic Analysis of Thalattosuchia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(1): 88-102.

Really, we know enough about Chimaera, although is...

2009-09-09T11:05:08.192-04:00

Really, we know enough about Chimaera, although is a unique and fragmentary individual, the available materials shared a lot of cranial characters that join it strongly with derived groups of Notosuchia. Furthermore, the postcranial characters are also shared with Notosuchus, Mariliasuchus, Malawi, etc, etc…
So, I am interested to read the Jouve´s work (2009), or if anyone has the complete cite I would appreciate very much.
Best

Hi everyone. Someone could send me a copy of Jouve...

2009-09-09T10:56:07.391-04:00

Hi everyone. Someone could send me a copy of Jouve's work or tell me the complete cite?
Greetings
LEF
lfiorelli@crilar-conicet.com.ar

It depends on what you mean by 'mammalian', it's t...

2009-09-08T17:35:14.646-04:00

It depends on what you mean by 'mammalian', it's true that they aren't like that of crown crocodylian... but that aside.

Notosuchus and Mariliasuchus are known from a number of nearly complete skulls. Sphagesaurus, Comahuesuchus, Malawisuchus and Adamantinasuchus, and Armadillosuchus are all reasonably complete, or at least there appears to be a significant amount of material preserved that you could use for a life reconstruction...

I know, I actually wanted to include this critter ...

2009-09-08T17:29:28.524-04:00

I know, I actually wanted to include this critter as one of the skulls. Are there any complete skulls of crocodilians with mammalian-style dentition?

Sorry to disappoint you, I actually wrote this pos...

2009-09-08T17:07:10.522-04:00

Sorry to disappoint you, I actually wrote this post thinking of one of yours on the art show.

I could certainly try. I don't have a digital camc...

2009-09-08T15:07:30.516-04:00

I could certainly try. I don't have a digital camcorder, but I do have a digital camera, so I can take some pictures.

They don't do it very often. Solid used to do it more, but now he just tries to eat anything that comes in the tank (including people!). Mr. Fat will do it too, but it's totally random, and not obviously connected to being threatened.

But I'll definately try to catch one of them in the act.

Hmph. I didn't know so little was known of Chimaer...

2009-09-08T15:03:48.028-04:00

Hmph. I didn't know so little was known of Chimaera's skull. A shame, too--it looks like an interesting critter.

that's really cool sounding Zac, do you think you ...

2009-09-08T14:58:03.346-04:00

that's really cool sounding Zac, do you think you could get a video of this behavior without stressing your geckos?

cheers,
Nick

I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

2009-08-27T21:57:04.218-04:00

I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

That's Awesome!! Although...I wonder if this will ...

2009-08-27T21:52:04.040-04:00

That's Awesome!! Although...I wonder if this will be another "Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus incident" like last time. :?

Don't know if you've ever seen geckos (leopards in...

2009-08-27T19:45:31.795-04:00

Don't know if you've ever seen geckos (leopards in particular) do this, BUT: when the leopards are threatened, they lower their head and raise their tails up, then move the tail left and right in a slow, sinuous way. It's obviously a threat display.

Gotta wonder if ankylosaurs did the same kind of thing, lowering the body and moving the tail around to remind predators of what they're dealing with.

It would be cool if videos from all the presentati...

2009-08-14T17:21:50.084-04:00

It would be cool if videos from all the presentations, lectures etc. were available for the public on the internet. I know about confidentiality and all that and doubt anything of the sort will happen soon, but it would go a long way towards increasing accessibility to the profession.

Well, as to formatting issues, I'd just plain get ...

2009-08-11T15:36:41.815-04:00

Well, as to formatting issues, I'd just plain get rid of the right sidebar showing reader updates. It crowds the page. None of your posts are long enough to warrant an "after the jump" kind of format (that's not a knock against) unless you start posting more images.

Thanks, so you feel greater frequency would be bet...

2009-08-11T08:02:53.075-04:00

Thanks, so you feel greater frequency would be better?

Is there anything about the site's layout that you don't like or would want to see changed? Would you find it very annoying if I changed the way my posts were organized so that it'd show a brief 50-100 word preview on the main page and a link to the full article?

I would like to get a better feed gadget/widget for comments and Twitter, but I don't know where to look.

Nick, I'd like to see more "rundown" posts of obsc...

2009-08-10T15:16:25.381-04:00

Nick, I'd like to see more "rundown" posts of obscure or poorly-known non-dinosaurian diapsids. This is the place I come to learn about crocs and their cousins, because honestly nobody else on my blogroll covers this stuff (except Darren...rarely). So keep on doing what you're doing. I just wish you'd do it more often! :-D

I should talk...

An interesting note from that paper is that Barina...

2009-08-10T00:08:14.775-04:00

An interesting note from that paper is that Barinasuchus appears to be the largest of the traditional sebecosuchians. The scale bar in that photo is 10 cm.!

The paper is freely available online for interested parties. Googling any of the new genera turns it up quickly.

It's entirely possible, most of these taxa are rar...

2009-08-09T09:44:26.169-04:00

It's entirely possible, most of these taxa are rarely sampled in recent croc phylogenies. The only major tweaking I've tried to do is merging Turner and Buckley (2008) with Pol et al. (2009), unfortunately, I have trouble running their data sets in PAUP (with and without modifications), I never seem to be able to recover their topology (I suspect PAUP gets bogged down).

There's a few key papers I'd like to read (e.g. Pol's recent one on Dakosaurus) but haven't had the time. There are definitely some areas that the AMNH matrix is weak in, and that would be within the crown clade. The position of those taxa seems highly affected by what the conditions are throughout the rest of the tree (specifically the topology of basal Neosuchia wrt peirosaurids).