What's the Connection???

So, what's the connection between the following animals?



























A clue: don't concentrate too much on identifying the species, especially for a few of them, where the situation is more important. When the correct guess has been made, or it's been ages and no-one's guessed correctly in the comments, I'll reveal the answer.

Got that Fry-Day feeling!

Look who I met...



Yes it's the lovable Mr Stephen Fry! Just got back from seeing him give a talk about Oscar Wilde, in celebration of his 155th birthday (Wilde's, not Fry's), and the release of a hardback compilation of some of Wilde's children's stories, which Fry contributed some text to.

Got to the building nice and early, took my place in the queue, and got wonderful seats in the third row of a small, intimate theatre. At half past six, Fry came on stage and gave a biography of Wilde's life, from his birth in Ireland, education in Dublin and Oxford, his marriage and his homosexual affairs which ultimately caused Wilde to be a social outcast, and his death. Fry gave two striking analogies: the first was the persecution, death and reverence (in that order) which liken Oscar Wilde to Jesus Christ; and the second a comparison to the shock one gets when you see the Empire State Building for the first time, shooting into the sky like five rockets as you drive down 5th Avenue - this is likened to how Wilde's reputation as one of history's greatest playwrights and authors has skyrocketed ever since his death.



Next, Fry read one of the short stories from the anthology, entitled 'The Young King', featuring a bejewelled gilded statue with a heart of lead and a swallow. A sad story which brought a tear to many eyes. Next came a sort of Q&A session, except he both asked and answered the questions. Much of what he had to ask and answer was about Twitter, and how, with more than 800,000 followers, he has such great influence on the world that it can be scary. For example, if he praises a particular website, the amount of traffic generated by followers visiting that website will cause it to go down: he equated it to everybody in the auditorium instantly going to a pub and getting stuck in the doors, with the management having to pay bills for broken windows and doors and having to contact their insurance and worrying about their premiums going up.

He also mentioned Jan Moir, a name now familiar to all of Fry's followers, as the journalist for the Daily Mail who wrote hurtful comments about Stephen Gately (member of Irish pop group Boyzone who died a week ago from a congenital heart defect at the age of 33). She wrote bigoted and homophobic remarks about him and his life partner, saying there was nothing natural about his death, it being caused by his homosexual lifestyle. I don't want to go into that too much, as I feel I don't know all the facts. He supposedly took drugs, and his last night was spent less than sober, but to bring his sexuality into it is just bad journalism and screams of bigotry.

Anyway, most of the people in the theatre wanted their books signed, as did I, so a queue amassed by the side of the auditorium. Note I said 'amassed', not 'formed orderly like civilised people should'! I ended up near the back of the queue because people were pushing and shoving, most unhumanlike. Ironic really, as they are all there to see someone who values good manners and erudition above chaos and disorder. While I was waiting, I started having a hypoglycaemic attack (low blood sugar, quite common, as I'm Type I diabetic) and had to leave the queue and sit down. Management were most unkind to me as I requested some way to quickly meet Mr. Fry and then leave, but as my symptoms worsened before I could get some sugar in me, I just felt plain weak and collapsed on the floor outside the auditorium.



Well, as you can see, I did get to meet Stephen, and it took a lot of persuasion with the staff at the event. They did eventually oblige my whimsy and let me cut in the queue. The photo above shows Fry looking at an illustration I just gave him. I thought I should give him a little something, to show my appreciation for being one of my idols, and decided to give him an original drawing of some sauropodomorphs in glorious colour (I'm about to embark on a mass sauropod drawing fest, so I don't mind parting with that piece). He seemed pleased with it, and grateful that I gave it to him. He tried to pronounce the scientific names on there, but struggled with Plateosaurus. I said I hoped I'd pronounced them correctly, and that I'm not as good a scholar of Ancient Greek as he is, but I try. I left the stage with my newly signed book, and left to sit down and get over the rest of the hypoglycaemia. A hefty price to pay, but at least I got to meet one of my greatest idols of all time. The next one has to be Shirley Manson...

Tomorrow morning at approximately 11 am I will start on my epic sauropod bonanza. The first post, consisting of the first two sauropods, will be up on this blog, and linked to on ART Evolved, at about midday GMT. Hmmm, twelve hours until I get started... I'd better get some sleep!

Photo of the Day #26: Giant Anteater

Giant anteater
Myrmecophaga tridactyla Linnaeus, 1758
Myrmecophagidae; Xenarthra; Mammalia; Chordata
London Zoo
November 2008

One of the most peculiar mammals, a relict from the times when South America was an island, the giant anteater is amongst my favourite of all animals. For an animal that pretty much eats only termites (not ants!), it reaches a huge size and can defend itself pretty well.

I’ve been coming to London Zoo for years, and since the giant anteaters moved in a few years ago, I’ve tried my hardest to see them. They have a fairly large outdoor pen (where the grey wolves used to be in the 90s), as well as an indoor enclosure with a low-level window for us to peer into. The first few times I visited the anteaters, I couldn’t see them outside or indoors. In 2005, I bent down to find them in the indoor enclosure. I saw a striped lump, took a bad picture, and dissatisfied, withdrew from the niche, but in an undignified manner. I banged my head hard on the roof of the nook, and felt concussed as I walked through the squirrel monkey enclosure. That was a painful and embarrassing experience with anteaters; I felt I deserved it though, as I was taking flash photographs in the Moonlight World exhibit not long before, despite the fact that the lorises and bushbabies were getting a bit freaked out.

The last time I visited the zoo, I saw both adult anteaters, and this one paraded about inside the indoor enclosure, this being the best photo I took. I made sure not to bang my head this time.

My Favourite Museum

My favourite museum is undoubtedly the Natural History Museum, London. Of course I love almost every museum I have been to (the exception being Guzelyurt Museum of Nature and Archaeology; more on that in a future post!), but the NHM stands out for me, as it has been the most prominent institution in my life so far.

It all started for me almost twenty years ago when I was a wee lad of five or six and went to the Museum on a school trip. I don’t remember much of that excursion; however, one event sticks in my mind. A life-size animatronic roaring Tyrannosaurus rex (probably a relative of Traumador’s) shouted at me, and I ran and hid behind the teacher. This picture of me at the Museum with various felids on a subsequent visit is a vision of things to come!






I would visit the Museum every few years or so throughout my childhood and even through my teens. I started to use the General/Zoology library for casual carnivore research when I was about 15 years old, and kept returning until the present.

My affiliation with the Museum became stronger when I started the Masters course there last year. I was given the run of the place, and soon became a volunteer in the Palaeontology department, sorting fossil fish. I am now working in the greatest library in the world as a shelving assistant.

My past has always been associated with the NHM, and I hope my future will be too. The Museum has imparted chunks of wisdom to me and I endeavour to pass on this knowledge to others in years to come.

I hope you enjoyed this post; I was inspired to write it for the Boneyard XXVI, hosted by Traumador the Tyrannosaur at The Tyrannosaur Chronicles this month. If you didn’t arrive here via that blog, go read about the tales of a lovelorn living fossil!

The First Post

Well, this is the first post to "The Disillusioned Taxonomist" blog! Nothing much to say yet, but hopefully I will update with pictures, and within the next couple of week, a palaeontology-related story!