Introduction to the Anseriformes

The Anseriformes are an order of birds containing three or four extant families. One of those families, the Anatidae, contains amongst the most familiar of all birds, the ducks, geese and swans. The other three families are less well known.

The history of the Anseriformes goes right back to at least the late Cretaceous, that's before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. A single specimen of Vegavis iaai was found in Antarctica, which appears to be an anseriform. Other families to appear in Tertiary times include the long-legged presbyornithids and the giant flightless dromornithids.

Of the four families that exist today, the most un-duck-like would have to be the Anhimidae, or screamers. Three species are found in South America, the horned screamer (Anhima cornuta), the northern screamer (Chauna chavaria) and the southern screamer (Chauna torquata).



Southern screamer
Chauna torquata Oken, 1816
Anhimidae; Anseriformes; Aves; Chordata
Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Gloucestershire
September 2009

Screamers are truly odd birds. They are the only extant bird family to lack uncinate processes of the ribs. These are the projections of the ribs which help strengthen the ribcage and assist in respiration. They have non-bony spurs on each wing (see next photograph), used in intra-specific squabbles, which have been known to break off and get stuck in another bird's breast. They moult partially, allowing them to stay flighted throughout the year (unlike other anseriforms, which have a full moult in summer when they become flightless). In order to make their bodies lighter, they have extensive networks of air sacs within the muscles and flesh, which apparently makes screamer meat spongy and unpalatable.



Southern screamers, with a common wood pigeon

The horned screamer takes the bizarreness to an extreme with a fleshy 'horn' on its head, looking a bit like the bump on the head cartoon characters get when hit with a blunt object.

The next family, Anseranatidae, consists of only a single species - the magpie goose (Anseranas semipalmatus). It's a large bird, with black and white plumage reminiscent of a magpie, and is somewhat goose-like. Males have a pointed cranium.



Magpie goose
Anseranas semipalmatus Latham, 1798
Anseranatidae; Anseriformes; Aves; Chordata
London Wetland Centre
December 2006

The magpie goose is native to northern Australia and southern New Guinea, and lives in open wetlands. It doesn't take to open water like most other anseriform birds, and has reduced webbing on its feet (hence the specific name 'semipalmatus', meaning 'half-webbed').



Magpie goose
Pop-art style illustration using digital photograph and MS Paint
September 2006

The family which I haven't mentioned is the Dendrocygnidae. It consists of eight species of whistling-ducks, also known as tree-ducks, from all continents except Europe and Antarctica, and the aberrant white-backed duck (Thalassornis leuconotus) of Africa and Madagascar. The family is sometimes just considered a subfamily (or two) of Anatidae. I will tell more about them in the next post.

British Wildlife: N

Neovenator salerii Hutt, Martill & Barker, 1996
Carcharodontosauridae; Saurischia; Sauropsida; Chordata

Neovenator ('new hunter') was discovered on the Isle of Wight, like so many other iconic dinosaurs; Hypsilophodon and Polacanthus to name just two. But unlike those two, Neovenator was a theropod, and not a little one. Although quite slender, it grew to around 7.5 m (24') in length.



Neovenator salerii skull
Dinosaur Isle Museum, Isle of Wight
May 2008

The skull and skeleton (see below) of N. salerii on display in the Dinosaur Isle Museum is made partially using holotype material. The reconstructed parts have been blended in so well that it's hard to tell which parts are real. Compare the skull to that of Allosaurus and you will see many similarities: they are both members of the superfamily Allosauroidea, containing Allosauridae, Carcharodontosauridae, Sinraptoridae and a few other theropods. Neovenator is the most basal member of the Carcharodontosauridae.



Neovenator salerii skeleton
Location and date as above

The best known carcharodontosaurids ('jagged-toothed lizards') are the immense beasts Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, the former of the two being larger than Tyrannosaurus, and the latter about the same size. But Neovenator was a 'dwarf', in the sense that it was an early member of the group, and the later carcharodontosaurids became huge.



Eurasian water shrew
Neomys fodiens (Pennant, 1771)
Soricidae; Eulipotyphla; Mammalia; Chordata

Mainland Britain has five species of eulipotyphlan* in three families: the hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) in the Erinaceidae; the mole (Talpa europaea) in the Talpidae; and three shrews - common (Sorex araneus), pygmy (S. minutus), and water (Neomys fodiens).

*Eulipotyphla means 'truly fat and blind', a harsh but apt description of the group formerly known as 'insectivores' or 'insectivorans', but since found to be polyphyletic. If we are to believe certain studies, the golden moles and tenrecs of Africa and Madagascar are, despite looking a lot like hedgehogs, moles and shrews, more closely related to elephants.

The water shrew is the largest of the three, and the most distinctive. It lives, as its name suggests, near fresh water, preferably rivers and streams with healthy invertebrate populations. It is black, or nearly so, above and white below, and its hind feet and tail are fringed with stiff hairs, believed to help it in its quest for food.



Eurasian water shrew (stuffed and mounted)
Bristol City Museum
September 2009

The water shrew is, along with the solenodons (Solenodon spp.) and platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), one of the only venomous mammals. Its saliva has been known to kill animals larger than itself, such as frogs. Other shrews have been known to be at least distasteful to potential predators, like cats, and perhaps they are also toxic.



(Palmate) Newt
Lissotriton helveticus Razoumowsky, 1789
Salamandridae; Caudata; Amphibia; Chordata

Earlier this year I went on a two day course to Epping Forest in Essex to study British amphibians, with particular respect to identification and conservation. Our group caught, by several different methods, all of the amphibians known to be found in that part of the UK: common frog (Rana temporaria), common toad (Bufo bufo), great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris), and palmate newt (L. helveticus).



Male and female palmate newts
Epping Forest
June 2009

Prior to the course, I had never seen either the great crested or palmate newts in the wild. In the breeding season, the males are unmistakable (see below). The most salient features being the tail ending in a filament, a low, smooth crest, a dark stripe through the eye, a pink throat, a yellow belly with few spots and enlarged, black hind feet. Females are harder to tell apart from smooth newts, but have the dark eye stripe, pink throat and unspotted yellow belly.



Male palmate newt
Epping Forest
March 2009

I decided to take two palmate and two smooth newts home with me. You can read more about what happened here. The larva which survived alas did not survive very long. I now have a grand total of zero amphibians in my care, but that's probably for the best.



Female palmate newt
Epping Forest
March 2009

Palmate newts are not endangered, and are in fact rather common, if you know where to look. I don't know how many we spotted on our surveys, but they outnumbered all of the other amphibians species significantly. This is because the palmate newt is known to prefer acidic ponds and lakes. The soil pH in the east of England is quite a lot higher than is preferred by palmates, and western Essex is just about as far east as they go. They are quite rare and extremely local in Cambridgeshire, for example.

Next week, O: a semi-aquatic mustelid, a pterodactyloid pterosaur and one of the largest flying birds.

Hello Alioramus altai !

Alioramus altai Brusatte et al., 2009
Tyrannosauridae; Saurischia; Sauropsida; Chordata

Today, a new species of tyrannosaurid has been described. How did I get to do the above red pen sketch so fast? I didn't... I found out about A. altai at SVP and sketched it whilst watching Steve Brusatte give a talk on this beast (Zach Miller also did the same but his is much better).

The description is available in PNAS here, but is not open access. I haven't had the chance to read it yet, and look forward to reading more about it. What I do know is that it is a new species, but not a new genus: Alioramus remotus was described in 1976, but remains are patchy. Enough material was available to place the animal in the same family as Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Tarbosaurus and of course Tyrannosaurus. That was until the discovery and analysis of the new specimen, found in Mongolia, which was relatively very well preserved.

The skull is fantastically preserved, and most of the bones are present. Most notably, the skull is quite elongated, and has a ridge of small horns along the top. It lived during at the end of the Late Cretaceous period in an environment with such other animals as Gallimimus and Tarbosaurus, a very close relative of Tyrannosaurus. Clearly it was able to live alongside its larger and more robust relative, and most likely preyed on different foods.

British Wildlife: L & M

Liopleurodon ferox Sauvage, 1873
Pliosauridae; Plesiosauria; Sauropsida; Chordata

Liopleurodon was a pliosaur, a form of short-necked plesiosaur living in the seas of Jurassic Europe. It was a true monster, at something like 7 to 10 metres (23-33') long, and would have feasted upon anything from fishes and ammonites to sharks and other plesiosaurs. Even the giant fish Leedsichthys was not safe.



A few teeth of Liopleurodon ferox
Natural History Museum, London
March 2008

Liopleurodon means 'smooth-sided tooth'. It was teeth like those shown above which gave the genus its name. It was not known quite how large the animal was until more substantial remains than the holotype, consisting of three teeth, were found.



Mountain, or blue, hare
Lepus timidus Linnaeus, 1758
Leporidae; Lagomorpha; Mammalia; Chordata

This is the only species of lagomorph native to Britain (and Ireland) in recent times. There are three species found here today: the brown hare (Lepus europaeus) was introduced in Roman times as a food source, and the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was introduced by the Normans in the 11th Century for similar reasons. The mountain hare is now restricted to high mountains and moorland of Scotland, northern England and Ireland, where it is present as an endemic subspecies, the Irish hare, L. t. hibernicus.



Mountain hare in winter coat (stuffed and mounted)
Manchester Museum
July 2008

Apart from in Ireland, the mountain hare has two types of coat: in summer it is brown with a tinge of blue-grey, to blend in with the rocky scree and heath of its habitat; in winter it moults into a white winter coat, with black-tipped ears. Across the rest of its Eurasian range, it intermingles with the Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus) which also has this marked change in coat colour with the seasons.



Lapwing
Vanellus vanellus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Charadriidae; Charadriiformes; Aves; Chordata

The lapwing is a species of plover, a group of wading birds distantly related to sandpipers, snipes, gulls and terns. Species of lapwing are found almost worldwide, and the northern lapwing is distributed across Eurasia. They are so called because of their disproportionately large wings which are obvious when the bird is in flight. They make an incredible sound, something like a toy sliding whistle, which is heard around their breeding grounds and wherever they nest. I first heard this unfamiliar call in Scotland, and was looking around for whatever the hell was making that noise, and saw one lapwing standing on a mound near the road.



Lapwing
London Wetland Centre
September 2009

I see lapwings on every visit to the London Wetland Centre, and this is just about the only place I get to see them. They used to be common in farmland across the UK, but changing farming practices have sent them, and countless other bird species, into decline. They are doing well in the Wetland Centre, however, and are definitely the most numerous wading bird there.

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Woolly mammoth
Mammuthus primigenius (Blumenbach, 1799)
Elephantidae; Proboscidea; Mammalia; Chordata

Perhaps the best known of all extinct mammals, the woolly mammoth is very closely related to today's Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), and by extension also the African ones (Loxodonta spp.). It was slightly smaller than the elephant, but was impressive nonetheless. With huge, curved ivory tusks, a thick coat of dense, woolly fur, and the same incredible dentition as today's elephants, the woolly mammoth is a distinctive creature, but not so distinct as it appears alien.



Skull with tusks of a woolly mammoth
Natural History Museum
March 2008

At first glance, a woolly mammoth skull looks a lot like an elephant skull, but there are differences. Just look at those tusks! No elephant today could have such long, curved incisor teeth. Incidentally, it is not only the woolly mammoth which occurred in Britain: the steppe mammoth (M. trogontherii) also occurred here. It occurred before the woolly mammoth, and may have been ancestral to it.



Woolly mammoth molar
Yorkshire Museum, York
February 2008

The molars of a mammoth are very much like those of an Asiatic elephant. They are made of lamellae (plates) which are stuck together and are worn down continuously throughout the animal's life. The tooth is deep-rooted and will continue to grow for most of the animal's lifespan. Very elderly elephants often 'run out' of tooth, and will become edentulous, and often starve to death. It is truly amazing to see how similar the tooth of a woolly mammoth is to that of an Asian elephant.



Hazel dormouse
Muscardinus avellanarius (Linnaeus, 1758)
Gliridae; Rodentia; Mammalia; Chordata

The dormouse family occurs in Europe, Asia and Africa in many forms. The hazel, or common, dormouse of Europe, is one of the smallest and most endearing. It is an arboreal (tree-dwelling), secretive, nocturnal creature thus it is very rarely seen. Its presence is often known only by the signs it leaves: distinctively-gnawed hazelnuts, which are amongst its favourite food.



Hazel dormouse (stuffed)
Bristol City Museum
September 2009

Dormice (meaning 'sleeping mouse') hibernate throughout the winter, and will spend more of their life in an inactive state than awake. Much of the year is spent in its cosy nest, waiting for the glut of summer nuts, seeds, berries and insects to fatten itself up for another long winter.



(Pine) marten
Martes martes (Linnaeus, 1758)
Mustelidae; Carnivora; Mammalia; Chordata

The pine marten is one of eight species of the genus Martes found across the northern hemisphere. This species is restricted to forests of Europe. In the British Isles, it is found in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, but was once found in England too. It is recognised by its yellow-orange throat patch. It is partial to jam and peanut butter, like most Americans, and can be lured to gardens in parts where it is found by smearing the two pastes on trees or on the ground.



Awful picture (but the only one I have!) of a pine marten
Highland Wildlife Park
June 2005

For an island with not very many of anything, Britain has six native mustelids: the stoat (Mustela erminea), weasel (M. nivalis), polecat (M. putorius), badger (Meles meles), otter (Lutra lutra) and pine marten, not to mention the introduced American mink (Neovison vison). Despite this, I have yet to see any of them in the wild apart from road-killed ones, most notably badgers.

Next week, N: a carcharodontosaurid, a salamandrid (but which one?) and a semiaquatic eulipotyphlan.

I'm back...

...back from SVP that is. The meeting in Bristol was for the 69th meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology. I met some fantastic people and had an odontocete of a time (that's a toothed whale).

The day after I arrived in Bristol I went to the Zoo which was walking distance from my guest house in Clifton, at the very top of the hill. The zoo features such bizarre and unusual creatures as keas (Nestor notabilis), Inca terns (Larosterna inca), aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis), American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula), Bornean white-bearded gibbons (Hylobates agilis albibarbis), three species of lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia, L. chrysopygus, L. chrysomelas), pink pigeons (Nesoenas mayeri) and mongoose lemurs (Eulemur mongoz). Photos are being edited and will probably appear on here at some point, and definitely on Facebook...

I also went to the City Museum in the afternoon, seeing various galleries of British wildlife, world wildlife, dinosaurs, extinct marine reptiles, minerals and local geology. Amongst the highlights were a Plateosaurus engelhardti skeleton, amazing material of Scelidosaurus harrisonii and Thecodontosaurus antiquus, a full skeleton of a male Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) and lots of nice ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and a pliosaur.

The meeting started on the Wednesday and went on until Saturday. Lectures included themed symposia on marine reptiles, synapsids, the evolution of birds and other topics, and there were three sets of talks running simultaneously. I wish I could have split myself into three: as a result of not being able to do that, I missed quite a lot of talks. I'm not allowed to say a lot about the subject matter, but there were lots of new species described, a fair few new genera, and even some controversial new theories on dinosaur taxonomy. Posters (for more on which see Zach Miller's post...) were held in another building, with the temperature of an oven.

I met lots of cool people, and I could name a few, but I won't. You know who you are, if you're reading this and were at the conference. I went there with an open mind, and left with an even more open one. I gleaned lots of advice from people, and to all of those I am eternally grateful.

On Sunday, after stopping briefly at the Avon Gorge to see some peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) and ravens (Corvus corax), I left Bristol to visit Slimbridge Wetland Centre. I was instantly shocked by the stark difference in size and layout to the sister site in London, but of course Slimbridge was there first. The variety of anseriform, phoenicopteriform and gruid birds is outstanding and can hardly be summarised in a blog post, but I'll try.

All six species of flamingo, that's the greater (Phoenicopterus roseus), Caribbean (P. ruber), Chilean (P. chilensis), lesser (Phoeniconaias minor), puna (Phoenicoparrus jamesi) and Andean (P. andinus) flamingos, are present; cranes of the Eurasian (Grus grus), demoiselle (Anthropoides virgo) and grey crowned (Balearica regulorum) varieties too. I was not expecting to see a beautiful pair of southern screamers (Chauna torquata), a distant relative of ducks, geese and swans.

Of the rest of the Anseriformes, most of the genera and species are represented, with such oddities as the freckled duck (Stictonetta naevosa) and Cape Barren goose (Cereopsis novaehollandiae) of Australia, all of the extant shelducks (Tadorna tadorna, T. tadornoides, T. cana, T. ferruginea, T. radjah and T. variegata), blue-winged geese (Cyanochen cyanopterus) and white-backed ducks (Thalassornis leuconotus). And loads more besides.

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Have you checked out the new service offered by the BBC? Known as 'Wildlife Finder', it is an archive of video and audio footage from the BBC Natural History Unit which is being made available to all on the Internet. Already there are almost 400 species represented, and it is growing. You can find animals based on species, distribution, habitat or behaviour. It should be available worldwide, unlike the annoying BBC iPlayer which has programmes only for a limited time, and is limited to the UK. I'd love to know what people think of it... if you can access it of course.

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The British Wildlife: L will be a bit late, but it is coming. It's been a hell of a week and have recently received some bad news which I am still dealing with.

British Wildlife: K

Kuehneotherium praecursoris Kermack, Kermack and Musset 1968
Kuehneotheriidae; clade Symmetrodonta; clade Mammaliaformes; Chordata

Kuehneotherium is only known from teeth and jaws, so my reconstruction is almost entirely frivolous. I expected the closest relatives of the mammals to look something like this. Badger-coloration was a complete frivolity, though.

Kuehneotherium is known from Wales and England within the UK, but also France, Luxembourg and Greenland. All remains date from the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic Periods, a time when there was a mass extinction.

It is hard to place the Kuehneotherium into a definite order and class because of the sparsity of remains. The Symmetrodonta are distinguished by their multi-cusped teeth which are symmetrical in shape. It may not be a true order, however, and Kuehneotherium has also sometimes been placed in the order Pantotheria, itself considered a waste-basket taxon (the name given to a group into which organisms of uncertain affinities are 'dumped' until further study can put them elsewhere).


Sharp-leaved cancerwort
Kicksia elatine (L.) Dumortier
Scrophulariaceae; Lamiales; Magnoliopsida; Magnoliophyta

What's this? A plant? Well, yes, it is, and as the only native British anything with a scientific name beginning with 'K', I had no choice but to include it. For a British plant, it is rather pretty, with flowers reminiscent of a snapdragon (Antirrhinum spp.). I don't have anything interesting to say about it, not even anything etymological.




(Eurasian) Kingfisher
Alcedo atthis
Alcedinidae; Coraciiformes; Aves; Chordata

Kingfishers of the family Alcedinidae are found almost all over the world: they are present in the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, Australasia, and even many Pacific islands. Only one, however, occurs in the British Isles, and that is Alcedo atthis, known in the UK simply as 'the kingfisher'. It is an unmistakable bird, smaller than you expect, with plumage of azure blue, tangerine orange and a wisp of pure white. Often, all I ever see of this is the brightest turquoise of the rump as the bird flies away from me.



Kingfisher on a river boat on the Cam in Cambridge
December 2005

The above (crappy) photo is the only one I have of a wild kingfisher: the only reason why I even had a camera on me at the time was that I was doing a photography assignment on movement and went to the river to get shots of boats, cyclists and pigeons. I hadn't expected this guy to turn up, but it was at the other side of the river to me and I didn't have a zoom lens.

Kingfishers aren't songbirds, so they don't have a pretty song (I've never heard them call, either), and they don't make nests in trees. They will create a burrow in a riverbank and lay their eggs in there. Males can be told from females by the bill: the mandible (lower jaw) of the male is black, as is the upper jaw; in females, the mandible is orange.

Kingfishers don't have to rely on fresh water bodies, as I recently discovered. Although I didn't see any in Cyprus, relatives have, and in several cases, they have been seen fishing in harbours, notably in Kyrenia. This is probably because, I suspect, there is a lack of fresh water. All of the lakes I have visited on the island are stagnant and algae-covered, and also have a lack of tree cover in which the bird can stalk its prey. The coast provides clean water, a cornucopia of fish, and plenty of boats and piers on which to stand.

Letter 'L' (a pliosaur, a wader and a lagomorph) will be slightly late next week, as I'm going to Bristol tomorrow for SVP, and will try to fit in trips to Bristol Zoo and Slimbridge while I'm in the area. I would schedule a post to appear in my absence, but the last time I tried it went wrong, and I figured you could all wait anyways!

British Wildlife: J

Jamoytius kerwoodi White, 1946
Family incertae sedis; Order incertae sedis; Anaspida; Chordata

Looking a lot like a modern lamprey, the fish known as Jamoytius was found in Scotland. It dates back to the Silurian Period, and is reputed to be the earliest known anaspid (jawless) fish. The unusual generic name apparently comes from the name 'J. A. Moy-Thomas'.



Reconstruction of Jamoytius kerwoodi, taken at Manchester Museum, July 2008

As you can see, I based my extra-colourful turquoise reconstruction on this model in Manchester Museum.



Wryneck
Jynx torquilla (Linnaeus, 1758)
Picidae; Piciformes; Aves; Chordata

Looking quite unlike any other member of the Picidae, the wryneck is an aberrant species of woodpecker native to Eurasia. It was formerly a regular summer visitor to the UK, but has ceased breeding, and is now a rare vagrant. Like their larger relative the green woodpecker (Picus viridis), the wryneck eats mostly ants, which it collects from anthills. It doesn't create its own nest holes in trees either.



Jackdaw
Corvus monedula Linnaeus, 1758
Corvidae; Passeriformes; Aves; Chordata

One of the smallest and most distinctive members of the genus Corvus, the jackdaw is an ubiquitous bird in the UK and most of Europe; it betrays its presence by its heckling 'jack' call. There is a related species in Asia, the Daurian jackdaw (Corvus dauuricus).



Jackdaw
Corvus monedula soemmerringii (Fischer, 1811)
Lefkosia, Cyprus
May 2009

The western jackdaw, the species found in the UK, has four races. C. m. spermologus is the one most commonly found in the UK, with some vagrants from Scandinavia of the nominate race being found in winter. C. m. soemmerringii is from eastern Europe and western Asia, and is the subspecies found in Cyprus. I saw few jackdaws there, and this was the only individual I got a photo of. Lefkosia is the 'new' name for Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus (incidentally, the capital of both North Cyprus and the Greek side), and is almost completely built up. This bird was seen perching by the roadside at a busy junction. It looks slightly different to British jackdaws, mainly by the band of white on the neck.

Next week, K: a symmetrodont mammal, a flowering plant and an exquisite riparian bird.

British Wildlife: I

Iguanodon anglicus Holl, 1829
Iguanodontidae; Ornithischia; Sauropsida; Chordata

Iguanodon is one of the most well known ornithopods (bird-footed dinosaurs, including 'duck bills' like the hadrosaurs). It was the second dinosaur genus to be officially named (after Megalosaurus) in 1825 by Gideon Mantell. He did, however, neglect to nominate a type species for the genus.

Iguanodon anglicus, the English Iguanodon, was nominated as the type, but the name remains a nomen dubium ('dubious name', meaning it is difficult to assign specimens to that name, due to a lack of unique features). All that was known of I. anglicus at the time was a single tooth.

The species I. bernissartensis Boulenger was chosen as the neotype, and it is probably the most well known species, in terms of number of specimens. Whole skeletons are recognised, many of which being found at the coal mines in Bernissart, Belgium, hence the specific name. This is also the reason why the bones of this species are very dark in colour.



Iguanodontid footprint cast
Compton Bay, Isle of Wight
May 2008

It's hard to appreciate the sheer size of Iguanodon without seeing the whole skeleton, but take this cast of a footprint, taken in situ on the beach in Isle of Wight. A human foot of about size 10 would fit in the middle digit on that footprint. Just three toes can be seen - digits II, III and IV, relating to the middle three digits on a human hand. The famous thumb, consisting of a conical spike, does not make an imprint. The cast was made, completely naturally, by the sediment filling up the original impression made by the dinosaur, over time turning to limestone. The stratum (rock layer) in which the animal walked had been eroded by the waves, leaving the cast behind.



Dentary (lower jaw bone) of Iguanodon sp.
Dinosaur Isle museum, Isle of Wight
May 2008

The name Iguanodon of course means 'iguana tooth'. The similarity was noticed by Mantell when naming the genus back in 1825 between the tooth of the new reptile and those of living iguanas, except the new tooth was much bigger. The animal then had to be huge too, and it was reconstructed as a giant lizard with a long tail, a sprawling build and a horn on its nose. This last detail was added because part of the specimen was a conical bone looking like a horn. Had the skeleton been articulated, like those at Bernissart, it would have been clear to Mantell and others that the bone belonged on the thumb. Not knowing that, he reconstructed the animal with the bone on its nose.



Blue-tailed damselfly
Ischnura elegans (Vander Linden, 1820)
Coenagrionidae; Odonata; Insecta; Arthropoda

There are no tetrapods or other vertebrates native to and currently extant in the UK. There are insects though, so I chose a pretty damselfly to illustrate the letter I. Damselflies make up the suborder Zygoptera ('yoke wing'), and are generally daintier than their more well known relatives, the dragonflies (order Anisoptera - 'unequal wing'). Both types lay their eggs in water, and the young, known as nymphs, lead a carnivorous lifestyle, eating animals many times their size, including fish and amphibians. Once metamorphosed, they become graceful fliers, remaining close to water. When it comes to mating time, the damselflies will form what is known as a mating wheel. This involves the male hooking the tip of his abdomen to the back of the female's head. This appears to the uninitiated to be how the male fertilises her eggs. Of course not, silly! The 'wheel' part involves the female hooking up the end of her abdomen to the front of the male's abdomen, where his genitalia are. The male will still be attached to the female's head for a while after mating, and this can be seen easily when looking out for the insects by the waterside in summer.



Ingrailed clay
Diarsia mendica Fabricius, 1775
Noctuidae; Lepidoptera; Insecta; Arthropoda

Another insect for the letter I, this time a lepidopteran ('scaly wing'). Lepidopterans are better known as the butterflies and moths. The ingrailed clay is of the latter type, in the family of moths known as noctuids. I don't have much to say about this species unfortunately.

Next week: J; an agnathan, a corvid and an unusual woodpecker.

British Wildlife: H

Hypsilophodon foxii Huxley, 1869
Hypsilophodontidae; Ornithischia; Sauropsida; Chordata

Hypsilophodon is one of the most well-known small ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaurs. It was first thought to be a juvenile Iguanodon until it was studied in detail by T. H. Huxley, who formally named it twenty years after its discovery. It is known from many locations in England, most notably the Isle of Wight.



Hypsilophodon foxii mounted skeleton
Dinosaur Isle Museum, Isle of Wight
May 2008

Historically, it was thought that dinosaurs like Hypsilophodon were partially arboreal, that is, spending some time in the trees, in a method somewhat akin to tree kangaroos. We now know, through study of the bones, especially the pelvis, limbs and tail bones, that it would have been a mostly bipedal, and wholly terrestrial, animal.



Restored skull of Hypsilophodon foxii at Dinosaur Isle museum (it spins!)

One of the more unusual traits of the Hypsilophodontidae in general (the family which also contains Zephyrosaurus, Thescelosaurus, Parksosaurus and their kin) is their "primitive" hands and feet. They retain five 'fingers' and four 'toes', which other contemporary ornithopod groups had reduced to these somewhat. This is supposedly due to the fact that hypsilophodontids were doing well as they are and there were no selective pressures put on them to change this.



Grey seal
Halichoerus grypus (Fabricius, 1791)
Phocidae; Carnivora; Mammalia; Chordata

There are two species of seal that have breeding colonies in the UK; the common or harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and the grey seal. Ironically, the grey seal is more common than the common seal in the UK; indeed I've never seen the common seal in the wild. Grey seals, however, are plentiful around many of Britain's rocky coasts and even some of the more protected sandy beaches, such as Donna Nook in Lincolnshire, where their breeding has been studies for decades.

I have illustrated a male grey seal here, who can be distinguished by his "Roman nose"; the female's snout is more like a dog's. The 'grey' in their names is also a misnomer: they are more likely to be dark with pale blotches or vice-versa, and the calves are pure white. The lanugo (the name for the white fur in a young seal, or any woolly covering in an infant, even human babies) is shed by the time the young is a month old, at which time it is also weaned and able to enter the water. As you can imagine, the lanugo is not waterproof, so a very young seal cannot swim. It is also imperative that a seal pup must put on enough weight in order to insulate it from the cold waters (seal pups are oddly enough born in winter), so the mother's milk is very high in fat (something like 60%, more like clotted cream than milk!). In the four weeks or so before weaning, the pup has put on enough weight to keep itself warm. It's not just the pup that changes drastically in those four weeks; the mother does too. The female after giving birth is quite a large object: her weight is displaced to her offspring through suckling.



Harvest mouse
Micromys minutus (Pallas, 1771)
Muridae; Rodentia; Mammalia; Chordata

The harvest mouse is Europe's smallest rodent. In Britain, only shrews beat it to the title of smallest mammal. It truly is a tiny creature, constructing a nest out of grass the same shape and size of a cricket ball. Inside the ball-like nest would not only be the mother mouse, but a whole litter of young.

The harvest mouse will spend most of its time in arable fields amongst the crops. It is not a pest, unlike house mice (Mus musculus), which would probably strip the field of all grain in a single season, as its numbers are low and it is generally a rare animal. In order to manoeuvre through the tall grasses, the mouse uses its prehensile tail as a fifth limb.

For I, another ornithopod, a damselfly and a moth. I is not a good letter for extant vertebrates, it seems.

British Wildlife: G

Goniopholis crassidens Owen, 1841
Goniopholidae; unranked clade Mesoeucrocodylia; Sauropsida; Chordata

Although looking a lot like a modern crocodile, Goniopholis lived during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. This was before the Crocodylia, the order containing modern alligators, crocodiles, caimans and gharials, and the extinct giant alligatoroid, Deinosuchus, had evolved, and as such it doesn't quite fall into that order.



Skull and teeth of Goniopholis sp.
Dinosaur Isle Museum, Isle of Wight
May 2008

There were many species of Goniopholis from Britain, Europe, North America and Thailand. They must have been numerous, as teeth and bones are found fairly commonly in these areas.



Eurasian jay
Garrulus glandarius Linnaeus, 1758
Corvidae; Passeriformes; Aves; Chordata

By far the most colourful British corvid, the jay is a beautiful and intelligent bird, and is always a joy to spot when in wooded areas or parks. The combination of pinkish grey, black and white, topped off with the flash of blue in the wing, makes for a memorable sight.



Eurasian jay in Hyde Park, London
October 2008

There are jays found across Eurasia and the Americas, but they are not closely related. The genus Garrulus found in Eurasia is close to the crows, ravens and jackdaws of the genus Corvus and the magpies of the genus Pica whereas the American jays Cyanocitta, Cyanocorax, Aphelocoma, Gymnorhina and Calocitta form their own monophyletic clade, according to a study of nucleotide sequences by Ericson et al. (2005). A jay is therefore just a small, colourful corvid, and doesn't imply phylogenetic relationships.

If you're from eastern Europe or Asia, in part of the range where Garrulus glandarius is found, you might not be familiar with the illustrated plumage. This is the western European nominate race. The plumage differs the further east you go, with more or less black or white on the head, making it look quite different.



(Red) grouse
Lagopus lagopus scotica (Latham, 1787)
Phasianidae; Galliformes; Aves; Chordata

The red grouse, along with the pied wagtail (Motacilla alba yarrellii) and the Scottish crossbill (Loxia scotica), is one of Britain's endemic birds. The species Lagopus lagopus, known outside of Britain and Ireland as the willow ptarmigan, is widespread across northern Eurasia and North America, where it has two plumages: reddish-grey in summer, and pure white in winter. The red grouse, however, is always russet.



Male red grouse in Highland Wildlife Park, Invernessshire, Scotland
June 2005

I know, the above picture isn't fantastic, but it's the only one I have of a red grouse. The individual was making its distinctive 'go-back! go-back!' call, which is more funny to hear than I had imagined.

It is currently hunting season in Britain, which started on the 12th of August, known to gamekeepers and shooters as 'Glorious Twelfth'. Not so glorious for the poor birds, eh?

Reference:

Ericson, P.G.P., A-L. Jansen, U.S. Johannson & J. Ekman (2005). Inter-generic relationships of the crows, jays, magpies and allied groups (Aves: Corvidae) based on nucleotide sequence data. In: Journal of Avian Biology 36:222-34 (link here)