The Tetrapod Zoology Blog

One of my favorite blogs on the Internet is the Tetrapod Zoology blog. Tetrapod Zoology (also known as 'Tet Zoo') is an excellent zoological blog. It belongs to Dr. Darren Naish, a British paleontologist who has done extensive research on theropod dinosaurs and Mesozoic marine reptiles. Naish also used to be involved in cryptozoology, but has since become less supportive.

Tet Zoo has had three different versions over the years.

The first version of Tet Zoo was hosted on Blogspot (like this blog), and was created in January 2006. The first-ever article on the blog was about eagles attacking and killing much larger prey, and was titled "When Eagles Go Bad".

The second version of Tet Zoo was launched in January 2007, and displaced the first version. It was hosted on ScienceBlogs.

The third version of Tet Zoo was launched in July 2011, and it displaced the second version. It is hosted on the Scientific American blog network, and it is currently active.

One of the main reasons why I love Tet Zoo so much is because the blog is unashamed to deviate from the prevailing scientific orthodoxy. For example, at the time when the "When Eagles Go Bad" article was written, the idea of eagles killing much larger animals was widely considered to be a "fringe" topic by the scientific community. However, Naish successfully showed that eagles have been documented killing animals such as deer, pronghorn antelope, wolves, and even 100-kilogram juvenile cows.

Likewise, Naish also wrote an article about the origins of the Domestic Dog, Canis familiaris. The most commonly-accepted hypothesis within the scientific community is that the Domestic Dog is a direct descendant of the Grey Wolf, Canis lupus. Some authors have even gone so far as to reclassify the Domestic Dog as a subspecies of the Grey Wolf, Canis lupus familiaris, rather than as a distinct species. In his article, Naish presented an alternative hypothesis that the Domestic Dog is not actually descended from the Grey Wolf, but is instead descended from a wild Canis familiaris. I found this alternative hypothesis to be a very interesting and refreshing take on the story of dog origins.

In conclusion, Tet Zoo is a wonderful blog, and I really hope everyone here can enjoy it.

Here are the links to all the versions:

Version 1: http://www.darrennaish.blogspot.com/

Version 2: http://www.scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/

Version 3: http://www.blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology