Oct 22

Oct 22 TetZooCon 2019

Palaeoart at TetZooCon 2019 | Photo credit: Talita Bateman - Art credit: Paul Glynn

I cannot think of many events to which I look forward as much as TetZooCon every year, and I am glad to report that this year’s event did not disappoint. Once again, Darren Naish and John Conway managed to put together an incredible panel of talks and palaeoartists for all of us Tetrapod Zoology fanatics to enjoy. Prepare yourselves, my friends, because this post will be a VERY long one!

To recap, TetZooCon is an annual event based on themes explored by Darren Naish in his famous Tetrapod Zoology Blog. Similarly to last year, the event was held at UCL in London and took place on the 19th and 20th October. TetZooCon, as expected, had a great selection of themes, including the much-anticipated discussion panels or roundtable discussions and book signings. We were also treated to some amazing art and way too much temptation from all the stalls selling palaeo related goodies. Those interested in palaeoart had the opportunity to sign up for the Palaeoart Workshop, which featured a friendly little competition at the end as well.

For those of us whose main area of interest is herpetology, we were treated to a great talk by the lovely Alice Pawlik but more on that further down the post - for now, let’s dive into each of the talks in chronological order.

Ellen Coombs

A Study of UK and Irish cetacean stranding records and an insight into their diversity over the past 100 years

Whale strandings have certainly been prominent in the news in recent years but they don’t give us an insight into what the data on strandings mean. Luckily for us, Ellen Coombs kicked things off with an incredibly informative talk on stranding records for the past 100 years across the UK and Irland for different whale species. As we know, odontocetes are much more numerous than mysticetes and stranding records seem to reflect that; however, stranding records on Blue Whales, for instance, are very low. Sadly, according to Ellen, this is likely due to overhunting (by humans, obviously) more than anything else.

Hearing about her research was really interesting - from looking for historical occurrences that could affect spikes on stranding reports as well as nutrients present in the water and migration routes, to the effects that geomagnetic activity can have on whales - I think I could happily hear Ellen talk about her research for hours on end.

Ellen dubbed the end part of her talk as the ‘cool stuff’ and cool it certainly was! She and her team carried out an isotope test from the baleen plates of the Blue Whale skeleton hanging from the Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum in London. The results gave us an amazing insight into the specimen’s trajectory throughout its life. If you’d like to know more about Ellen Coombs and her work, check out some of her published papers and follow her on twitter @ellencoombs.

Jack Ashby

Natural History Museum’s collections and biases

I love visiting natural history museums and it’s something I make a point of doing whenever I travel. Therefore, having an insight into how they work and choose their collections from someone who manages one of my favourite museums, the University Museum of Zoology (Cambridge), was more than I could ever expect!

I bought and read Jack’s book ‘Animal Kingdom: A Natural History in 100 Objects’ a while ago and had been meaning to post a review for some time. However, when Darren announced that Jack would be one of the speakers at TetZooCon, I decided to wait for his talk and get my copy signed. Stupidly, I forgot my copy of his book on Saturday (when his talk took place) so I had to hunt him down on Sunday and beg him to sign it for me, which he very kindly did!

Now to the actual talk - it was pretty awesome! Despite managing a natural history museum himself, Jack didn’t shy away from adding some real critique on how they operate - in fact, his talk was a very well balanced analysis of their value and responsibilities.

In short, I think we all learned a lot about walrusses, convergent evolution, the role of patriarchy in historical taxidermy and how museums need to take the public’s feelings and biases towards certain animals into account when preparing their displays. I’ll definitely dedicate a more detailed post to the latter point. If you’d like to know more about Jack’s work, follow him on twitter @JackDAshby and definitely read his book!

TetZooCon 2019 Palaeo Rountable Discussion - Left to Right: Chris Barker, Jordan Bestwick, Dave Hone, Rebecca Lakin and Darren Naish | Credit: Talita Bateman

Dinosaur (and Pterosaur) Palaeobiology Roundtable Discussion

with Darrain Naish, Rebecca Lakin, David Hone, Jordan Bestwick and Chris Barker

If there’s one thing I took away from this is the importance of going where the evidence takes you and not making inferences that cannot be supported by said evidence. In fact, the Ford vs Naish smackdown last year was a great example of this! The highlights of the discussions for me were:

Rebecca Lakin stating “Sexual selection is to palaeontology what religion is to archaeology”;
Discussion on pterosaurs and the cautioning on lack of data and pigeon-holing traits or ideas; and
Chris Barker teasing Darren about Ford.

Dr Mike Dickison

What is a native bird? “Indigenous is a Continuum”

All the way from New Zealand, Mike Dickison, talked about the avian fossil history of New Zealand and the meaning of ‘native’ in their wildlife conservation laws, especially in birds. He discussed how the terms ‘native’ or ‘invasive’ are sometimes linked to public sentiment. His example on how New Zealanders react differently to the news of a cat catching a Tui vs a cat catching a European Blackbird speaks volume. It all becomes particularly interesting for a place like New Zealand since human inhabitation is a fairly recent event in history when compared to other areas of the globe. When it comes to ‘native’ birds, a lack of fossils doesn’t mean those species weren’t there, it may just mean that records haven’t been found.

However, more than the great lesson in conservation, we also got a lesson in ethics. His talk very much spoke to his goal of increasing gender balance in Wikipedia as well as increasing Maori exposure and representation. I appreciated Mike’s constant references to Maori culture and names for the islands’ fauna. In fact, I greatly appreciated his mention of ‘Pakeha’, or white people, as immigrants to the land and not as ‘explorers’ as many authors do.

If you’d like to know more about Dr Mike Dickison’s work, visit his website or follow him on twitter @adzebill.

Alice Pawlik

Adventures in native amphibian conservation

Last year, herpetology was represented at TetZooCon by Steve Allain, who presented his PhD work in snake fungal disease. This year, Alice Pawlik talked us through amphibian conservation in the UK and her work on Pool Frogs with the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation UK (ARC UK). I must say, despite appreciating the difficulties involved with such a project, I was very jealous! Amazing work, Alice! She also talked about her upcoming PhD work, which aims to determine if antimicrobial pollutants play a role in altering amphibian ranavirus susceptibility in the common frog by modifying skin microbiome structure.

Considering that 40% of amphibians species are in decline, Alice’s work, and that of others in the area are of extreme importance. During many of the other talks that touched on conservation and funding issues, one thing became very clear - the public’s perception of certain animals affect their conservation efforts. For instance, in his talk, Jack Ashby talked about the bias that museums have towards mammal displays, purely because the general population enjoy seeing furry animals. Paul Stewart, who was part of the roundtable discussion on natural history film-making (more on that later) and the man behind the famous racer snake vs baby marine iguana scene, talked of his dilemma on whether to include the scene or not since so many people have a phobia of snakes.

The same issue presented itself again during Amy Schwartz’s talk on roadkill records in the UK (more on that later). While answering a question during the Q&A session, Amy confirmed that they very rarely received any reports on reptiles, even on big reptiles such as snakes; and it’s fair to assume that public sentiment certainly plays a part - people simply don’t think about the status of certain animals.

Therefore, if you’d like to help, get involved with organisations like ARC UK, Froglife, SAVE THE FROGS!, etc. Also, definitely check out Alice’s work and follow her on twitter @alicepawlik.

Amber Eames

Flight of the Swans

Amber was the first speaker on the ‘natural history film-making’ topic. Her documentary for the WWT, Flight of the Swans, focuses on the conservation of Bewick’s Swans. According to Amber, new technology allowed them to track and follow the birds’ migration from summer in Russia to winter in the UK.

The whole expedition took 3 months and highlighted the importance of wetlands along the migratory pathway to the birds’ survival. It also highlighted the many difficulties and obstacles that the birds face, such as power lines and illegal shootings. The WWT has started a wetlands project, aiming to increase the sharing of data between scientists from different countries along the birds’ flight trajectory.

Amber shared an interesting fact about Bewick’s Swans that helped her and her team identify individual birds throughout the journey - the shape of the yellow part of their beak is like a human fingerprint, or the markings on top of an adder’s head - unique to each bird.

If you’d like to know more about Amber and her project, visit their website and follow her on twitter @AmberEames.

Natural History Film-Making Roundtable Discussion

with Darren Naish, Amber Eames, Zoe Cousins, Nick Lyon and Paul Stewart.

So I was slightly fangirling during this talk - Paul Stewart was involved with the filming of one of my favourite documentaries, Life in Cold-Blood - wasn’t expecting that huh?! This discussion once again was great, I think it certainly highlighted the same funding issues that we have in conservation efforts for certain animals - public perception, etc. Highlights were:

Paul Stewart talking about how the racer snake vs baby iguana scene came to light and telling us about his scary encounters with an unusually brave pack of lions;
Nick Lyon on his connection to his star jumping spider and the wild dogs while filming. Also, the difficulties involved with filming anthropological focused documentaries and the great Jedi Chipmunk video;
Zoe Cousins talking about her documentary on pigeons, which really resonated with me because of a post I wrote a while ago, and their value to society throughout history as food source or saviours as carrier pigeons during WW1.
The discussion on gender and diversity balance issues within the natural history film-making industry

Chris Barker

Disease, injury and the ecology of theropod dinosaurs

Chris’ talk was very new to me - Palaeopathology is not an area I’m very familiar with at all, which is perhaps the reason I found it so fascinating. His talk on illness and the ‘ecology of fear’, which as I understand is a bit of a controversial term, was really enlightening. In particular, I enjoyed hearing about the differences in physiological responses to stress stimulus (especially chronic stimulus) in wild vs captive-bred individuals.

The possibility of supporting behavioural inferences with this data is pretty exciting. I definitely got a lesson in pathology in general and its application and advantages to Paleontology. Chris concluded his talk by highlighting that more data is definitely needed in field studies with wild animals to try and establish more consistent patterns, since biomedical literature may not reflect an accurate view of wild individuals.

If you would like to know more about Chris Barker’s work, follow him on twitter @palaeoguy12.

Rebecca Lakin

Parental care evolution in dinosaurs and birds

Rebecca’s talk focused on her research in trying to identify the costs and benefits of different forms of parental style within archosaurs, including modern archosaurs such as birds and crocodilians. In her talk, she explored the different levels of parental care provided by different species, from nest building in sea turtles to direct feeding, personal grooming and social bonds with adult offsprings in birds such as robins and other garden birds.

When discussing costs and benefits to male and female parents, she explored themes such as sexual dimorphism in polygynous and monogamous species and mapped their relation to the level of parental care provided. When discussing the origins of parental care, we were treated to a lovely image of the fossil of the oviraptor dubbed ‘Big Mama’ who seemed to have been brooding its eggs. Big Mama was initially assumed to be a female, however, doubt has been cast on that since a medullary bone wasn’t present in the specimen.

Overall, Rebecca’s presentation was true pleasure to watch and I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future! If you’d like to know more about her work, go follow her on twitter @rj_lakin.

Dr Dave Hone at TetZooCon 2019 | Credit: Talita Bateman

Dr David Hone

Defining dinosaurs: problems with terminology

Dave’s talk, despite addressing palaeontology in its title, could be applied to almost every scientific discipline. The need for using accurate terminology doesn’t only affect academic papers, it filters through to science communication and what the media presents to the general public.

From issues in the definitions of life stages in palaeontology to the different stages at which species reach maturity, to ecological terms such as ‘semi-aquatic’ and ‘piscivore’ and the use of predation terms when discussing scavenging, he pretty much schooled us all - and we need it! His example of the dynamics in cheetas clearly illustrated the incorrect way and context in which we use the word ‘family’. In fact, during the Q&A, he explained how when it comes to palaeontology and extinct species, he wouldn’t use the term at all since we simply do not have reliable enough data to be able to infer that ‘groups’ were a related family.

After his talk, I was able to buy a copy of his book ‘The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs’ and have it signed, so I’m a pretty happy girl right now!

If you’d like to know more about David’s work, visit his website or follow him on twitter @Dave_Hone.

Jordan Bestwick at TetZooCon 2019 | Credit: Talita Bateman

Jordan Bestwick, the ‘palaeodentist’

Reconstructing the diets of pterosaurs using dental microwear textural analysis

Jordan talked us through the issues with different methods that have been used to reconstruct the diets of pterosaurs so far, such as comparative anatomy, content fossil and functional morphology - all of which he very kindly explained!

He then talked us through his PhD work in using dental microwear textural analysis of living reptiles, and even bats, to map out the ‘hardness’ of different foods consumed by these animals and compare them to the ones present in different pterosaur specimens. To complete his work, he visited lots of different museums to create moulds of specimens’ teeth, gaining his friendly nickname of ‘palaeodentist’.

The results of his study determined that the dietary diversity in pterosaurs was high and that they originated as invertebrate consumers and later evolved into carnivores and piscivores. He also provided us with a slide that, although out of context here, can be used in so many different scenarios - I mean…Humans, WTF?

If you’d like to know more about Jordan’s work, follow him on twitter @JordanBestwick1.

Amy Schwartz at TetZooCon 2019 | Credit: Talita Bateman

Amy Schwarts

Project Splatter and using citizen scientists to monitor wildlife roadkill

I mentioned Amy’s talk before during my overview of Alice Pawlik’s presentation but it’s worth reiterating Project Splatter’s impact on conservation efforts and what the records, or lack of records, represent for different species.

Project Splatter (Socia Media Platform for Estimating Roadkill) is a UK based project that collects and assesses roadkill data from across the UK by using reports provided by the general public. There are many ways for the public to report roadkill, including social media, a form on their website and even a mobile phone app. Since 2013, they have received more than 67,000 records and the vast majority of those are for decent-sized mammals and birds.

If you too live in the countryside, you won’t be surprised to hear that in birds, 59% of the reports relate to pheasants. However, Amy explained that a further study showed that wild bred pheasants are much less likely to get hit by cars than those bred for shooting. Part of the reason for the discrepancy is the level of parental care provided by wild pheasants.

Another interesting result from the project is how it highlighted the value of animals that humans many times regard as ‘pests’ such as foxes, gulls and corvids. These animals are proving a great service to the ecosystem by helping with the removal of carcasses. It’s a pity how humanity regards other species that have adapted as well to urban life as we have.

Despite all the data, Amy mentioned that we could be underestimating the amount pf small vertebrates by up to 6 times due to a combination of the work of scavenger animals and the public’s lack of inclination to report smaller animals. Additionally, reptiles and amphibians are certainly underreported, which - in my opinion - sadly reflects how the general public regards these animals.

If you’d like to know more about Project Splatter, visit their website and certainly follow Amy on twitter @lizardschwartz, I mean…she’s a certified bat carer!

Dr Lauren McGough

Eagle predation and falconry in Eurasia, Africa and North America

Lauren’s talk was very refreshing, I mean, how many times to you get to listen to someone talk about eagle falconry in Mongolia? Let alone during the winter! Lauren’s photograph of her frozen face and her tales of the eagles refusing to hunt because it was too cold had me feeling cold. I must admit that I knew very little of falconry, to begin with, however, it was great to learn about ‘make-eagle’ techniques used by Mongolian eagle falconers, where trained eagles are used to essentially ‘teach’ new eagles the ropes.

Lauren also discussed the long historical link between eagles and humans and shows us some incredibly cute photographs of how integrated eagles are within the Mongolian community where she was staying.

During the Q&A she was asked if there was a specific reason for the Mongolians to use female eagles rather than male ones. She clarified that the reasons are perhaps more closely linked to a cultural basis than a scientific one. Female eagles are bigger than males and one’s eagle’s size could be perhaps linked to status within the community. She considered the fact that a bigger eagle would theoretically be able to target bigger prey, however, she believes there’s no factual basis for this claim, with male eagles being just as capable.

If you’d like to know more about Lauren’s work, go follow her on twitter @eaglefalconer.

Dr Ross Barnett

The past and future of Britain’s lost mammals

Well, it’s fair to say that I was very excited about this talk. I left to buy this book during TetZooCon since it meant I could have it signed at the same time. However, unluckily for me, talks were running late and since I had to leave just before the quiz started, I didn’t manage to buy the book. A bit dejected, I decided to pop into Waterstones on my way to the train station and quickly grab a copy of ‘The Missing Lynx’. I felt rather lucky when I noticed that there was only one copy left. However, to my utter astonishment, Dr Barnett had stopped by that branch and signed the copy of the booked I picked up - I went from feeling rather lucky to super lucky!

Tales of my luck aside, the talk itself was very cool. From hyenas, to cave bears, to beavers and, of course, the lynx, we all learned a lot. I thoroughly appreciated Ross’s overview on conservation methods such as reintroduction attempts, rewilding examples, resurrection possibilities and finally, the only R we are left with - remembrance.

I am really looking forward to reading his book ‘The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain’s Lost Mammals’ and pretty much any other books he publishes in the future! If you’d like to know more about Ross Barnett’s work, follow him on twitter @DeepFriedDNA.

Tim Haines

On Walking with Dinosaurs and 20 years of popular digital palaeontology

The last talk of the day was something very different from the others and one to which a lot of people seemed to have been looking forward if all the cheering was anything to go by!

Tim discussed the palaeo digital industry and the obstacles with producing high-quality immersive content. When talking about the success of Walking with Dinosaurs, he quoted his timing as being particularly lucky and talked of his goal of getting the general public to think about dinosaurs as animals and not as monsters with teeth.

He also talked about the importance of creating an emotional connection between the audience and the individuals on film, in wildlife and palaeo documentaries, in order to be able to tell an engaging and meaningful story.

To wrap it up (finally!!!) after writing more than 3,500 words, TetZooCon this year was amazing and definitely worth every penny. Hopefully, we will have many more in the years to come!