Late last week, over 220 people from all around the world gathered online for TetZooMCon 2021, the year’s Tetrapod Zoology convention, organised and arranged by myself and John Conway….
As per last year, we opted to hold the meeting via zoom. We do hope that we’ll eventually be able to get back to holding physical meetings. Anyway, the event was, once again, a great success and feedback has mostly been very positive. Here’s a review of what happened. Huge thanks to our speakers, presenters, contributors and helpers, as well as to everyone who turned up to listen in or participate.
TetZooMCon 2021 kicked off with a brief intro from John and a brief review of previous meetings given by myself. By popular demand I also showed a poorly made video which showcased part of my collection of animal figures and models, Neil Cicierega playing in the background. My plan for 2021 was to play a short movie about events and about Tet Zoo Towers in general but I wasn’t able to get it together in time.
Caption: a slide from my intro presentation, this one discussing the history of Tetrapod Zoology the blog. For those of you that don’t know, TetZoo has gone through four different iterations.
As usual, among our number were a good amount of very skilled artists and designers who shared sketches and illustrations throughout the meeting. Huge thanks to everyone who did so (many of these works were shared on Twitter and can be viewed at #TetZooMCon). I was, once again, thrilled in particular by Mark Simmons’s panels. These function as excellent summaries of everything that happened and are featured below. Thank you, Mark!
Caption: TetZooMCon 2021 certainly wasn’t dinosaur-focused but we did feature quite a few dinosaur-themed talks and events. My soon-to-be-published Dinopedia was mentioned a few times, and of course Duane Nash’s 2021 Dinosaur Enlightenment was the topic of specific discussion.
Intro out of the way, we moved to our first block of talks. First up was Kannan Raja, based in Singapore, whose talk was titled Your Car-ma Ran Over My Frogma (A Citizen Science Initiative Targeted at Collecting Data from Wildlife-Vehicular Collisions Involving Herpetofauna in Singapore). Kannan discussed numerous specific cases of WVCs (wildlife-vehicle collisions) and efforts to mitigate them. Singapore is a small country with a massive number of roads (many WVCs happen on bike and walking paths too) and he showed how monitoring and collecting data from WVCs involving herpetofauna can provide new data on population trends, distribution, behaviour and more.
Caption: cover slide for Kannan Raja’s excellent talk on wildlife-vehicular collisions in Singapore.
‘Cronch Cat’ and the The Beasts of Gévaudan. Next up was well-known author, science-writer and blogger Riley Black on The Cronch "Cat" - Reconstructing the Diet and Ecology of Patriofelis. For many people, this talk was the highlight of the event. Patriofelis is a North American predatory mammal from the Eocene, conventionally regarded as an oxyaenid creodont and mostly imagined as having had a vaguely cat-like, predatory ecology (though an otter-like lifestyle has been considered at times). The big surprise is that Patriofelis has truly incredible and enormous upper canine teeth which reveal a phenomenal amount of wear. What does this mean for the lifestyle and ecology of this animal? Riley explained that turtles are super-abundant in the environments where Patriofelis lived, so… was it a turtle-chomper? Investigation is continuing. Riley’s talk and data inspired various sketches and cartoons that were shared during the meeting.
Caption: mounted skeleton of Patriofelis ferox (one of two species: the other is P. ultra) at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. A robust, powerfully muscled animal with a remarkably stocky skull and giant, stout canines. Image: Gally242, CC BY-SA 3.0 (original here).
Predatory mammals of an entirely different sort were discussed next as we were joined by François-Louis Pelissier who discussed The Beasts of Gévaudan: Unknown Man Eaters? I hope that most readers of this blog are familiar with the so-called Beast of Gévaudan, an 18th century predator – conventionally imagined as a singular beast – that killed tens of people across the French countryside between about 1764 and 1767. A list of contenders has been offered, including escaped lions and hyenas, a new species of giant mustelid, a roving human murderer, and feral dogs. Based on the described appearance of the animal and specific details of behaviour and what we can infer about historical distribution, François argued that beast encounters could most likely be blamed on the Italian wolf Canis lupus italicus.
Caption: as discussed by François-Louis Pelissier, the Beast of Gévaudan has been the topic of numerous popular films, books and stories. This is a slide from François’s talk.
Naish vs Nash. After the break, it was time for the big event: an all-out battle royale, total slugfest, no holds barred, fists-a-blazing punchfest between myself – I’m Darren Naish – and Duane Nash. Believe it or not, some people have confused us in the past but here’s proof that we’re different.
Caption: I’m still not sure who generated this epic image, but… whoever you are, your work will stand for the ages.
Many readers of this blog will know of Duane because of his often controversial (and no longer active) blog Antediluvian Salad but also for his new book Dinosaur Enlightenment (Nash 2021). Duane and I figured that it was time to thrash things out in a public debate. I’m totally kidding about it being a battle or punchfest: we totally get on, and it was brilliant fun. In an opening presentation, Duane discussed the impact of Greg Paul’s Predatory Dinosaurs of the World on his own interest, on ‘bounded speculation’, the rototiller interpretation of ankylosaurs and so on, his ideas on dinosaurian citadels, theropod cartels, dinosaurs in water and more (see Nash 2021 for elaboration). We then moved on to a discussion and covered ideas on scientific blogging and the nature of open science in general, bone-sawing behaviour in allosauroids and what’s happening next (the answer: a book on plesiosaurs!). We also took a few questions from the floor. It was a highly effective event and I’m definitely interested in doing things like this again.
Caption: panels by Mark Simmons (website at Ultimate Mark; @Toysdream on Twitter). Thank you, Mark!
Of the dinosauroid and Panciroli’s Beasts Before Us. We then moved on to our last few talks, these being Elsa Panciroli’s ‘Beasts Before Us: Mammal Origins and Telling Untold Stories and my own Art, Anatomy, and the Stars: Russell and Seguin’s Dinosauroid. Elsa’s talk covered the message promoted in her brand-new book Beasts Before Us (Panciroli 2021): that the story of Mesozoic mammals and their ancestors is still mostly unknown to the public and that we need to better appreciate these animals as survivors, innovators and furry little ninjas, and not just keep imagining them as conveniently-packaged dino-snacks. TetZooMCon attendees had access to a special discount on Beasts Before Us; I presume many of them took advantage!
Caption: promotion for Elsa Panciroli’s excellent 2021 book Beasts Before Us.
My own talk will feel familiar if you’re a regular reader since it’s the exact same story I covered here just a few days ago, albeit told with more detail and more illustrations. As I said recently, I really don’t think that the dinosauroid was Dale Russell’s attempt to make extrapolations about troodontid theropod evolution. It was instead his (extremely successful) effort to get people talking about the evolution of humanoids, whether they be aliens or Earth creatures of alternative timelines or non-mammalian heritage (Naish & Tattersdill 2021). I also argued (perhaps controversially but certainly speculatively) that there might have been religious motivations for this view.
My talk inspired a good number of highly offensive cartoons and other images, these variously showing me beating the dinosauroid in a fight (hey, it was a question from the floor and I gave an honest answer), the crucifixion of a dinosauroid Jesus and much else.
Caption: dinosauroid-themed art produced by select attendees. Respectively, Chris Degl and Armin Reindl.
That was an end to the talks – what fun – and two things happened next. A whole bunch of people disappeared for the palaeoart workshop, the sessions being led by Raven Amos, Rebecca Gelernter, Joschua Knüppe, C. M. Kösemen, David Krentz, Luis Rey, Jed Taylor, Gabriel Ugueto, Steve White and Mark Witton. I had no involvement in the workshop but am told it went well… even if a few of our presenters were unable to turn up on time. We partially rectified this by holding a few extra sessions of the workshop later on in the evening.
Meanwhile, a larger number of us loosely assembled for an informal chat. Whiiiich soon dissolved into total chaos due to chronic mismanagement at my end. I did a few readings from my new book Dinopedia (due out late September or October 2021) and a ton of other stuff was discussed. I recall in particular dinosaur extinction, Komodo dragons, The Land Before Time and Don Bluth’s portrayal of pterosaurs, and spinosaurid taxonomy (yay). It eventually transitioned into our afterparty… I ducked out at 6.30am or something and I think the whole thing was done by 11am.
A highlight of the afterparty was Steve White’s announcement of Mesozoic Art: Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals in Art, an in-production volume, edited by Steve and myself, due for publication late next year. Designed with a similar look to Steve’s previous Dinosaur Art books, it showcases the work of various up-and-coming new palaeoartists, noted for their style and innovation. More news on this project in a while.
Caption: big news at TetZooMCon 2021 — the announcement of Mesozoic Art. The cover art is by Mark Witton, one of many artists whose work appears in the book.
And that was that. As per last year, I feel that TetZooMCon 2021 was a success overall and I was very much impressed with the quality of our talks and discussion events. Substantial thanks once more to our speakers and presenters, and thanks to literally everyone who attended or took part. TetZooMCon 2021 felt like a global event, our attendees being overwhelmingly European and North American but with eastern Asia and Australasia having fair representation too. The art, in-jokes and images produced during the meeting made it highly entertaining, and it was great to catch up once more with so many friends old and new. We aim to hold a similar event in 2022, but for now I can rest once more….
For previous articles on TetZooMCon and TetZooCon, see…
The events of TetZooCon 2014, July 2014
TetZooCon 2015 Is On, July 2015
The Events of TetZooCon 2015, November 2015
Coming Soon: TetZooCon 2016, September 2016
The Day After TetZooCon, October 2016
The Fourth TetZooCon, September 2017
The TetZooCon of 2017, October 2017
Reasons to Attend TetZooCon 2018, September 2018
TetZooCon 2018: Best TetZooCon So Far, October 2018
Announcing TetZooCon 2019 – the Biggest Yet, August 2019
Final Call For TetZooCon 2019, October 2019
The Sixth TetZooCon, October 2019
TetZooCon 2020 + Zoom = TETZOOMCON 2020, December 2020
TetZooMCon 2020 an Unbridled Success, December 2020
Refs - -
Naish, D. & Tattersdill, W. 2021. Art, anatomy and the stars: Russell and Séguin’s dinosauroid. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2020-0172
