The 17th Year of Tetrapod Zoology: 2022 in Review

I knew that 2022 would be a busy year, but… my god.

Caption: images from Portsmouth Comic Con 2022, and the coast of Oregon, respectively. Images: Darren Naish.

Tetrapod Zoology the blog is now 17 years old (the blog’s birthday, or blogoversary if you must, is on January 21st, and the blog started operation in 2006). Meaning that – once more – it’s time to look back at the year that’s passed from my highly biased, personal, TetZooniverse-focused perspective. 2022 was a year that involved a reasonable amount of travel, the publication of some significant studies with long backstories, attendance at various exciting events, and a respectable amount of animal-watching.

As ever, stop reading now if you’re not keen on the prospect of hearing me talking about my own adventures ad nauseum, since that’s all I’ll be doing in this article.

Captions: a fair number of new animal figures entered my collection in 2022. Those shown here include some of the Prehistoric Planet figures made by Marco Makes, some Beasts of the Mesozoic ceratopsians, and an assortment of CollectA prehistoric animals (released 2021). Images: Darren Naish.

Our story begins in late January with the celebration of Tetrapod Zoology’s 16th birthday, though I didn’t actually get to publish the article on said celebration until late February. Most of my plans for the first half of the year revolved around the release of the Apple TV+ series Prehistoric Planet. I haven’t written much about Prehistoric Planet here at Tet Zoo – I can’t – but if you go back to my review of 2022 knowing that Prehistoric Planet was in production at the time, various cryptic statements therein make sense.

Caption: I had quite a few chances during 2022 to wander around the Natural History Museum, London, both before and after hours. At left we see the marine reptile display; at right, Hope the Blue whale in Hintze Hall. Images: Darren Naish.

On that note, I stayed in London across late January and early February as we did the final bits of filming. This meant being in the Natural History Museum both before and after closing – what a privilege – as well as hanging out with David Attenborough; it’s not a coincidence that he now owns a copy (actually, several) of All Yesterdays.

TetZoo articles of January and February included those on my reminiscences of the putting together of the 2001 Dorling Kindersley Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life, and on leaf warblers. I went to Marwell – my local zoo – to look at penguins, lemurs and okapis.

Caption: at left, a somewhat unusual photo of a Black-and-white ruffed lemur Varecia variegata at Marwell. At right, one of Marwell’s several Okapi Okapia johnstoni. Images: Darren Naish.

The Hum Hole pond renovation. I’ve mentioned here, on and off over the years, how I’ve assisted local conservation and habitat improvement efforts. One of these concerns the plan to renovate and restore the tiered pond system – part of so-called Hum Hole – close to where I live in Southampton. The ponds are no longer ponds but have become entirely silt-filled and are now entering their willow-dominated marsh phase. Succession of this sort is normal, but we want them to be maintained as ponds seeing as their loss means that various pond-using animals (most notably Palmate newts Lissotriton helveticus) no longer have useable breeding sites in the area.

Caption: habitat creation has led to a year-on-year increase in the number of Common frogs Rana temporaria that spawn in the ponds here during February. For 2021, I observed 13 adult frogs engaged in spawning. For 2022, there were 25 frogs. Image: Darren Naish.

Efforts to get habitat restoration projects off the ground are always slow-moving since they involve coordination between local authorities and volunteer groups, and events didn’t get underway until late February. So far, we’ve cleared a lot of the willow and scrub that surrounds the ponds, the next phase being to excavate the substantial amount of silt and dump it where the scrub was. It’s a big project and will take years.

Caption: it might be hard to believe, but the image at left shows a pond. A team of volunteers and council workers began renovating the site in early 2022. Images: Darren Naish.

Loch Ness. I travelled to Loch Ness (again) in late February, again for a Loch Ness monster documentary, one of two I helped with during the year. At the time of writing (November 2022), neither have been screened but I look forward to the time when they are. I can say from extensive experience that TV documentaries often seem impressive and potentially impactful when you’re working on them, only to be unimpressive and wholly forgettable when broadcast. Right now, the projects seem noteworthy. One of them is a two or three-part series that looks more focused on the history of the search for the Loch Ness Monster than any previously broadcast series, and I look forward to seeing it out.

Caption: one of two trips to Loch Ness I made during 2022. We weren’t close to the loch during the filming of this one, but high up on a hillside. It’s important to remember that the Loch Ness area is bleak and mostly stripped of its original flora; it’s the very opposite of a pristine, attractive landscape. Images: Darren Naish.

For those unfamiliar with my writings on monsters: no, I don’t ‘believe’ in the Loch Ness Monster (nor indeed in any of the famous cryptids), but I am interested in the history of research on it, whether that research involves ‘believers’ or ‘critics’, on those who approach the monster as a sociocultural phenomenon, and on those who approach the monster as a real and undiscovered animal (Naish 2017, 2022).

Caption: argh, Loch Ness Monster souvenirs — my one weakness! And Highland cow figures, I guess. Image: Darren Naish.

My ‘spare’ time during this part of the year involved my (ultimately successful) writing of the text for Mesozoic Art (on which more later) and Ancient Sea Reptiles (more on that later too). It isn’t that I want there to be multiple projects running concurrently, it’s that there are only ever certain windows in which these things can be done.

Caption: at far left, Chessel Bay Nature Reserve during 2022. The discarded fridge is an especially nice touch. At right, litter-picking in Sholing Valley, Southampton. Images: Darren Naish.

I assisted in a local beach clean at the end of March and I was meant to be speaking (about dinosaurs, with a connection to my 2021 book Dinopedia) at the Oxford Literary Festival at about the same time. Illness meant that I had to cancel. I took multiple covid tests and all were negative, but my doctor said that it was likely covid anyway and I believe her. I also had to turn down involvement in a new dinosaur-themed TV series – ultimately broadcast on the UK’s Channel 5 late in 2022 as Dinosaur – since the filming schedule clashed with other events and I can’t do everything.

Caption: blurry but still acceptable photo of Crocodile monitor at Marwell Wildlife. On some visits, this animal can be seen resting or hiding on a ledge (itself part of the replica cliff-face in its enclosure). But on others, it swims, it walks, and basically moves around a lot. I like all monitors, but V. salvadorii is one of my favourites. Image: Darren Naish.

An April trip to Marwell resulted in observation of Banteng Bos javanicus, Crocodile monitor Varanus salvadorii and more, and also the latest of their Lego prehistoric animals. These were surprisingly novel in terms of the animals chosen, their number including such stem-mammals as Estemmenosuchus and gorgonopsians of some sort, the hadrosaur Olorotitan, and a Styracosaurus with a Beasts of the Mesozoic colour scheme.

Caption: well, there’s something you don’t see everyday. A Lego Estemmenosuchus at Marwell Wildlife in April 2022. I took photos of all the other constructions too. Images: Darren Naish.

I published a revised version of an old cassowary-themed article at TetZoo.

Tring. Also during April, I visited the Natural History Museum at Tring (formerly the Walter Rothschild Museum) to meet up with Todd Green – the cassowary kid himself, you know – to discuss cassowary-themed plans. Tring is an absolute mecca if you’re a zoology or museum nerd: it houses an important collection (of birds in particular), has a huge number of interesting and significant specimens on display, and is one of those museums that’s effectively a ‘museum of a museum’. They’ve deliberately kept things largely as they were during the mid-1900s.

Caption: Tring is well known for its bird collection, but it has a ton of other things too, including a few marine mammals on show. The model here depicts Sowerby’s beaked whale Mesoplodon bidens (its skeleton is in the background); the skeleton below is that of a Southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina. Images: Darren Naish.

I’ve had reason to mention Tring several times at Tetrapod Zoology but haven’t ever written about the museum itself; the closest I’ve come to this is when I reviewed Kirk Wallace Johnson’s 2018 book The Feather Thief, since that’s very much a Tring-based story. While in Tring, Todd and I walked the full distance from the train station to the museum – the same trip made on foot by Edwin Rist during his despicable heist of 2009 – and visited the (now partly fortified) side alley and stone wall next to the museum, both of which were used by Rist as well.

Caption: Naish and Green at Tring, with various of the cassowary specimens (and cassowary art) they have on show. The big bird at far right is a Northern or Single-wattled cassowary Casuarius unappendiculatus.

Todd and I met up later in the year at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Toronto and we always end up talking about cassowaries a lot. A lot is happening that’ll be of interest to those who want to know more about these amazing birds, stay tuned.

Prehistoric Planet Premiere Month. May was one of my busiest months. After several years of production – during which it was keep entirely secret – the new Apple TV+/BBC Studios series Prehistoric Planet was released to the world, and what a triumph. The audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and those journalists, media pundits, authors and TV personalities made aware of it were generally enthused and keen to do their bit in promoting and reacting. Together with series producer/showrunner Tim Walker and executive producer Mike Gunton, I did numerous interviews, both in the UK and in Los Angeles.

Caption: a Prehistoric Planet promotion event in Los Angeles, May 2022. From left to right: directors Andy Jones and Adam Valdez, executive producer Mike Gunton, lead scientific consultant Darren Naish, executive producer Jon Favreau, series producer Tim Walker, and musicians Anže Rozman, Kara Talve and Russell Emanuel. The original image is here.

In LA, the three of us – together with Jon Favreau and other people involved in the series – attended screenings at the Santa Monica IMAX, and then various press junkets, press conferences and red carpet events.

Caption: scenes from various of the Prehistoric Park premiere events. At upper left, part of the landscape built for the Los Angeles press event. At lower left, myself and Nigel Marven at the Bristol IMAX event. At right, an audience scene at the BFI IMAX event. Those on stage are (left to right) our host Stephen Armstrong, executor producer Mike Gunton, series producer Tim Walker, and myself.

We then came back to the UK and did the same thing in London (the screening this time being the BFI IMAX), then again at the Bristol IMAX, and then in London again. Episode 1 of Prehistoric Planet was released on Apple TV+ on May 23rd, and I went to one more promotional London event – this time a special meal at the Natural History Museum, held partly to celebrate the return to the NHM of Dippy the Diplodocus – at the end of the month. It was a total whirlwind and phenomenal fun.

Caption: a special evening event at the Natural History Museum. I don’t really hold Mantellisaurus – or any iguanodontian – in disdain, unlike many of my colleagues. Dippy as displayed in its new, Prehistoric Planet sponsored gallery is now illuminated by unusual greenish lighting. Images: Darren Naish.

Also at the end of May, Dave Hone and I met up for a trip to the Battersea Park Children’s Zoo, a small zoo I’ve never visited before. I’ll write up thoughts properly sometime (for my zoo review series), but personal highlights included Chinese crocodile lizard Shinisaurus crocodilurus and Chacoan mara Pediolagus salinicola.

Caption: Chinese crocodile lizard photographed at Battersea Park Children’s Zoo. Some of these animals have a lot of light green and white on them, while others are more reddish. Check out the big keeled scales on the neck and the substantial amount of sclera this individual is showing. Crocodile lizards (sometimes called crocodile-tailed lizards) are viviparous anguimorphs and part of a group that extends back to the Cretaceous. Image: Darren Naish.

We then went to St James’s Park for their impressive bird collection. The park is famous for its pelicans (noted for their occasional grabbing and eating of feral pigeons) but is home to numerous wildfowl, as you can see from the photo here.

Caption: a St James’s Park wildfowl montage, albeit arguably a boring one since all the species shown are highly familiar. The park is also home to numerous exotics, including several Eurasian geese, mergansers and diving and dabbling ducks. Image: Darren Naish.

The White Rock spinosaurid. June saw the release of the first of my technical papers for 2022, this being the PeerJ article on the giant Vectis Formation spinosaurid from the Isle of Wight (Barker et al. 2022). This project was led by Chris Baker and Neil Gostling of the University of Southampton and is the second of our group’s publications on Wealden spinosaurid dinosaurs.

The animal concerned – it’s from a part of the Vectis Formation called the White Rock and is thus informally known as the White Rock spinosaurid – isn’t known from sufficient diagnostic remains to warrant being formally named as a new species, but it was very obviously enormous, and potentially one of the largest theropods known. Predictably enough, journalists went wild for it and stories on this fossil appeared throughout the global press. A TetZoo article on the study is here. Other Wealden spinosaurid studies are in preparation and will appear during 2023.

Caption: the White Rock spinosaurid material isn’t as good as we might like it to be, but it’s certainly good enough to show that (1) it’s a spinosaurid, and (2) it was a huge animal, certainly over 10 m when complete. Our paper on this new (but as yet unnamed) species is open access and here.

Panthera Britannia. I appeared in the Dragonfly Films documentary Panthera Britannia, released in June and devoted to the British big cat phenomenon. Yes, I do believe that wild-living, non-native British felids are a thing, but that’s not why I get used in these TV shows. Instead, it's because I can provide both background information on the subject (pertaining to prehistory and archaeology) and some theoretical content on how non-native cats might survive in the UK. Incidentally, Panthera Britannia has just been released for free online.

I still haven’t published as much on the big cat phenomenon as I’d like to: there’s the Blake et al. (2014) paper on the lynx specimen accessioned at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, but one day I hope to do a book on the subject.

Eotyrannus: theropod of 2022. Several relevant things happened in July. For starters, the Eotyrannus monograph (Naish & Cau 2022) – long in review at PeerJ – saw publication. As should be well known to readers of this blog, this work has been in preparation for years, and finally getting it into print was and is a significant event. My inability to finish it sooner is a consequence of my non-standard relationship with academic publishing. I don’t work in academia and only do research and writing ‘in spare time’, so it takes years to get anything done. Taking months or even years to respond to reviewer comments is generally disastrous, since editors mostly want reviews to be current and timely, and hence will send a submission out for review again if you don’t turn it around quickly. You thus become locked into a cycle: manuscript comes back from review, you take months to get it back to the editorial team, it goes out for review again, you take months to get it back to the editorial team, it goes out for review again. Some editors, it should be said, are very much sympathetic to this. Others are not.

Caption: the Eotyrannus monograph (Naish & Cau 2022) arrives at last. The skeletal reconstruction by Dan Folkes, shown at lower right, appears in the paper. The life reconstruction by Loana Riboli (copyright, used with permission), shown at upper right, was produced to assist in promotion.

Enough complaining. The point is that I got it done, and a TetZoo article on that event is here. I fully intended to put out a press release and all that but, in the end, I couldn’t pull it together in time. I also planned to throw a party – a physical event, in a hired venue and everything – since getting the study published means that much to me, but I couldn’t get this sorted in time, either. The monograph is not the end of work on Eotyrannus. There’s more to do and more papers to come. Eventually.

Also during July, Chris Barker and I visited various of the spinosaur-bearing Wessex Formation locations on the Isle of Wight. Did we find any new material? That would be telling…

Caption: thar be baryonychine spinosaurs in them there rocks… A scene from an Isle of Wight fossil-finding trip of July 2022. Image: Darren Naish.

Goodbye podcats. I realised on July 31st that Tetrapod Zoology ver 4 (the version you’re looking at now) had been going for four years. So I knocked up a quick article summarising the highlights of four years of blogging. Hey, it’s good to provide regular reviews and reminders and whatnot when you’re a blogger, or that’s what they tell you anyway. John Conway and I released episode 83 of the podcast in late July, which had sat in John’s files since late 2021. Obviously, we both struggle to make time to record the podcast, let alone edit and publish it (these days, Sharon Hill does the editing), and episode 83 is the most recent one we’ve recorded. I’ve been telling people that the podcast is dead. That’s not strictly true but I feel it may as well be. It’s just another thing I can’t fit into the schedule anymore.

Caption: part of the interior of Brighton Aquarium, opened to the public in March 1872. In case this image creates the wrong impression, the aquarium isn’t poorly designed or cramped and has a good selection of aquatic animals. Among the tetrapods there are Roti Island snake-necked turtles Chelodina mccordi, a species now kept in quite a few collections. Images: Darren Naish.

TetZoo articles of August included those on spider-frog relationships, Asian elephants, and legendary black dogs. I visited Brighton (and went to Brighton Aquarium, the world’s oldest extant aquarium), went glamping in Buckinghamshire, and paid attention to the newly metamorphosed frogs leaving the pond. My advance copy of Mesozoic Art arrived, and – wow – is it a very fine piece of work if I say so myself.

Caption: glamping and a CollectA Lythronax figure, what could be funner? A photo from August 2022. Image: Darren Naish.

My BBC/Prehistoric Planet credentials meant that I was able to attend an exclusive event in Soho hosted by Hans Zimmer and members of his Bleeding Fingers group. It was about the musical work of these people in general, but Prehistoric Planet got mentioned a couple of times. It was great to again meet musicians Anže Rozman and Kara Talve (we attended the same meetings in Los Angeles during May, but never had the chance to talk there).

Caption: in which I leverage the votes at the 2022 Fortean Film Festival.

September began with my attendance at the second Fortean Film Festival in Gloucester (England), held again at the Sherborne Cinema. This is becoming a new annual meeting for people involved both in paranormal research (whatever we mean by that term) and its portrayal in the media. While I have no real interest or involvement in ‘the paranormal’, I’m certainly interested in knowing what people think about monsters, cryptids and the study of them. We went on a guided ghost tour of Gloucester and I visited the Beatrix Potter Museum. I was interviewed for Fortean News Podcast (the relevant episode is here). This happened in a bar late at night, so I said a bunch of stuff that would have benefitted from greater planning and preparation. But isn’t that always the case.

Caption: Gloucester is good for secondhand books, I’ll say that. Very pleased to get hold of these while in the city for the Fortean Film Festival during September 2022. Image: Darren Naish.

Cryptozoology: in print, on a podcast, in a virtual discussion. I published an article in The Biologist in September. It’s called A Cultural Phenomenon (Naish 2022) and discusses my (by now very familiar) argument (espoused in my 2017 book Hunting Monsters and elsewhere) that many so-called cryptids are products of culture and lore, not new animal species awaiting discovery (Naish 2022: digital version here). Nevertheless, discussions of these alleged creatures are so entwined with writings on zoology and natural history that they are very much part of zoological history, real or not. A slightly controversial claim made in the article is that cryptozoology as currently conceived is creeping away from the zoology-based version of the subject favoured by Bernard Heuvelmans and his associates, and is instead becoming a vague, pseudoscientific topic where people think that bigfoot and Nessie should be discussed alongside demons, floating lights, UFOs and portals to other dimensions. There’s evidence that this is indeed the case within the popular sphere, but the pushback view is that ‘the popular sphere’ doesn’t represent the views and actions of authors and researchers.

Caption: I’m pretty pleased that my article in The Biologist made the cover. The article itself includes images of cryptids provided by Tyler Stone.

Another cryptozoology-themed thing happened soon afterwards in the month when I spoke with Blake Smith and Karen Stollznow for an episode of the Monstertalk podcast. It’s called Bernard’s Beasts and was inspired by my long-running (and still nowhere close to being finished) project on Bernard Heuvelmans’s definitive – and fairly hilarious, sorry Bernie – 1986 list of cryptids. As will be obvious if you’ve listened to it, I did no preparation whatsoever and there are things I should have known but didn’t. Anyway, the relevant episode can be listened to here.

Caption: cover image for the cryptozoology-themed Monster Talk podcast episode I recorded in September 2022.

And another cryptozoology event happened in September too: on the 16th, I took part in an online roundtable event on the subject, itself part of the Animals in the American Popular Imagination conference hosted by anthrozoologist Margo Demello of Carroll College in Montana. The other panel members were Richard Fallon, Samantha Hurn and Greg Morrow. Topics covered included the connection between colonialism and cryptozoology, British big cats, and the notion of cryptids as cultural icons. The discussion was recorded and there are plans to post it to YouTube (maybe this has already happened, I don’t know). There’s also mention of an edited volume resulting from the meeting; we will see.

Caption: a scene from SVPCA 2022; specifically, from Romain Pintore’s talk on theropod femoral evolution. I’m taking this as further evidence that Prehistoric Planet has well and truly embedded itself in popular consciousness. Image: Darren Naish.

SVPCA in London. In late September I was at the Natural History Museum in London again, this time for the 70th Symposium on Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution (SVPCA). I did think about giving a talk (it would have been on the results of the Eotyrannus monograph), but my abstract failed to make it through review. The meeting was good fun and I succeeded in winning at least a few of the things I wanted from the auction, including the poster version of the fabled Brooke Bond Prehistoric Animals card set (art by Maurice Wilson, text by Alan Charig).

Caption: at left, in which I get to hang out with the legend that is Dr Tori Herridge. At right: finally, my own Brooke Bond Picture Cards Prehistoric Animals poster.

Tetrapod Zoology at the United Nations Science Summit. A significant event happened later in September, when I was among a group of scientists and natural historians who presented at the United Nations Science Summit. This event was organised by Seabird McKeon and Michele Weber, and involved talks by Ursula Valdez, Tom Fleischner, Dita Cahyani, Nalini Nadkarni and myself. The physical version of the summit happened in New York, so our original plan was to meet there. But, alas, we couldn’t get the funds together for this, and zoom it was.

Caption: my cover slide from the United Nations Science Summit of September 2022.

My talk was Prehistoric Animals are Ambassadors for Science, and Learning About Them Arms us With Respect to Sustainability, which is pretty self-explanatory. The other talks were variously about natural-history-based initiatives that have a positive impact on human lives (and foster an improved connection with the natural world) or were about conservation efforts that involve cooperation with local people. My main takehome was that human health and wellbeing are proving tightly connected to our access to nature and natural places, something I find myself thinking about more and more the older I get. We finished with a Q&A session that focused on our own experiences, our feelings for the future and more. I think that everything was recorded but I don’t know what the plans are on sharing it. Stay tuned.

Caption: a moment from our natural history event at the United Nations Science Summit, specifically from Nalini Nadkarni’s talk.

It was a huge privilege to be part of this event and I’m extremely grateful to Sea and the other team members for making it happen. There are plans for this to be the start of something permanent and embedded in the function of the United Nations, but it’s early days and discussion is ongoing. A brief TetZoo report on the event – I think published on the day that it happened – is here.

Caption: a September scene from Pickett Post in the New Forest. The temperatures were of the sort we used to expect for summer. Image: Darren Naish.

Lyme Regis and Mesozoic Art. In October, I visited Lyme Regis Museum to see the Mary Anning portrait by B. J. Donne (painted in 1850, and thus after Mary’s death in 1847) on its last weekend of display. This is the first time it’s been outside of London ever.

Caption: at left, the B. J. Donne portrait of Mary Anning, outside of London for the first time ever. Donne lived in Lyme Regis while Mary was alive and it’s considered likely that he knew her before her death. At right, an ichthyosaur display at Lyme Regis Museum. The big skull belongs to Temnodontosaurus. Images: Darren Naish.

This was also my chance to see the Mary Anning statue, unveiled earlier in 2022. We can’t know for sure that the statue represents much of a likeness to the real Mary Anning, but it’s a fascinating statue whatever you think, with belemnites, ichthyosaur and plesiosaur bones, and the actinopterygian fish Dapedium built into its base. Numerous ammonites decorate it here and there.

Caption: the Mary Anning status at Lyme Regis, unveiled in early 2022. The base is decorated with several fossils relevant to Mary Anning’s career, and to the palaeontology of the Lyme Regis area. Images: Darren Naish.

The museum itself has had something of a revamp in recent years, for the better. Many new marine reptile fossils are on display, making the museum more of a Mesozoic marine reptile mecca than it was before. I’m due to be speaking there in 2023 as part of the promotional tour for my Ancient Sea Reptiles book, on which more below.

Mesozoic Art and Ancient Sea Reptiles. October saw the publication of Mesozoic Art, the big, lavishly illustrated art-themed book compiled by Steve White and myself, and published by Bloomsbury (White & Naish 2022). I’ve already written about the book at TetZoo. It showcases the work of 20 palaeoartists, many of them relatively new to the field and doing more than their fair share of innovation. Palaeoart today – as seen from my unusual position in the north-east Atlantic maritime provinces – is becoming more of an international endeavour, with more diversity in style and texture. We hope that this is reflected in the book.

Caption: our new book Mesozoic Art isn’t technically part of the same series as its predecessors, but it’s sufficiently similar in design to look like it might be. Image: Darren Naish.

While we planned various signing events (at museums, shops and so on), none panned out for various reasons, so the closest thing we had to a launch was the signing event at TetZooCon… on which, read on. Already, Mesozoic Art has done well in terms of sales and positive response, all of which makes it likely that follow-up volumes might appear.

Another new book for 2022 – the aforementioned Ancient Sea Reptiles, published by the Natural History Museum – also appeared in my hands in October, though it’s not yet officially on sale and won’t be for a few weeks yet. I’ll be talking about it a lot when the time is right.

Caption: I have two copies of Ancient Sea Reptiles in my hands; I’ll have more soon. This is the cover of the UK edition (published by the Natural History Museum); the US edition (published by the Smithsonian Books) is different and features a Bob Nicholls painting. A few images from the interior are shown at right.

Articles on caecilians and zebras appeared at the blog at this time.

To Toronto. November was a packed month. For work reasons, I attended the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Toronto, this being the 82nd annual meeting of the society. This was my first ever trip to Canada. As is usually the case when I visit an area for conference-related reasons, I didn’t much get to see the city, let alone the surrounding area: airport to hotel, hotel to conference venue, and repeat. Nevertheless, it was good to see friends old and new and catch up on the science. Many people (the society’s president Dr Jessica Theodor among them) wanted to talk about Prehistoric Planet and how much they enjoyed it, which was good.

Caption: an SVP Toronto montage. The excellent dromaeosaur head (part of an under-construction suit) is by Sam Stanton; at lower left we have a collection of Late Cretaceous dinosaur skulls at the ROM; in the middle, I’m signing a copy of Mesozoic Art for the auction; at far right we see Anthony Maltese with his favourite fossil, Xiphactinus. Images: Darren Naish.

Thanks to Jordan Mallon, I got hold of a physical copy of the issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences that includes the paper on Dale Russell’s dinosauroid that Will Tattersdill and I published in 2021 (Naish & Tattersdill 2021). Incidentally, an original reprint of the Russell & Séguin (1982) paper on troodontids and dinosauroids appeared for sale in the SVP auction but I didn’t know this and someone else won it. While on the subject of the dinosauroid, I have to mention that Will – the Tattersdill of Naish & Tattersdill (2021) – was interviewed for an excellent dinosauroid-themed episode of the Palaeocast Podcast during September.

Caption: here’s me and Jordan Mallon at the Toronto SVP, with the Dale Russell special issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. At right: the cover (the published version looks different from the preview online).

Back to SVP: an added bonus was our conference visit to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), famous for its palaeontological displays. My phone ran out of charge, so I didn’t get to take as many photos as I hoped to. But you get at least some idea of what they have from the photos here. Highlights included the Paleogene and Pleistocene mammals, the mounted Pachycephalosaurus and the Jurassic dinosaur display. I donated a signed copy of Mesozoic Art to the SVP auction and am pleased to say that it fetched several hundred dollars.

Caption: mostly Pleistocene fossils at the Royal Ontario Museum, albeit with Mesosoic dinosaurs in the distance at right. Image: Darren Naish.

Caption: more mostly Pleistocene fossils at the Royal Ontario Museum, including the giant sloth Eremotherium, the pampathere Holmesina and glyptodont Glyptodon (both are giant armadillos), and the cat Smilodon. Image: Darren Naish.

SVP done, I had time to do a bit of sight-seeing and visited Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada with Albert Chen. It’s not a bad aquarium but wasn’t as impressive as I was hoping. Highlights included the giant groupers, a gar and paddlefish exhibit, and the very nice ray exhibit.

Caption: familiar birds of the Toronto area, both new to me. Ring-billed gull Larus delawarensis and Black-capped chickadee Poecile atricapillus. Toronto is home to what’s said to be the world’s largest population of Ring-billed gulls. Images: Darren Naish.

Albert and I also went birdwatching. If you’re in a country for the first time ever, even seeing mundane and common ‘street birds’ can be exciting. New species for me included Double-crested cormorant Nannopterum auritum, Long-tailed duck Clangula hyemalis, Ring-billed gull and Black-capped chickadee. I was also interested to learn that Toronto is home to an entirely black form of the Eastern grey squirrel Sciurus carolinensis. It was possible to get quite close to these, and I photographed them whenever I could.

Caption: black squirrels of Toronto. These images show two different individuals. Images: Darren Naish.

Oregon and the aesthetics of dinosaurs. I was back home for a little while before it was time to disappear overseas once again, this time for Oregon and the 80th annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics in Portland. I’ve always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest, and the trip did not disappoint. Even the flight in was a phenomenal experience that I’ve found myself recounting on many occasions. The photos show what I mean.

Caption: views from the air over what I think are parts of southern Alberta, and either Washington or Oregon. Incredible scenery, viewed in perfect conditions. Image: Darren Naish.

Caption: I was thinking to myself “I wonder if I’ll get to see Mount St. Helens” when, suddenly… I think that’s Mount Rainier in the background. Image: Darren Naish.

The ‘aesthetics’ of the American Society for Aesthetics involves the philosophy of art criticism, and certain of the presentations involved jargon and argumentation way beyond my cognitive limits. I was there for a panel event devoted to the aesthetics of dinosaurs – yes, really – organised by Michel-Antoine Xhignesse. Besides Michel and myself, Zoë Lescaze and Derek Turner also spoke. We all approached dinosaur aesthetics from different angles. My talk was on the idea that those artists depicting Mesozoic animals in art today are mostly functioning as time-travelling wildlife artists: I reject the idea – which I’ve now seen implied or stated by philosophers several times – that palaeoart has some sort of symbolic or allegorical function. It was great and we got a lot of positive feedback from our audience.

Caption: my cover slide for the dinosaur aesthetics events of the 80th annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics, December 2022. I haven’t discussed the contents of the talk outside of the relevant event itself. Maybe sometime I will.

Caption: the four speakers of the dinosaur aesthetics events of the 80th annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics, December 2022. From left to right: Derek Turner, Zoë Lescaze, Michel-Antoine Xhignesse and Darren Naish.

Portland itself was fun. I walked part of the length of the Willamette River and saw a good number of birds that were (again) new to me, including assorted geese, gulls, eagles and a ton of passerines. I don’t want to talk about them here as I’m saving that for another article. I also discovered Powell’s Books – where I had to limit myself in terms of the number of books I obtained – and a few vintage toy shops.

Caption: argh, books on animals — my one weakness! Powell’s Books, Portland, is home to hundreds of natural history books, a great many of which I would obtain if I had unlimited money and space. As it happens, I purchased a hardback original of Paul’s Predatory Dinosaurs of the World (previously, I only owned the softback) and only a couple of other things. Images: Darren Naish.

Going squatchin’. The ASA meeting done, I headed east in the direction of Mount Hood, specifically to the town of Rhododendron where I stayed with my friends Nico and Haley Spadafore. A whole week dedicated to exploring the forests, mountains and coasts of the state of Oregon. Thanks to Nico, I also visited Cliff Barackman’s North American Bigfoot Center in Boring.

Caption: myself and Cliff Barackman (at left) at the North American Bigfoot Center, with Murphy the sasquatch in the background. Wow, I sure do like that jumper.

At the risk of repeating what I said about the Loch Ness Monster earlier in this article, regular readers of this blog will know that I’m seriously interested in bigfoot whether it’s a sociocultural phenomenon (as I currently suspect) or a biological one (oh, how I wish it were so), and with that in mind I found it a welcoming and fascinating museum. It’s dedicated, of course, to the idea that bigfoot is a real primate species awaiting scientific discovery, with tons of content on eyewitness experiences, field evidence, and bigfoot history and lore. It also has the best shop dedicated to bigfoot-themed material I’ve ever seen. I bought way too much stuff.

Cliff himself was gracious enough to spend time with me, and kindly showed me his collection of bigfoot print casts. I can now say that I’ve seen copies of quite a few of the famous bigfoot, yeti, almas and yowie tracks.

Caption: an ambition fulfilled — I finally get to visit the spectacular forests of the North American Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t especially cold, but it was wet. Image: Darren Naish.

I always knew that going squatchin’ would be a rewarding experience whatever the outcome. We travelled to two confidential, essentially private stretches of woodland where people have reported bigfoot encounters. I heard coyotes in the wild for the first time. Nico is a good tracker, and showed me bobcat, coyote and elk tracks. At one of the locations we visited, Nico, Cliff and I heard several unusual sounds – they seemed to be animal vocalisations, and what sounded like a wood knock – that defied easy explanation. I’m not saying that we heard bigfoot. I’m not saying that bigfoot is real. I’m saying that we experienced some unusual stuff.

Caption: I really, really enjoyed visiting sites of possible interest in the Oregonian wilderness. Had lots of wildlife experiences, and loved the scenery and environments. Image: Darren Naish.

Other places I visited included the spectacular Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge (where I saw my first chipmunk), the Bonneville fish hatchery (home to a great number of spectacular sturgeon), and the Oregon Coast Aquarium at Newport. It has some stupendous exhibits that house Pacific marine wildlife, including rockfishes, sharks, harbour seals and sea otters. The aviary was closed due to the current avian flu outbreak but I at least got to see swimming puffins.

Caption: some of the many sturgeon on show at the Sturgeon Viewing and Interpretive Center at Bonneville Hatchery, adjacent to the Columbia River in Oregon. Several of the sturgeon there are big, the largest being Herman. He’s 3.35 m long and weighs over 220 kg. Herman was stolen in 1983 – yes, I said stolen – and there has been more than one occasion in which people have jumped into the water and stabbed him. Image: Darren Naish.

Caption: a few more Oregon scenes. From left to right: Multnomah Falls, a stretch of scrubby ground at the edge of the Sandy River in the town of Rhododendron, and a late evening scene taken from Cliff’s vehicle while deep in the woods. Images: Darren Naish.

Caption: the Oregon Coast Aquarium at Newport. It houses numerous really nice marine exhibits and has various pinnipeds on show. I was surprised to see that harbour seals and fur seals are kept together, but apparently they’re friends and it’s not an issue. Images: Darren Naish.

Caption: views of the Oregon coast. At left, a Pacific Harbour seal surfing waves at Siletz Bay. At right, gulls and and other birds at Yaquina Bay. Images: Darren Naish.

We also visited Oregon Zoo. That’s something I also intend to write about in a separate article so won’t say much about here, but it’s especially strong on North American wildlife, highlights for me including California condor Gymnogyps californianus and Rocky mountain goat Oreamnos americanus. Incidentally, neither the aquarium nor zoo had good shops – at least, not in terms of what I hope for in a shop attached to a place devoted to the displaying of animals. Huh.

Caption: a montage of things from Oregon Zoo, a great zoo that has an excellent collection of North American animals as well as much else too. I’ll be talking in detail about what the zoo is like in a later article. Images: Darren Naish.

TetZooCon 2023. After returning from Oregon it was time for TetZooCon 2022, the 9th Tetrapod Zoology Convention. It was the biggest so far (thereby continuing the trend in which the meetings have gotten bigger year on year) and with a packed schedule: if you want to know more go see the article here. This year’s TetZooCon was held at Bush House, King’s College, a venue we owe to Chris Manias, whose Popularising Palaeontology event was combined with TetZooCon this year.

It looks like the same deal will be in operation for 2023, in which case we’ll see you at Bush House again for the TENTH TetZooCon. Stay tuned – it should be something special.

Caption: a good number of TetZooCon 2022 photos were included in the relevant article, but here’s one that wasn’t. This image was taken during John Conway’s talk A History of Painting (With Dinosaurs). Image: Darren Naish.

Also in December, I finally outed the long-running ‘Plot bone’ project I worked on with Martin Simpson, Paul Stewart and Hilary Ketchum. We did discuss at one point writing the whole thing up as a paper – despite the negative results – but in the end I opted to write the story up as a TetZoo article; it’s here. Inspired by the release of the movie Avatar: the Way of Water, I republished the TetZoo guide to the creatures of the first Avatar movie. It’s here.

And so to January 2023…

Monsters of the Deep says goodbye to Cornwall. Long-term readers here will know of my Monsters of the Deep (MOTD) exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, Cornwall (if you don’t, an article announcing its opening is here). January is a slightly sad month because this is when MOTD’s tenure at NMMC comes to a close. I had planned to lead a tour of the exhibition prior to the final day, but it just wasn’t doable.

Caption: exterior of the National Maritime Museum, Cornwall, in Falmouth. Formerly the home of the Monsters of the Deep exhibition…. which is now moving elsewhere! Image: Darren Naish.

Anyway, I’m now allowed to say that MOTD isn’t finished for good: it’s travelling and is currently being installed at Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent. This is great news and means that a huge number of people in the south-east of England (including the London area) will be able to see it. More news on this soon.

Dinosaurs in Dorchester. I visited the Dinosaur Museum at Dorchester. I haven’t been there for years and was interested in seeing what had changed. They’ve replaced or modified various of the displays on the walls, a life-sized Allosaurus model has gone, and a Tyrannnosaurus statue – based, I think, on the Invicta Tyrannosaurus model from 1977 – has been given a new head. But many of the older things are still there.

Caption: the Dinosaur Museum at Dorchester is certainly interesting if you’re interested in historical depictions of dinosaurs, since it houses quite a few unusual models and other objects. The images here show a Corythosaurus costume/model said to be connected to Pertwee-era Dr Who (though I’ve seen this contested), a model of Richard Owen (for once, not depicted as ‘old man Owen’) and a very familiar replica theropod skeleton (with a model Megalosaurus behind). Images: Darren Naish.

This museum holds a special place in my memory because it’s the first place where I saw – saw, wasn’t able to buy – several dinosaur-themed books that proved crucial to my nascent interest, namely David Lambert’s Collins Guide to Dinosaurs and Peter Zallinger’s Dinosaurs and Other Archosaurs.

But the big event of January was my research trip to the Fort Pierce area of Florida. I assure you that I was in Florida for very interesting reasons, but I can’t yet say what they were. So don’t ask. Whatever, I saw tons of stuff. I’ve been to the American tropics before (I visited Brazil for a pterosaur conference in 2013), but this was my first time in Florida and about everything I saw wildlife-wise was new. Yet again I’m not going to say much here since I’ll discuss it all later (some of what I saw has been shared via Twitter already).

Caption: just a little of the wildlife I saw while in Florida. Yes, that’s a Limpkin Aramus guarana. Images: Darren Naish.

What happened at Tetrapod Zoology during January? I published a modified version of my article on Tripoli Zoo in Libya and another on the laryngeal sacs of baleen whales. And that brings us up to the present.

So…..

Reviewing 2022. As you’ll know if you’ve read these birthday articles before, one thing I like to do is list the year’s blog articles (the year extending from Jan 21st 2022 to Jan 21st 2023, of course) in order to see what taxonomic coverage was like. And if you’ve read these articles before, you’ll know how things pan out: I find that charismatic megafauna and weird stuff have been covered disproportionately, and I then get cross about it. So let’s start with a list of all the year’s articles, grouped by category…

Miscellaneous

Amphibians

Mammals

Non-bird dinosaurs

Birds

Cryptozoology

What’s obvious for 2022’s coverage is that most tetrapod groups got no coverage at all. I put that down to me not really blogging much over the year. The fact that mammals are so well represented is (as ever) a surprise; the fact that miscellaneous material is out in front probably reflects increasing coverage of parish notices, and reminiscences about books and such. As ever, I’m not pleased with the lack of balance, but at least amphibians got a look in. Seems bizarre that non-dinosaurian reptiles got no coverage, but there you go.

Caption: it should be obvious from these birthday articles that I photograph animals as and when I can, generally quite badly. Birds are among the animals we see most often here in the UK, and here are two passerines photographed at Milford-on-Sea in September 2000. The blob at left is a European rock pipit Anthus petrosus; the corvid at right is a Rook Corvus frugilegus carrying a potato… or a rock, I can’t remember. Images: Darren Naish.

Wrapping it up. So there we have it: the TetZooniverse year in review. A lot happened, but I survived. The Eotyrannus monograph published. The book Mesozoic Art published, and a second – Ancient Sea Reptiles – finished, though not yet released for sale. The biggest and likely best TetZooCon so far. The TV series Prehistoric Planet released to the world. Two technical papers published (Barker et al. 2022, Naish & Cau 2022). I think that those are substantial and satisfying wins. But, as ever, I’m frustrated by the fact that there are those grand projects where little to no progress was made, most notable of these being the textbook. I can’t say more about it or I’ll get angry.

So, happy 17th birthday Tetrapod Zoology. 17 years of this blog, at four different hosting sites. As ever, I want to thank those of you who read and visit Tet Zoo; especially to those of you who comment and interact here, and to those who provide financial support and help make it a worthwhile venture. Thank you, thank you all.

Welcome to the 18th year of Tetrapod Zoology.

Caption: Mount Hood, Oregon, December 2022. Image: Darren Naish.

 For previous Tet Zoo birthday articles, see...

Huge thanks to those who help support this blog at patreon. You can see behind-the-scenes and in-prep stuff relevant to projects for as little as $1 per month.

Refs - -

Barker, C. T., Lockwood, J. A. F., Naish, D., Brown, S., Hart, A., Tulloch, E. & Gostling, N. J. 2022. A European giant: a large spinosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Vectis Formation (Wealden Group, Early Cretaceous), UK. PeerJ 10:e13543.

Blake, M., Naish, D., Larson, G., King, C. L., Nowell, G., Sakamoto, M. & Barnett, R. 2014. Multidisciplinary investigation of a ‘British big cat’: a lynx killed in southern England c. 1903. Historical Biology 26, 441-448.

Naish, D. 2017. Hunting Monsters. Arcturus, London.

Naish, D. 2022. A cultural phenomenon. The Biologist 69 (3), 16-21.

Naish, D. & Cau, A. 2022. The osteology and affinities of Eotyrannus lengi, a tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wealden Supergroup of southern England. PeerJ 10:e12727.

Naish, D. & Tattersdill, W. 2021. Art, anatomy and the stars: Russell and Séguin’s dinosauroid. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 968-979.

Russell, D. A. & Séguin, R. 1982. Reconstruction of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosauroid. Syllogeus 37, 1-43.

White, S. & Naish, D. 2022. Mesozoic Art: Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals in Art. Bloomsbury Wildlife, London.