You might think from the scientific name that this is a close relative of the vampire bat but, while it does belong in the same family, vampire bats are a side-branch of that family thought to have diverged from the main branch around 50 million years ago. Its closest relative may be the far less fearsomely named "big-eared woolly bat" (Chrotopterus auritus), with which it shares some of its unusual feeding habits.
Synapsida
A random wander through the world of mammals
Sunday, 12 October 2025
The Family Life of a Spectral Bat
Sunday, 5 October 2025
Delphinids: Killer Whales
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Orca / killer whale |
It's the biggest "dolphin" of all: the orca or killer whale (Orcinus orca).
That it is a dolphin has never been seriously doubted from a scientific perspective. It is one of just three species of dolphin to be listed as such in the first catalogue of scientific names in 1758 - and one of the other two is a porpoise, and so has since been moved elsewhere. On the other hand, it has been recognised as belonging to a distinct subfamily with the dolphins since 1846, and modern genetic studies confirm that its ancestors diverged from those of most other dolphins unusually early.
Saturday, 27 September 2025
South Africa, 14,000 BC
Paleoecology is the study of how animals and their environments interacted in the distant past. While the basic idea has been around almost since we started the scientific investigation of fossils, it really only became a field in its own right around the 1950s. That's largely because it isn't easy, becoming harder the further back we go.
The basis of the field is to look, not at individual fossils, but at the whole array of fossils at some particular site, correlating them with what we can determine of the climate and environment at the time. Which, among other things, requires a good understanding of exactly what that time was and at least a reasonable confidence that the fossils in question are all around the same age. Often, it relies not just on good and plentiful fossils at a particular site, but on us being able to say what the animals' lifestyles were. Which is a lot harder for those that don't resemble the ones we have today - dinosaurs being an obvious case in point.
Sunday, 21 September 2025
Hungry Hippos
Sunday, 14 September 2025
Bats in the Belfry
Sunday, 7 September 2025
Delphinids: Pilot Whales
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Long-finned pilot whale |
Sunday, 31 August 2025
Oligocene (Pt 17): Dawn of the Kangaroos
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Ekaltadeta |