Two years of Superoceras

I know that things around here have been pretty quiet lately.  But I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel just yet.  In fact, as I begin my third year of blogging, I'm excited by all the possibilities before me, personally, professionally, and academically.  A lot has changed for me over the last year, but the one thing that hasn't is my love of the natural world, and sharing that love with others. So with that, thank you all for another year.  I'm looking forward to the next.

A school of Cooperoceras, colored by my girlfriend's first grade students for National Fossil Day, and presented to me on the second anniversary of the blog. 

Happy Birthday, Superoceras!

It was Friday, November 3, 2006, approximately 3:30PM. I was sitting in the Geology Building at the University of Maryland, listening to the arthropod lecture in my principles of paleontology lab. As I was handed my lab report paperwork, I began to doodle in the upper right corner of the front page, as was my weekly tradition. But this week, instead of the modest spined spiral I would normally draw, I went all out. A few lines for shading, some stripes on the shell, and a fleshy, way to squid-like head sticking out of the end - I had created a "Super Cooperoceras", or "Super-oceras" for short.

New Banner Day!

I don't have a lot of time for a long post, but I wanted to put something up, so I'll talk briefly about the new banner I've made.

Many of you may know of my relationship with Cooperoceras texanum, but perhaps you do not understand why this enigmatic Paleozoic cephalopod holds a special place in my heart.

C. texanum is a nautiloid known from the Permian reefs of Texas and is easily distinguished from other nautiloids because of its hollow recurved lateral spines along its shell (presumably used as defensive mechanisms), sinuous ribs (at maturity), and evolute shell with an open, perforate, umbilicus (Kummel 1964).

My 15 minutes are up.

Anyone who has ever done a Google image search for Cooperoceras texanum (and yes, I realize that's not going to be a large group of people) will be familiar with the fact that there are virtually no images of Cooperoceras on the web. There were however, a few exceptions. And for a while there, the reconstruction I made of this animal was the first image that came up. As silly as it sounds, it was a serious point of pride for me. But GeoCities has officially crumbled, and with it, my old website has dissapeared. Which means the image has been burried in the interweb graveyard. But since Halloween is right around the corner, it seems appropriate to zombify the little cephalopod and bring it back from the dead! Here he is, for the handful of people that actully know Cooperoceras exists.

More on Cooperoceras texanum, Halloween, and other things coming soon!