Squamates and hominids and dinosaurs, oh my!

Me and "the family" in the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins.

I am a lucky, lucky boy. For my birthday, I was gifted (thanks Christina!) an admission ticket to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This is only the third time I've been able to walk the halls of the AMNH, but it was the first time I was granted an entire day to do so at my leisure. My usual trips up are with groups, and we've have to move quickly to get through things and be back on a bus by a given time. Even with an entire day, the museum is much too vast to cover. I probably managed to get through about one fourth of it, and I was rushing a little to cover as much ground as possible. Regardless, it was a great day, and I came back with lots of photos and information that I look forward to sharing with my readers.

Why do you do these things?

I have to start out by saying that I thought long and hard about actually publishing this post. It is, for the most part, an opinion piece, and distracts from the primary focus of my blog. It communicates little science, and is for all intents and purposes, more of a rant than anything. But it does tie into other issues covered here at Superoceras in the past, like the role of the media in communicating scientific knowledge, and protection/conservation of wildlife. For that reason I'll get on with it.

Vanessa over at NatureBreak recently posted a new video titled "Is Wildlife Filming Cruel to Animals?" that has started quite the discussion. I didn't want to distract from the conversation there by getting off topic, or distract here by starting my own on the subject (please follow the link, join NatureBreak, and comment on the video there yourself). But I did want to quickly speak my mind about something that really gets under my skin: Bear Grylls.

One less tiger in the world.

Rokan

Sad news yesterday from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Rokan, the almost 20 year old Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), was euthanized after several years of worsening health conditions. He was an amazing big cat who sired 10 cubs during his lifetime. He should be remembered and celebrated for the contributions he made to tiger conservation efforts. You can read more about the story at the Zoo's Tiger Diary.