The Boneyard # 9

For whatever reason, it seems to have been a quiet fortnight in the world of palaeontological blogging, but The Boneyard is sworn not to disappoint. Welcome to the ninth installment of this auspicious carnival!

And what better way to start than with some philosophical musings? Make No Bones has some interesting observations about palaeontology compared to other branches of biology.

I had something this fortnight, but I wasn't even sure if it was a fossil. See if you can work out the mystery object's identity!

Sometimes fossils can tell us more than just their subject's identity. Archaeozoology describes the recognition of bone disease in fossils.

The Hairy Museum of Natural History brings us the spectacular resting traces of a trio of temnospondyls, Palaeozoic amphibian-like animals, and suggests we might be looking at some of the world's oldest pornography. He also treats us to more reconstructions of the crocodile-like phytosaurs.

Microecos brings us a light-hearted look at man as seen by Ichthyosaurus.

Laelaps also gives us behaviour preserved in trace fossils, reporting on the recent discovery of dromaeosaur tracks confirming the two-toed stance most researchers have suspected.



Meanwhile, When Pigs Fly Returns reports on research showing birds may have been a bit slower taking to the trees than previously assumed.

The Dragon's Tales has a double whammy on the subject of mass extinctions - the differences between the end-Permian and end-Cretaceous extinctions, and the various causes of mass extinctions.

Finally, John Hawks tells us that people may have been mining for almost as long as there has been people to mine.

Next fortnight's Boneyard will be hosted by Amanda at Self-designed Student, and you are all ordered to write something for it! Get cracking!

Credits: Image of lunging temnospondyl from Palaeos. Confuciusornis from Answers.com. "The Sorcercer" from Cosmologies