Hominin Fossil Database
Take a virtual stroll through the collections at Hominin.net, an in-process, open-access database of hominin fossils. Assembled by Kambiz Kamrani, Hominin.net can organize fossil speciemens by locality map, timeline, or taxonomy, and an extensive list of literature is available, listed by title or author.
Although the project is still in its early stages (only about 45 specimens are listed as of this posting), it is already showing signs of becoming an amazingly useful resource. It is great to see someone using the open-source Simile widgets to organize natural history specimens—the Timeline component definitely has a lot of potential for paleonotological content. I’m particularly excited about the following planned feature:
• Embeddable snippets of fossils to be used in blogs, websites, etc.
I’m eager to see how this will be implemented—not only would it be handy to have a collection of ‘stock’ images and info for hominin specimens at one’s disposal, it might also be a great guide for researchers and institutions interested in creating embeddable content for specimens and objects in all kinds of collections.
Tip of the Hairy Museum toupee to Afarensis for bringing this to my attention.
—Matt Celeskey.
File under: Hominids, Neogene, Webbery.
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Pleistocene Rewelding
Gomphotherium installation at Galleta Meadows. Photo from here.
From this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I learned of the life-sized (or larger) sculptures of Ricardo Breceda, who is in the process of installing an entire zoo of sheet metal megafauna on the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, California. The project appears to be a collaboration between sculptor Breceda, who was inspired to start sculpting prehistoric animals after watching Jurassic Park, and landowner Dennis Avery, who came up with the idea of “of adding ‘free standing art’ to his property” to recreate the area’s prehistoric inhabitants.
It’s hard not to be impressed with ambitious scope of this project, and Breceda’s sculptures seem to be a perfect fit for the arid landscape around Borrego Springs. I’m particularly fond of the character and detailing seen in the Gomphotherium (shown above) and the smaller ground sloths, like this little fella.
—Matt Celeskey.
File under: Mammals, Neogene, Paleo-Pop.
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Talks this Week
For any New Mexico readers, there are a couple of lectures coming up this week that would be of interest to the paleontology-minded:
The NM Friends of Paleontology are meeting Monday, Nov. 17 at 7:00pm at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. This month’s meeting includes a talk by Larry Rinehart on some of the recent work he’s done on the allometry, growth, dimorphism and population structure of Coelophysis bauri from Ghost Ranch. The NMFOP meetings are free and open to the public.
On Thursday the 20th, geologist David Love and paleontologist Gary Morgan will be giving a talk on a 10 million year old oreodont recently unearthed at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. The talk will begin at 3:30pm in the Macey Center auditorium at New Mexico Tech in Socorro (admission $5). More info about this find is online here.
—Matt Celeskey.
File under: Dinosaurs, Mammals, Neogene, Recent Discoveries, Triassic.
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Critters with great big claws on their fingers
You could almost say, “Critters whose great big claws are their fingers”:
—Matt Celeskey.
File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Mammals, Neogene.
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