William G. Pullin

Greetings. Allosaurus. Carnotaurus. Spinosaurus. Velociraptor. The iconic Tyrannosaurus rex. Theropods all. Included in that particular group of animals are all birds, avian dinosaurs numbering about 11,000 living species today. One particularly beautiful living example is Pharomachrus mocinno.  The resplendent quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, is a small bird found in Central America and southern Mexico that lives in tropical forests, in particular montane cloud forests. A member of the family Trogonidae, the resplendent is for the most part omnivorous; its diet mainly consisting of the fruits of plants in the laurel family, occasionally preying on insects, lizards, frogs and snails. Pharomachrus mocinno possesses a colorful and complex plumage that differs substantially between the sexes. Males have iridescent green plumes, a red lower breast and belly, black innerwings, and a white undertail. Females have grey lower breasts, bellies, and bills, along with bronze-green heads, and sh...

Greetings. The hoatzin, Opisthocomus hoazin, is a species of tropical avian dinosaur that arose in the Miocene approximately 23 million years ago, a native of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins of South America.  The only extant species of the ancient genus Opisthocomus, the hoatzin occupies swamps, mangroves, and other tropical forest habitats. The species has been successful since it first appeared in the fossil record, and has several contradictory physical characteristics that confirm its ancient lineage, yet suggest advanced evolutionary processes at work. The young of the species possess claws on two of its wing digits, unique to modern birds, and reminiscent of Jurassic and Cretaceous Period birds. Adults have digestive systems that are capable of fermentation and the processing of plant matter, two attributes known from some primates and herbivorous ungulate mammals, but not known from any other species of modern bird.  Hoatzins have a length of about 65 centimeters, ...

Greetings. Throughout the Earth's long history of complex life forms, predatory animals have utilized several techniques in the effort to catch and dispatch prey animals in their respective habitats and environments. Some iconic species have been highly effective ambush predators, with modern-day wolves, cheetah, and the extinct theropods allosaurus, ceratosaurus, and velociraptor being charter members of the "ambush club."  Thylacinus cynocephalus, better known as the Thylacine, or erroneously as the Tasmanian Wolf, was (is?) a practitioner of persistence hunting. A large marsupial native to the island of Tasmania, the Thylacine slowly stalked its prey until it forced eventual exhaustion, dispatching its quarry soon thereafter. With the species' claimed extinction, which is still hotly debated, the landscape of Tasmania has been left void of an apex predatory species, a situation which is the direct result of destructive human activities.  Some well-known species wer...

Greetings. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds (avian dinosaurs.) Complex forms of animal life.  About 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion, fishlike animals with a notochord and eyes at the front of the body, such as Haikouichthys, begin to appear in the fossil record. By the late Cambrian, other jawless forms such as conodonts appear. During the Silurian, jawed and armoured fish appear on the scene, with giant placoderms such as Dunkleosteus, the cartilaginous Chondrichthyes, and the bony Osteichthyes. By the Devonian, fish diversity had greatly increased, including the placoderms, lobe-finned fishes, and early sharks, earning the Devonian the epithet "the age of fishes." The first major groups of amphibians developed in the Devonian period, approximately 370 million years ago, from lobe-finned fish which were similar in physical characteristics to the extant coelacanth and lungfish. These ancient lobe-finned fish had evolved multi-jointed leg-like...

Greetings. The Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction event was catastrophic, with innumerable forms and species disappearing from the fossil record. A few tough creatures managed to survive the environmental destruction, with some lineages surviving to the present day. The Chinese water dragon is one such ancient animal. Physignathus cocincinus. A native of southern China and mainland southeast Asia, this large reptile is a representative of a lineage that extends back 120 million years. First described by George Cuvier in 1829, this omnivorous animal has remained unchanged since it diverged from its nearest reptilian relatives back in the early days of the Cretaceous Period. A member of the subfamily Amphibolurinae, the dragon's nearest relatives are native to New Guinea and Australia, with the ancient subfamily found nowhere else on the planet.  Measuring about a meter in length, Chinese water dragons are sexually dimorphic, and dinural by nature, staying active during daytime hours. T...

Greetings. Balaeniceps rex, also known as the Shoebill, is a large long-legged wading bird. It derives its name from its distinctive, enormous shoe-shaped bill. It has a somewhat stork-like physical appearance and has previously been classified with the storks in the order Ciconiiformes based on this morphology. However, new genetic evidence places it with pelicans and herons in the Pelecaniformes. The species lives in tropical East Africa in large swampy environments from South Sudan to Zambia. The shoebill is a tall bird, with a typical height range of between 110 to 140 centimeters, some specimens reaching as much as 152 centimeters in height. Length from tail to beak can range from 100 to 140 centimeters, with wingspans ranging from 230 to 260 centimeters. Adults weigh from 4 to 7 kilograms. A male shoebill will weigh on average around 5.6 kilograms, as opposed to the typical female weight of 4.9 kilograms. The signature feature of the species is its huge, bulbous bill, which is st...