Hello. Welcome to the Blogosaur, the official blog of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, northern Alberta’s newest palaeontological museum. Posting on the Blogosaur has slowed recently, but I have now taken up the mantle of posting material here, and I am going to try to maintain a more regular schedule.
The new Blogosaur author (Derek Larson) during a recent dinosaur excavation. Image credit Ian Morrison.
And who am I, you may be asking. I am Derek Larson, the newly hired Assistant Curator at the museum. I am a vertebrate palaeontologist, and I specialize in studying the teeth and diets of small meat-eating dinosaurs and modern monitor lizards. I also have research interests in a number of different fossil groups. Some of my most popular scientific papers include one that distinguishes the number of small meat-eating dinosaur species in western North America based on their extensive record of isolated teeth and work identifying the species present in the Late Cretaceous cool-climate upper Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta. It is very likely that I will go into significant detail on various aspects of my research at some point on this blog.
What else can you expect from this blog? I will certainly be covering major museum events like upcoming exhibits as well as palaeontological news in the Peace Region both when a scientific paper is published and when there is a new development in the field. I may also cover aspects of scientific name construction and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, in which I have an interest and which I think isn’t discussed today as much as it should be. I will also probably comment here when there is a palaeontology news story about which I have something to say. If you want to comment on any of the Blogosaur posts, or if you have questions or comments about what sort of information you would like to see in this space, feel free to head over to the museum Facebook page and leave a comment. I hope this blog attracts a following both from the public who are interested in the palaeontology in the Peace Region as well as scientifically-minded readers who want to hear my thoughts about various topics in palaeontology.
So, keep checking this space for more updates. I look forward to discussing a wide range of palaeontological topics here in the future.
By Derek Larson