Tag: mammals

The Fat Bears Of Katmai – And How They Got There

Posted on by Rhys

Guest Author: Sophie Pollard
Palaeobiology MSc Student

While citizens of the city of Bristol and the rest of the UK will remember the summer of 2022 for its record-breaking heatwave, records of a different kind have been set in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska, with sockeye salmon returning in higher numbers than any recorded before. This is great news for the fauna of Katmai National Park, and by extension, for fans of Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week, an annual event in which the bears of Katmai compete to see who best drags the competition, by how much their bellies drag along the ground.

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In Defence Of Early Mammals – Part Two

Posted on by Rhys

Guest Author – Kim Chandler, MSc
2020 Palaeobiology Graduate

In the first part of this blog post, I discussed three early mammals that I found interesting and felt needed a bigger audience of admirers. Below is a continuation of these with four more mammals to persuade you to join team mammal.

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The Spookiest Thing About Bats

Posted on by Rhys

With Halloween only two days away, I thought we should turn our attentions to an animal which has become synonymous with the holiday. The word ‘Halloween’ conjures up a series of distinctive shapes in our minds; a pumpkin, a ghost, the far too early Christmas tree in the shops, and the silhouette of a flying bat. But how long could it have been this way? Would a bat have been a symbol of Halloween in the Mesozoic (if dinosaurs had been capable of celebrating this autumnal festival or been dextrous enough to craft decorations to mark it)?

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