Beyond Bones

In 1972, mammalogist Ralph Wetzel and colleagues were studying armadillo ectoparasites in the Paraguayan Chaco when they came upon a peccary (what we call javelina in Texas) that didn’t look like those already known to science. The result was Catagonus wagneri – the Chacoan peccary, known only from a fossil discovered in 1930 by Argentinian […]

My first blog, raided from old camp logs, was of early days of my career in the Paraguayan Chaco.  Specifically, a first-hand encounter with a scarcely seen large mammal, the Chacoan Peccary (Catagonus wagneri).  This blog is similar, in that it describes another first-hand encounter with a scarcely seen large mammal – the Jaguar (Panthera […]

When I was first told that the museum was going to have a blog site, I thought – ‘Oh great!  Now everyone who wants to know what I ate for lunch every day will have access to that sort of information.’  Then, Erin told me it won’t be the sort of blog site where everyone […]