Robert Michael Pyle has been writing about nature for one year more than I’ve been drawing breath. And while I consider myself reasonably well-read when it comes to his published books, I know that an additional and significant portion of his writing has seen print in a host of different periodicals, anthologies, and in introductions to the books of other writers.
To say that the Mesozoic fossils that have been discovered in the Jehol region of China are remarkable is to greatly understate the matter; they are breath-taking. And among all the fossils found, few can rival those of the early birds discovered there.
The American Alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, is found from east Texas, throughout much of the gulf coast states – including all of Louisiana and Florida – in portions of Missouri, and to the eastern halves of Georgia and both Carolinas; however it is those in Texas that biologist Louise Hayes has been studying since 1985.
With the recent publication of Tim Lenton’s “Earth System Science; A Very Short Introduction,” I was made aware that there was a field of study that sought to explain the proverbial big picture in a perspective so large and all-encompassing that even ecology is only a part.