Hail Volantia

A lot has happened since I last posted any comics. (How long has it been? A bit more than a year?) In fact, plenty has happened since I last posted here at all. (What, I'm supposed to write more about Earthflight and zoo trips? When did I say that?)

For instance, a paper came out describing the prevalence of large leg feathers in Mesozoic avialans, finding evidence of pennaceous feathers on the tibiotarsi of several confuciusornithid and enantiornithine specimens as well as on the metatarsals of Sapeornis. In fact, almost all coelurosaurs that preserve integument on the lower legs and feet have feathers there, with plumulaceous leg feathers and extensive foot scales (as in most modern birds) known only in Yanornis and more derived taxa. It is perhaps no accident that this is also the point in avialan phylogeny that a tail fan homologous with those of modern birds is known to have been present. (On that subject, the new Sapeornis specimen also preserves tail feathers, previously unknown in this genus, but that's a story for a different time.)

New specimen of Sapeornis showing hind limb feathers, from Zheng et al, 2013.

The implications of this are quite clear. After all, what else has four wings?

The pterosauromorph Sharovipteryx mirabilis, licensed.

The anisopteran insect Hemicordulia tau, photographed by Fir0002 and licensed.

The chiropteran Agilichiropteryx johtoensis.

The biplane Handleyvolans hannoi.

That's right, a new analysis shows that it's looking likely that flight evolved only once in the entire history of life, all flying organisms being united in a clade now called Volantia. Aside from the common biplane design, the monophyly of this group is supported by many other previously overlooked features. (I didn't look at the data matrix, but the study listed so many synapomorphies I figured it simply must be correct.) For example, the clade is also united by the ancestral characteristics of echolocation (still retained in swifts, oilbirds, planes, and most bats), being capable of learning the move Wing Attack (secondarily lost in planes due to their stiff wing structure)*, and eating foods widely considered to be disgusting in Western society (such as insects, rotting carcasses, and aviation fuel). In an interesting example of convergence, all five major clades of Volantia are all known to have independently evolved two-winged forms later on. This discovery is also further refutation of several ideas so preposterous it's a wonder there still exist those who support them in the scientific community, such as the dinosaurian origin of birds, the ornithodiran origin of pterosaurs, the mammalian origin of bats, the arthropod origin of insects, and the human invention of planes. (Too bad about the squamate origin of pterosaurs and the pterosaurian origin of birds though, those actually had some good things going for it.) Biology textbooks will now have to look elsewhere for comparisons between analogous and homologous structures. In fact, this was such a badly-written significant paper that an entirely new journal was created just to publish it. Fortunately, it is open-access, although you actually have to pay about $200 so unfortunately it is not really open-access.

*Evidently the production team of Pokémon was on to something when they included a puff of feathers in the animation of Wing Attack (despite some featherless Pokémon knowing this move). Considering that there are many obscure biological references in Pokémon, it appears likely that this was included as a nod to the Volantia hypothesis (then called the Single Origin of Flight Hypothesis or SOF).

Results of the new phylogenetic analysis for Volantia, from Troll, 2013. (To avoid confusion, unicorns are the outgroup here, not part of Volantia proper.)

Naturally, this also has implications for my comic, because it indicates that the use of echolocation and a biplane configuration should be present in most of my characters. However, I don't think I will bother to incorporate this new info into future comic strips. It is just too much work and having to come up with reasons for changing the characters' attributes in-universe is way too difficult. Even though I tried to include scientific understanding and in-jokes when I began this comic, I now realize that accuracy is overrated and is entirely irrelevant in a universe with levitating troodonts, talking fossil casts, and turkey-sized dinosaurs that can jump three meters in the air to slash an Allosaurus fatally in the throat. It's not like anyone actually appreciates the sciency stuff I put in to begin with and the few that do are just whiny nerds who can always go start their own comic if they want silly things like accurate dinosaurs volantians.

References
Troll, I.M.A. 2013. A four-winged configuration for basal birds: implications for the Single Origin of Flight (SOF) Hypothesis. Journal of Random Crap 1: 1-5. doi: 42.1007/s42336.012.0910.7

Zheng, X., Z. Zhou, X. Wang, F. Zhang, X. Zhang, Y. Wang, G. Wei, S. Wang, and X. Xu. 2013. Hind wings in basal birds and the evolution of leg feathers. Science 399: 1309-1312. doi: 10.1126/science.1228753

American Museum of Natural History

Sad to say, this will be a bit of a disappointing post, because I wasn't able to take enough photos on this trip. (However, as it turns out that's a minor good thing, because both the new image upload system of Blogger and the new design of Photobucket are stupid.) In all likelihood it's no great loss; the AMNH exhibitions have all been photographed so many times by so many people that I'm unlikely to add anything new. Besides that though, I'm not complaining about the trip at all, far from it. In fact, it was easily one of the best trips I've made anywhere in a while.

Believe it or not, I'd never been to the AMNH prior to this, so the fact that I got to visit alone would have been exciting enough, and, as one might expect, not much else could have made it any more exciting. What did manage that feat though was that I was on a field trip led by paleontologists Drs. Thomas Holtz and John Merck. In fact, it appears that this was an exceptional trip even for them, as Dr. Holtz tells me that in all the years they've been taking field trips there he can't think of another that went as smoothly as this one. Looks like I got lucky in that respect!

Upon our arrival, Drs. Holtz and Merck each gave us tours of the fossil halls. Unlike most other museums, at the AMNH these are arranged phylogenetically (for most part), with dinosaurs and synapsids getting their own dedicated halls. Here are some paintings of Pleistocene mammals by Charles Knight.

Needless to say, we were only passing through the synapsid halls to get to the good stuff. By chance I started out with Dr. Holtz's party, and he gave us an overview of (what else?) the dinosaurs. Here's "Big Mama" the nesting Citipati! (Though there's a chance it may really be "Big Papa".)

The hand of Plateosaurus. Non-pronated too! (Unfortunately the same can't be said for all the theropod mounts.)

The skull of Plateosaurus.

The head and neck of Apatosaurus. An elevated walkway allows us puny ones to get closer to its level.

Ah, Deinocheirus. More is coming. More is coming soon.

The genotype of Struthiomimus.

Little Archaeopteryx skeleton!

Just above it, its buddy Deinonychus. Here's a blurry picture of its foot, bearing the talon that gave it its name. Check out those short metatarsals!

Hey, it's Mononykus (still in the same case as avialans, naturally)! I tried to make conversation, but it didn't appear too inclined to talk.

It's worth mentioning that although the AMNH bungled with the tyrannosaurids (placing them among the carnosaurs), it places birds firmly in the saurischian dinosaur hall. Score!

Incidentally, I swear that I didn't intend to take pictures only of saurischian dinosaurs and essentially nothing else. Saurischians are just better. It was entirely an unfortunate coincidence. Perhaps some other time...

After we finished with the dinosaurs, I joined Dr. Merck's tour, which took place in what is officially called the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, but was instead variously called the "Hall of Everything Else" and the "Hall of Paraphyly" by Dr. Holtz. In other words, it exhibits all the other fossil vertebrates that aren't either dinosaurs or synapsids. "Dinosaurs are overrated," Dr. Merck told us as he began his exposition, also known as "Vertebrate Evolution in 45 Minutes".

Interestingly, we even had a museum volunteer drop in to listen to Dr. Merck's talk, asking him about the origin of turtles. This was something that Dr. Merck had understandably not planned on talking about in detail - though it must be said that if the volunteer hadn't asked, I would have done so myself afterward. Either way, to paraphrase Dr. Merck, whatever you think about turtles, there will be someone else who thinks you're an idiot.

As it happens, said museum volunteer had been in contact with Dr. Holtz by email and using his website as a resource for a while now, and was delighted to finally meet him in person. As someone who has had a similar experience, I know firsthand what an awesome moment that must have been.

I also got to meet one of Drs. Holtz and Merck's former students, Eugenia Gold, who now does CT scanning on archosaurs at the museum (if I'm not mistaken). She very graciously took me on a tour behind the scenes, which was truly the icing on the cake. I got to look at specimens of Minotaurasaurus, Alioramus altai, and Khaan, what appeared to be a temnospondyl skull in the midst of being prepared, and the museum's CT scanning apparatus (along with an exquisite 3D print of a lizard skull). Apparently there was even more I could have been shown, but, alas, I had an assignment I needed to finish before we left the museum. Perhaps that was for the best, because I suspect that by then if I had gone through any more unspeakably awesome experiences I would have fallen over from excessive giddiness.

The end result was that during my last minutes at the museum, I went madly dashing about snapping arbitrary photos, but most of my efforts were thwarted either by crowds or my own poor photography skills. Ultimately, the only marginally useable photo that came out of that was, perhaps appropriately, one of the famous rearing Barosaurus mount.

Favorite Maniraptor of 2011 Results

The results of last year's poll are in. While not as one-sided as the poll for 2010, we have a clear winner in the troodont Talos, followed by the basal paravian Xiaotingia. Not much of a surprise there!

A new poll for last year's newly-named maniraptor genera is now up as well, so go ahead and vote.

Review of 2012

My first shot at one of these end-of-the-year reviews that appear popular among bloggers. (Okay, technically it's a looking-back-at-the-previous-year review now, but it's in the same spirit.)

My blogging hit a bit of a rough patch in 2012, particularly during its first two-thirds. I did not draw any new Raptormaniacs comics at all, the only post directly related to the comic being an April Fools' joke, so it was a major "filler" year. Most of my posts instead were reviews, particularly of the BBC documentary Earthflight, and in later months zoo trip posts. More of the latter soon to come. I also need to finish up my Earthflight reviews; it's been more than a year since the show's initial premiere... Funnily, May 2012 was my most prolific month ever on my DeviantArt. I suppose it makes sense that increased activity at one site would eat into efforts put into the other.

In addition, I celebrated World Sparrow Day in March and shared some of my old comic ideas. Despite some mysterious problems with the sidebar poll (which I'll partly attribute to Blogger glitches), poll results for last year have made it through and I'll be doing a post on them shortly.

As usual it was a good haul for new maniraptor studies. In January, the color of the original Archaeopteryx specimen (a lone feather) was revealed to be black. Study of how agamas use their tails while leaping suggested similar mechanics for dromaeosaurids. Photographic evidence of albatrosses cleaning ocean sunfish of parasites was published for the first time. An assemblage of dodo remains was also described.

The original Archaeopteryx feather, photographed by H. Raab, licensed.

In February, two new specimens of the oviraptorosaur Nemegtomaia were described, one sitting on its nest. Budgerigars were shown capable of synchronizing body movements to rhythm. We also got new information on the bite of the Java finch and the revelation that the late Alex, an African gray parrot, could perform mathematical addition. A revision of the fragmentary Mesozoic avialan Liaoningornis showed that it was an enantiornithine. The first newly-named maniraptors of the year were published, at least among those that hadn't already been released online in 2011, including the fork-tailed Mesozoic euornithine Schizooura lii, the large Oligocene penguins Kairuku waitaki and Kairuku grebneffi, and the Oligocene piciform Picavus litencicensis.

Holotype of Schizooura lii, from Zhou et al., 2012.

In March, evidence of the dromaeosaurid Velociraptor eating (scavenging?) azhdarchid pterosaurs was published. The feather colors of the dromaeosaurid Microraptor were analyzed, showing it to be iridescent black. The specimen used in this study also preserved previously unknown characteristics of this dinosaur, such as a pair of ribbon-shaped tail feathers at the center of its tail fan. The idea that birds may literally see the Earth's magnetic field was suggested. The dark facial stripe of masked shrikes was demonstrated to reduce glare and the blind spots of Old World vultures were shown to make them vulnerable to wind turbines. Newly-named maniraptors included the hesperornithines Brodavis mongoliensis, Brodavis americanus, Brodavis baileyi, and Brodavis varneri (the last a former species of Baptornis) and the Madeiran scops owl (Otus mauli), an extinct Quaternary owl.

Restoration of Microraptor incorporating new anatomical information (including color), from Li et al., 2012.

In April, the enigmatic maniraptor Yixianosaurus was put into a phylogenetic analysis. Birds with pheomelanin were found to suffer more commonly from cataracts and a new study on the production of iridescence in ducks was published. Spotted bowerbirds were documented to cultivate bush tomatoes for use in courtship displays. Neural correlates of magnetic sense in pigeons were identified. Newly-named maniraptors included the Miocene tinamou Crypturellus reai and the troodont Philovenator curriei (formerly a juvenile of Saurornithoides).

Spotted bowerbird, photographed by Tom Tarrant, licensed.

In May, colorful birds were found to evolve more quickly. A drowned nesting colony of enantiornithines was described. Birds were shown to have paedomorphic skulls. Long-term changes in the drinking habits of Adélie penguins and evidence of voice recognition in carrion crows were published. Functional studies also came out on the furculae of Mesozoic avialans and the neck of the phorusrhachid Andalgalornis. Newly-named maniraptors included the enantiornithine Xiangornis shenmi and the dromaeosaurids Yurgovuchia doellingi and Microraptor hanqingi (though some suspect M. hanqingi will turn out to be a synonym of one or more of the already-named Microraptor species).

Complete enantiornithine eggs (above) and eggshell fragments (below), from Dyke et al., 2012.

In June, a description of the sound-making apparatus of club-winged manakins was published. The Mesozoic euornithine Chaoyangia was redescribed. Facial recognition was shown in pigeons and Gouldian finches were found to have different personalities based on head color. Coprolites of upland moa were used to infer their habits and habitat. Newly-named maniraptors included the pelagornithid Lutetodontopteryx tethyensis. June also marked the publication of the second edition of The Complete Dinosaur. Though I don't yet own a copy, I was happy to find out that it contains a chapter devoted to birds, including an extensive review of Cenozoic birds. While almost everyone (i.e.: professional paleontologists) accepts that birds are dinosaurs by now, inclusion of Cenozoic birds in the discussion of dinosaurs is still frequently lacking, so, please, more of this kind of thing.

Club-winged manakin, photographed by Michael Woodruff, licensed.

In July, a paper detailed the adaptations hummingbirds have to cope with flying in the rain. The (lack of) seasonal variation in the energetics of rock ptarmigans and the preference among Lincoln's sparrows for songs sung in the cold were studied. Newly-named maniraptors included the Pliocene woodpecker Australopicus nelsonmandelai.

Anna's hummingbird, photographed by Alan Vernon, licensed.

In August, a subadult specimen of the Mesozoic avialan Sapeornis was described, preserving wing feathers. The benefits of polymorphism for the common cuckoo and the brain of the Miocene penguin Paraptenodytes were studied. Inferential reasoning was found in African gray parrots and the genome of the medium ground finch was sequenced. The oldest known Australian anseriform fossil was also described. An extensive paravian phylogeny was published, with emphasis on reviewing dromaeosaurid taxa. Newly-named maniraptors included the possible therizinosaur Martharaptor greenriverensis and several extant birds, the Sira barbet (Capito fitzpatricki), Camiguin hawk owl (Ninox leventisi), and Cebu hawk owl (Ninox rumseyi).

New Sapeornis specimen, from Gao et al., 2012.

In September, causal reasoning was found in New Caledonian crows. A new specimen of the troodont Mei was described, surprisingly also in a sleeping posture. Possible grieving behavior in western scrub jays was documented. Possible molecular mechanisms behind unique feather types found in Mesozoic maniraptors were suggested.

New Mei specimen, from Gao et al., 2012.

In October, kakapo were found to be (former) pollinators of wood roses. New Caledonian crows were discovered to be physically well adapted for tool-using and Gouldian finches were shown to choose mates with their right eye. The tongue mechanisms of hummingbirds, ontogeny of enantiornithine sterna, and bite force of the therizinosaur Erlikosaurus were also studied. A Miocene flamingo twig nest was described and a large molecular study of modern birds was published. Newly-named maniraptors included the enantiornithine Shengjingornis yangi and the possible alvarezsaur Alnashetri cerropoliciensis.

Kakapo, photographed by Mnolf, licensed.

In November, a Goffin's cockatoo was observed creating and using tools for the first time. Another posthumously published study on Alex the African gray parrot showed that he could infer the relationship between cardinal and ordinal numbers. Fairy wrens were found to teach their unhatched young vocal passwords to identify brood parasites. The evolution of vocal mimicry in parrots and size in herbivorous coelurosaurs (including maniraptors) were studied. Non-pygostylian paravians were revealed to have had more covert feather layers. Papers were also published on the migration habits of bar-headed geese and how pigeons learn new flight routes.

Goffin's cockatoo using stick as tool, from Auersperg et al., 2012.

In December, a study about implications of claw curvature for the lifestyles of theropods (including maniraptors) was published. The brains of charadriiforms and therizinosaurs were both extensively studied. Evidence was found for theory of mind in Eurasian jays. Birdsong was discovered to stimulate birds similarly to how music stimulates humans. Last but not least, evidence was presented that Piksi, Eurolimnornis, and Palaeocursornis, long thought to be Mesozoic avialans, were actually pterosaurs. Matt Martyniuk's field guide to Mesozoic aviremigians came out as well, a boon for fans of Mesozoic birds. (My review of this book can be found here.)

Cover of Matt Martyniuk's new field guide.

I apologize that my coverage of Cenozoic maniraptors is never as comprehensive as that of Mesozoic ones, and I wish that weren't the case. If only I knew a centralized resource where new studies on Cenozoic dinosaurs were shared in a timely manner, similar to how the Dinosaur Mailing List works for Mesozoic dinosaurs. I do advocate that the DML, being the Dinosaur Mailing List, is an appropriate outlet for spreading word on Cenozoic bird news as well (and some Cenozoic bird papers are indeed posted there now and then), but it's understandable that regular posters there don't follow the relevant journals as closely.

While not directly related to this blog, I must also mention that the 2013 Archosaur Calendar is out. This was a collaborative project by the paleontology-themed Hell Creek forum, organized by Tomozaurus, Ferahgo, and myself and featuring the artwork of many other notable online paleoartists.

Cover of Hell Creek's 2013 Archosaur Calendar featuring all included artworks, designed by myself and modified by Ferahgo/Emily Willoughby.

A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs

Those who read my lowly blog will no doubt be familiar with the work of Matt Martyniuk. As an incredibly talented paleoartist, Matt's restorations of prehistoric life are both aesthetically appealing and meticulously researched. In particular, he specializes in (and is probably best known for) depicting Mesozoic birds (=Aviremigia in his personally preferred usage). Additionally, he is a founding member of WikiProject Dinosaurs, a collaborative project that aims to increase the quality of Wikipedia dinosaur articles, and is single-handedly responsible for many of the life restorations and (especially) iconic scale charts present on the online encyclopedia.

One of the greatest contributors to the excellence of Matt's paleoart is the sheer thought and research that has been put into them. Many of the posts on his blog, DinoGoss, discuss aspects of paleoart that are frequently glossed over and yet immensely crucial to the field, such as the processes and biological significance behind feather colors. For this reason I have long thought that it would be magnificent if Matt wrote a self-illustrated book on restoring Mesozoic birds.

As it turns out, he did. About a month ago he teased us all with a picture of the following book cover on Facebook, and later wrote a more extensive article about the subject on DinoGoss.

The book is now out. Having spent two years in the making (so that's why Matt hasn't uploaded much on his DeviantArt for a while), for most part the book does not disappoint. The first few sections of the book detail the evolution and diversity of Mesozoic birds as well as things to take into account when restoring them, some of these incorporating updated versions of DinoGoss posts. Being the very topics I'd hoped Matt would cover were he to write a book, I found these chapters highly enjoyable and they will doubtless serve as a useful guide to other paleoartists looking to illustrate Mesozoic avifauna. Longtime followers of Matt will likely be able to identify nods to his online interactions and activities. Case in point, in order to demonstrate how feathers can obscure skeletal features, Matt uses the deinonychosaurs Troodon and Saurornitholestes to show that even dinosaurs that are supposedly anatomically disparate may have been hard to distinguish in life were we armed only with skeletal characteristics for identification, the same genera Mickey Mortimer used as an example in a comment on DinoGoss.

The main bulk of the book is presented in, as the title implies, a field guide format. With two chapters on oviraptorosaurs, five on deinonychosaurs (and some phylogenetically ambiguous paravians), one on non-ornithothoracine avialans, four on enantiornithines, and five on Mesozoic euornithines, each preceded by a phylogeny indicating the likely positions of taxa discussed, this presents near-comprehensive coverage on the known extent of aviremigian variety in the Mesozoic. Life restorations of almost all known Mesozoic aviremigian species are present, often shown in multiple views, poses, and sometimes ontogenetic stages, each accompanied by a scale chart done in Matt's recognizable style. For a great many aviremigian species, especially avialans, these are likely the first time they have been seriously restored, much less in print. Ornithologically savvy readers will be able to identify choices in coloration inspired by modern birds, though none fall into the trap of being a direct ripoff of a modern species. The succinct but informative text (as is typical for a field guide) lays down the physical characteristics, habitat, and known natural history of each taxon. Much of this will be a great help for buffing up the descriptions in my own list of maniraptors, again particularly with respect to avialans. There are a few cases where I felt that certain interesting facts that could have been added were missing, like Sinornithosaurus being known to have been preyed on (or at least eaten) by the compsognathid Sinocalliopteryx, but such preferences delve into the subjective side of things. Species too fragmentary to be reliably restored are listed in an appendix at the end of the book.

The book is immensely up to date, including even the last aviremigian to be published prior to its launch (Shengjingornis) and incorporating new research on the number of covert layers present in basal aviremigians. A recent paper that heavily influences the content of the book but came out too late to be extensively incorporated was the description of wings in ornithomimosaurs. Though the wing feathers of these specimens are not directly preserved, the authors of the study suggest they were pennaceous, potentially making ornithomimosaurs (and thus all maniraptoriforms) aviremigians. Should this be the case, any subsequent editions or companion volumes to this book would have to include at least ornithomimosaurs, therizinosaurs, and alvarezsaurs in addition to the groups it already has. Commendably, this discovery does get acknowledged in the introductory chapters of the book, and either way this does not cheapen this guide's value. Science marches on is an inevitable acquaintance of the best of us, and the book remains an indispensable reference for the groups it has managed to include.

If there's anything that does remotely detract from this gem, it's the typos. While on the whole they don't hamper the usefulness of the book, typos are abundant enough to be noticeable, especially to paleo-savvy readers. Most of these are spelling errors, but the most glaring example is that Cryptovolans is incorrectly stated to hail from the Upper Cretaceous Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada. More extensive proofreading could've considerably increased the quality in this regard.

A bibliography is available at the back of the book, which I approve of (the last reference listed even has quite a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor to it), though I do feel that even more references could have been included. For instance, Velociraptor being known to have scavenged was evidently based on Hone et al. (2010), and yet this paper was not listed as a source. There are also countless specimen description papers that must've been referenced in a project of this type but are not mentioned. Although creating an exhaustive bibliography may not have been the main purpose of this book, it does appear strange to me that only some of the references used were credited. This is arguably especially important for the unpublished tidbits that are brought up. For example, Tianyuraptor is said to have had long neck feathers based on an undescribed mid-sized dromaeosaurid that preserves this feature and may be a specimen of said taxon. Those who are aware of this specimen will know the source of this, but those who know Tianyuraptor only from its published description (based on a specimen that preserves no feathers at all) may well be confused by this information.

There are also a few unexplained omissions to the list of Mesozoic aviremigians. Borogovia, Pamparaptor, and Shanag are neither included as field guide entries nor mentioned in the appendix (or anywhere else that would explain their truancy). Hesperonychus is also bizarrely absent, despite being namedropped in one of the introductory chapters. (Edit: And Alethoalaornis too. See comments for more on the situation with these MIA taxa; thanks for chiming in, Matt!)

These are but quibbles, outweighed immeasurably by the book's numerous finer points, and if this review appears to imply otherwise it is only because I hold this work to such high standards. This is a book I'd recommend to everyone with an interest in some of the most wonderful of all creatures (i.e.: birds) and easily deserves a place of its own among works of this genre.

National Zoo: Third Time's the Charm?

More trips to the National Zoo, yay.

A red-billed hornbill in the Bird House.

In the same exhibit, some black crakes that were too active for me to photograph effectively.

A little blue heron.

A pygmy falcon. Cuteness is a thing among small endothermic predators, I tell ya.

A great argus. Many galliforms have elaborate courtship displays, and this one is no exception. The wings of the male can open up into an astounding display, somewhat reminiscent of the tail feathers of a peacock. Visitor comment on this animal: "What is that ugly crap?"

And kiwis still hate me, but that should go unsaid by now.

A double-wattled cormorant in the outdoor aviary. It having no fear of people, I was able to get a very good look at it preening its feathers. Later on it went for a swim and hopped onto a platform right in front of me, where it splashed and snapped at my face!

Some female smew.

A pair of peafowl with bamboo partridges nearby. I almost got a shot of a tragopan in the same frame as well, but it walked out of range as I snapped the picture.

A northern cardinal.

Perhaps the most surprising thing on this trip was that I ran into Rudyspino, a fellow online paleontology enthusiast! I'd known that he visited the National Zoo with some frequency (and have mentioned him on this blog in the past), but it was still rather unexpected. I recognized him as a fellow paleontology enthusiast thanks to him wearing a t-shirt bearing one of David Orr's wonderful designs ("Spinosauridae"), and Rudyspino being the only one I knew of who visited the National Zoo regularly I put two and two together. I accompanied him back into the outdoor aviary (I'd just been leaving the aviary when I bumped into Rudy) and to the seriema exhibit (one of his favorites at the zoo), and afterward he wanted to look at his favorite extant species, the ravens (whose existence at the zoo I'd told him about online mere days ago), which were on the American Trail.

On the way, I noticed this amusing sign I hadn't seen before.

I hadn't seen the ravens on my last visit to the American Trail, but fortunately for Rudy they were out and about this time. Who needs dinosauroids when you have the real thing?

We also had a good look at the hooded mergansers, gray wolves, seals, sea lions, and pelicans, but Rudy's luck didn't hold when we came to the bald eagles. (He's informed me that he has managed to see them on subsequent trips, however.) We parted ways soon afterward, as he had to leave. I continued onwards to the Small Mammal House.

A red ruffed lemur. It lived in a large exhibit (comparable to the South American themed one I've mentioned before) with rock hyraxes and blue-naped mousebirds. I caught a glimpse of a mousebird, but it flew into thick foliage before I could get a photo, while the hyaxes were nowhere to be seen. The lemur off to the left is actually a stuffed animal, by the way, acting as a temporary companion for the real lemur, who'd been alone in the exhibit when I visited.

A degu. The tail of these rodents break off easily when grabbed by a predator. Sadly, unlike lizard tails, these don't grow back. Degus display some surprisingly intelligent behaviors, known to spontaneously pile objects in order of decreasing size (something otherwise only observed in primates and birds) and capable of being taught to use tools.

An American alligator outside the Reptile Discovery Center.

A freshwater stingray on the lower floor of Amazonia.

A Goeldi's monkey on the upper floor. I don't recall seeing these on any of the signs at Amazonia (nor the actual animals themselves on previous trips), so I suspect they've been newly placed into the exhibit.

A silver-beaked tanager.

A tiger salamander in the amphibian exhibition at Amazonia.

A gray tree frog, native to eastern North America. Those who have read Thornton Burgess's stories will know it as Stickytoes the Tree Toad. (What do you mean, "You're the only one"?)

Some red-spotted newts.

Passing by the American Trail on my way back, I finally got to see the bald eagle.

On my previous trips to the National Zoo I'd seen signs for griffon vultures at the gazelle and oryx exhibit but had become really confused while trying to find them. I'd assumed they must've been flightless (either through wing clipping or permanent injury to the wing) because the exhibit was open air, and yet couldn't find any no matter how hard I searched across the ground and any low perches they could conceivably reach. This time, Rudy had informed me that he had seen a griffon vulture and that it was in a separate cage in the back of the gazelle and oryx exhibit. Right before I left the zoo I went and looked and lo and behold. I do wonder if the zoo has any further plans for the griffon vulture, as the exhibit looked rather cramped and drab compared to the general quality of the zoo's other enclosures, and it wasn't situated in a place conducive to visitor viewing (I took this picture on maximum zoom, for perspective).