Top Photo: Thorny olive flowers. If you happen to be strolling past the Farmyard and sense something powerfully fragrant invading your nose, it’s probably thorny olive (Elaeagnus pungens). It’s related to autumn olive and Russian olive, two invasive shrub species from Asia. We have much autumn olive on our campus, no Russian olive that I’m aware of and just a few locations overgrown with thorny olive which tends to ascend trees and nearby structures when it can. Thorny olive, unlikeRead more
Posts tagged: #Troodon
The Late Cretaceous
It was still early, the Museum hadn’t opened its doors yet. As I rounded the corner and entered the Dinosaur Trail I was greeted by a large, resting, red-brown creature sitting in front of a wall of boulders. It was a Parasaurolophus. I’m not sure of the behavior of a Parasaurolophus during the Late Cretaceous Period, but this one was and is rather docile. In fact, it’s the only dinosaur on our Dino Trail that we let the public touch. OnRead more
Dino Quiz
When biologists conduct wildlife surveys they sometimes have to rely on only brief glimpses of their subject in order to document them. A birder often only gets a quick look at a bird, and then only a small part of the bird, in order to identify it. Many times, it’s only a flash of a wing, the head, or even the tail that’s visible as the bird moves around in the dense brush, or flies away only to duck downRead more