Darren Naish

[[File:Darren Naish.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Naish in 2016]]
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'''Darren Naish''' (born September 26, 1975) is a [[British]] [[Paleontology|palaeontologist]] and [[science]] writer. He began his career by investigating [[dinosaurs]] and Mesozoic marine reptiles from the Early [[Cretaceous]] geological formations of the Southern British Isles, including such creatures as ''Eotyrannus'', the discovery of which helped to demonstrate that tyrannosauroids (the superfamily of dinosaurs including ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' and its relatives) actually had much in common with early birds<ref>{{Cite web|last=Naish|first=Darren|title=Biographical info|year=2013|url=https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/author/eotyrannus/}}</ref>. Since 2006, he has been writing on his own blog, known as Tetrapod Zoology. The blog started out on BlogSpot, <ref>[http://www.darrennaish.blogspot.com/ Tetrapod Zoology] on BlogSpot</ref> then moved to ScienceBlogs in 2007, and, then, to ''[[Scientific American]]'' in 2011,<ref>[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/ Tetrapod Zoology] on ''Scientific American''</ref> where it is still hosted today. The blog covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from [[fossil]] tetrapods to predation by eagles on prey much larger than they are conventionally assumed to be capable of to unconventional theories regarding animal [[taxonomy]], [[phylogeny]], and classification, which Naish sometimes seriously postulates (such as his tentative endorsement of the [[hypothesis]] that domestic [[dog]]s were not descended from wolves, although he later recanted his support for this), and sometimes satirizes in a plainly tongue-in-cheek manner (as when he discussed the hypothesis of initial bipedalism, stating that most tetrapods descended from hypothetical tiny hominid-like bipedal animals).

The blog occasionally veers off-topic and discusses non-tetrapods, such as [[fish]], as well. Additionally, the topic of [[Cryptozoology|cryptozoology]] and [[Cryptid|cryptids]] has been covered on the blog, as well. Naish has tried to make the case that, as cryptozoological data can be parsed and analyzed using [[rational]] and [[skeptical]] methods of zoological analysis, it is not inherently [[pseudoscientific]], and deserves to be taken more seriously by the mainstream scientific community. However, he also approaches cryptozoological claims from a critical and skeptical perspective. Naish initially voiced tentative support of the Patterson-Gimlin film of an alleged [[Sasquatch]], the existence of [[Sea serpent|sea monsters]], and a hypothetical relict saber-toothed cat in South America, but has since disavowed these original interpretations in favor of a more skeptical outlook, apparently having been inspired, at least to some extent, by the skeptical 2013 cryptozoology book ''Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids'' by Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Naish|first=Darren|title=Is Cryptozoology Good or Bad for Science?|year=2014|url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/is-cryptozoology-good-or-bad-for-science/}}</ref>

==References==
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[[Category:British people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Biologists]]

Categories: British people, Living people, Biologists