Today I finally got my shipment of books from Beijing, after sending them off to sea there in July. The books came about one month later than my shoes and clothes...I wonder if they were "checked" before passing customs. Oh well, at least now I can read articles in paper form and not just on the computer screen.
Doing research in what is now my official "study" in the heart of Edmonton, south of the North Saskatchewan River, I am discovering some fascinating possibilities about the Tibetan Plateau goats Qurliqnoria cheni which I have been examining since my days in Beijing.
[a partial skull of Qurliqnoria cheni from the Qaidam Basin on the Tibetan Plateau, Dr. Xiaoming Wang and Guangpu Xie discovered this specimen last year on our trip.]Where on Earth did these goats come from? After comparing them to fossil bovids (family of cows, goats, sheep, etc.) from Europe and Africa via published findings, I am taking a guess that these are related to more basal goat-like bovids from the eastern Europe / Middle-Eastern region in the genus Tethytragus.
How nice to have goats and other prey to think about on my breaks from building computer models of vicious dogs and hyenas?
~Jack
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