About the Blog

Welcome to Prehistoric Beast of the Week!

Welcome to Prehistoric Beast of the Week!  This site was born from the widely popular, now offline, Jersey Boys Hunt Dinosaurs, which started back in 2012.  Luckily, I was able to save all of my articles, including my weekly prehistoric animal reports (which had become pretty popular with readers) and am now in charge of my own site which you see before you.  

Going to keep doing things I know are successful...

I will continue to cover a different prehistoric animal every week, each complete with an original painting by me, photograph of its fossil, and wherever possible, input from a professional paleontologist who actually works with said beast.  On the site we also will continue to interview nature artists, paleontologists, and other kinds of scientists, as well as write our own miscellaneous posts here and there.  

Going to try new things I hope are successful...

In addition, I will be doing a few new things.  Never before has there been a site that revolved around paleontology that ALSO had a strong foothold in modern animal biology, particularly endangered species conservation.  I want to change that.  At Prehistoric Beast of the Week you will start to see more posts about endangered species, the environment, and most importantly, information on how you can help save them!  In order to fully understand and preserve the world around us, we must understand its history.  This is where paleontology and modern biology marry.

Most importantly...

My main goal here is to educate you, the reader, with the help of real science directly from the source.  However, I also want you to have fun and laugh at the same time you are learning. It's really hard to learn if you aren't having fun.  I discovered this fact over my years of teaching at zoos, museums, and in formal classrooms.  Lastly I want to encourage you to reach out to us.  We love hearing input from our readers.  Do you have a favorite prehistoric animal you would like to see me review?  Do you want to know more about how you can help a particular habitat or endangered species maybe near your own home?  Ask in our comment sections under each post and we will always get back to you with as much information as we can.  Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Christopher DiPiazza

Who's writing this stuff?

Christopher DiPiazza

Chris and one of his many non-human colleagues, Elvis, the Dwarf Caiman.

Christopher DiPiazza attained his first job at the age of thirteen at a private zoo as a part-time animal keeper.  When he went to college, he graduated with a degree in Animal Science from Rutgers University where he did most of his undergraduate lab work and research on extant reptiles.  After graduating college...he kept being a zookeeper, this time for two facilities (one private, and one AZA), between which he split his time depending on the day of the week.  He has also worked and volunteered at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum, in New Mexico, and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Pennsylvania.  Nowadays he is a science teacher full time, but never truly cut ties with the zoo and paleontology fields.  In addition, Chris is a published paleoartist, having illustrated prehistoric life for many scientific papers, posters, books, articles, and museums. 

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