A LEAP THROUGH DEEP TIME: FROGS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD

Frogs have been hopping, swimming and making an astonishing amount of noise for their size for a very long time. 

Their earliest frog-like relatives include Triadobatrachus massinoti, a small amphibian from Madagascar that lived about 250 million years ago during the Early Triassic. 

By the Early Jurassic, roughly 190 million years ago, frogs such as Prosalirus bitis possessed elongated hind limbs, reinforced hips and shortened bodies better suited to leaping.

Their fossil record is rather patchy. Frog skeletons are small, lightly built and inclined to fall apart after death—excellent for jumping, less impressive for becoming immortalized in stone. Many fossil frogs are therefore represented by isolated hip bones, vertebrae and limb fragments.

British Columbia has produced Quaternary frog and toad remains from Bear Flat in northeastern BC. Researchers identified bones belonging to Rana, the group containing the true frogs; Bufo, a traditional grouping of toads; and other members of the order Anura. 

These fragments help us reconstruct the amphibian communities that inhabited western Canada before and after the great advances of glacial ice.

Vancouver Island has also produced fossils bearing the frog name—but belonging to an entirely different branch of the animal kingdom. 

Fossil frog crabs are marine crustaceans named for their broad, frog-like appearance and digging adaptations, not for any amphibian ancestry. 

In 2020,  Torrey Nyborg, Loma Linda University and team described a new genus Amphoranina from Eocene and Oligocene deposits of Washington State and Vancouver Island. The well-preserved specimens represent two new species, Amphoranina blandi and Amphoranina multispinata. The genus appears to have been endemic to the northeastern Pacific during the middle to late Paleogene. 

Torrey does some wonderful research on fossil crabs from the Pacific Northwest and further afield. 

He was also on the team with Jan Fischer and Margorie Johns who published on the recent late Eocene chimaroid egg capsule from lower Carmanah Group strata on the far western shores of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 

This is the fourth Paleogene chimaeroid egg capsule discovered from the Pacific Northwest. All four fossils were fossilized in tectonic foreland basins in bathyal water depths, which perfectly correlates with the known bathyal habitats and nesting sites of extant rhinochimaerids.

If you're reading this, Torrey, great to see your breadth of work. As a friendly nudge, there is a lobster from Tyaughton I am still looking to see you publish on.

Today, frogs and toads belong to the order Anura—meaning “without a tail.” More than 8,000 living species are currently recognized, ranging from fingernail-sized rainforest frogs to hefty bullfrogs and wonderfully peculiar burrowing forms.

So, British Columbia’s fossil record offers both genuine frogs and frog crabs: one built to leap, the other built to scuttle—and neither especially interested in clearing up the confusion.

Lead Image: Asset ID: 2780548337

SEA LIONS: THE OCEAN’S LOUDEST LANDLORDS

Sea Lion Skull

Sea lions are sleek, intelligent marine predators capable of diving through cold ocean water with astonishing speed and grace. 

They are also large, noisy mammals that gather on beaches, docks and navigation buoys to bark at one another as though someone has violated a complicated parking agreement.

They belong to the family Otariidae, the group known as the eared seals. This family includes both sea lions and fur seals, which means that a fur seal is a sea lion’s closest living relative. 

Their next-nearest pinniped cousins are walruses and the “true,” or earless, seals. All belong to the carnivoran group Pinnipedia, a name meaning “fin-footed.” 

They are not closely related to actual lions, despite the whiskers, impressive males and tendency to occupy prime waterfront property while roaring at the neighbours.

You can usually distinguish a sea lion from a true seal by looking for three things: visible external ear flaps, long front flippers and an ability to rotate the hind flippers beneath the body. 

That rotating hip-and-flipper arrangement allows a sea lion to rise up and walk remarkably well on land. 

True seals cannot bring their hind flippers beneath them and must wriggle or bounce along on their bellies. Both approaches are effective, but only one looks as though the animal has temporarily misplaced its legs.

SEA LIONS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD

The deeper history of sea lions begins with the evolution of pinnipeds, whose oldest definitive fossils date from roughly 30.6 to 23 million years ago, during the Oligocene. These early fin-footed carnivores were not modern sea lions, seals or walruses but members of an evolutionary experiment that was gradually transforming land-dwelling hunters into marine specialists.

One famous transitional pinniped is Puijila darwini, an otter-like animal that lived in the Canadian Arctic about 24 million years ago. Puijila had a long tail, muscular limbs and webbed feet rather than full flippers. 

It swam through freshwater lakes using its legs, offering us a glimpse of what an early stage in the move from land to sea may have looked like. Picture a large aquatic mustelid testing the water and unknowingly beginning an evolutionary journey that would eventually produce a thousand-kilogram animal shouting from a rock.

The oldest known members of the sea lion and fur seal family are species of Eotaria, discovered in marine rocks of southern California. Eotaria crypta, known from part of a lower jaw with preserved teeth, lived approximately 17.1 to 15 million years ago during the middle Miocene. 

These early otariids were much smaller than today’s great bull sea lions and retained some primitive features in their teeth. Their fossils help bridge the anatomical gap between earlier pinnipeds and the more specialized eared seals that followed.

By the late Miocene, otariids such as Pithanotaria and Thalassoleon were swimming in the North Pacific. Fossils of these animals have been recovered from California, Mexico and Japan. Pithanotaria was relatively small, while species of Thalassoleon were larger and more robust. 

Together, they document an early radiation of eared seals along the productive coastlines of the North Pacific.

The fossil record suggests that this region was the evolutionary cradle of the family. Sea lions and fur seals remained northern animals for much of their early history before some lineages crossed the equator. Fossil and evolutionary evidence indicates that otariids expanded into the Southern Hemisphere roughly six to seven million years ago, perhaps helped by periods of cooler water and increased marine productivity along the eastern Pacific. 

Once across, they diversified around South America and eventually reached the coasts and islands of Australia, New Zealand and the Southern Ocean.

Recognizable members of the living sea lion genera appear much later, mainly during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. An early fossil identified as the modern Steller sea lion, Eumetopias jubatus, comes from Early Pleistocene deposits in Japan. 

The fossil record of modern sea lions is frustratingly incomplete, however. Marine mammals often die offshore, where their skeletons may be scattered, scavenged, dissolved or buried somewhere inconvenient beneath several million years of ocean sediment. Palaeontology does not always deliver a complete skeleton with a name tag attached.

WHO ARE THEIR CLOSEST RELATIVES?

Sea lions’ nearest living relatives are the fur seals, with which they share the family Otariidae. The familiar division between “sea lion” and “fur seal” is useful but does not form two perfectly separate evolutionary branches. Genetic research shows that some animals called fur seals are more closely related to particular sea lions than they are to other fur seals. Evolution, as usual, has looked at our tidy filing system and scattered the folders across the floor.

Fur seals generally have dense underfur, more pointed faces and somewhat smaller bodies. Sea lions tend to be larger, with shorter, coarser coats and broad snouts. Both have visible ears and can rotate their hind limbs forward.

Beyond the otariid family, sea lions are related to walruses and true seals. Their more distant living relatives on land lie among the musteloid carnivorans, the broader assemblage that includes weasels, otters, badgers, skunks, raccoons and red pandas. So, if you have ever thought that a sea lion resembles an otter that joined a gym, developed a booming voice and acquired beachfront real estate, you are not entirely without evolutionary support.

WHERE SEA LIONS LIVE TODAY

• Living sea lions occur almost entirely around the Pacific Ocean and in the Southern Hemisphere. The six living species are:
• Steller sea lion — Eumetopias jubatus: Found around the North Pacific, from Japan and Russia through Alaska and south along the western coast of North America.
• California sea lion — Zalophus californianus: Inhabits the Pacific coast of North America, particularly California and Mexico, with animals sometimes travelling much farther north.
• Galápagos sea lion — Zalophus wollebaeki: Lives primarily around the Galápagos Islands.
• South American sea lion — Otaria byronia: Occurs along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, from Peru and Brazil southward around Tierra del Fuego.
• Australian sea lion — Neophoca cinerea: Restricted to the southern and western coasts of Australia.
• New Zealand sea lion — Phocarctos hookeri: Found around New Zealand and its subantarctic islands.

A seventh modern species, the Japanese sea lion, Zalophus japonicus, once lived around Japan and neighbouring waters but disappeared during the twentieth century after intense hunting and other human pressures.

Curiously, there are no native sea lions in the North Atlantic. If you encounter a large pinniped lounging on the Canadian Atlantic coast, you are probably looking at a true seal rather than a sea lion. 

On the Pacific coast of British Columbia that I call home, however, Steller and California sea lions are familiar residents and visitors. Steller sea lions are the giants of the family: adult males can exceed 1,000 kilograms, making them roughly the mass of a small car, although considerably more opinionated.

BUILT FOR WATER—AND QUITE CAPABLE ON LAND

Sea lions swim mainly by sweeping their long front flippers through the water like wings. Their flexible bodies and powerful shoulders allow them to pursue fish, squid and other marine prey with impressive agility. They can dive for several minutes, slow their heart rate and direct oxygen toward vital organs while underwater.

Their whiskers, properly called vibrissae, are extraordinarily sensitive. They can detect tiny movements and pressure changes left behind by swimming prey, allowing a sea lion to follow a fish’s underwater trail even when visibility is poor. To us, a fish has vanished. To a sea lion, it has left the aquatic equivalent of a glowing arrow marked LUNCH WENT THIS WAY.

Sea lions are also highly intelligent. They can learn complex behaviours, recognize patterns and retain information for long periods. Studies have shown that they can understand relationships between symbols and apply learned rules to new situations. 

Their trainability explains their long history in aquariums and marine research programs, although it is worth remembering that “trainable” does not mean “domesticated.” A wild sea lion is still a powerful predator with large teeth and firm opinions about personal space.

They are intensely social, gathering at breeding colonies called rookeries and resting sites called haul-outs. Adult males may establish territories and compete loudly for access to females. 

The resulting colony is a dense mixture of barks, growls, grunts, pups calling for their mothers and enormous males arguing over several metres of beach. Imagine a family reunion, a crowded campground and a municipal council meeting occurring simultaneously, but everyone is wearing the same brown coat.

Sea lions are elegant swimmers, successful marine hunters and living representatives of an evolutionary lineage stretching back into the Miocene. Their fossils preserve the story of carnivorous mammals moving into the sea, transforming limbs into flippers and spreading from the North Pacific into southern oceans.

They are, in short, magnificent products of evolution: fast in the water, surprisingly mobile on land, equipped with sensitive whiskers—and absolutely convinced that the entire coastline needs to hear what they have to say.

Lead Image: Asset ID 2353933491

ICE AGE MANATEES

Manatees do not live year-round in Texas, but these gentle sea cows are known to occasionally visit, swimming in for a summer vacation and returning to warmer waters for the winter. 

Interestingly, we have recently found fossil evidence for manatees along the Texas coast dating back to the most recent ice age. 

The discovery raises questions about whether manatees have been visiting for thousands of years, or if an ancient population of ice age manatees once called Texas home.

The findings were published in Palaeontologia Electronica by lead author Christopher Bell, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences with co-authors Sam Houston State University Natural History Collections curator William Godwin and SHSU alumna Kelsey Jenkins — now a graduate student at Yale University — and SHSU Professor Patrick Lewis.

The eight fossils described in the paper include manatee jawbones and rib fragments from the Pleistocene, the geological epoch of the last ice age. Most of the bones were collected from McFaddin Beach near Port Arthur and Caplen Beach near Galveston during the past 50 years by amateur fossil collectors who donated their finds to the SHSU collections.

The Jackson Museum of Earth History at UT holds two of the specimens. A lower jawbone fossil, which was donated to the SHSU collections by amateur collector Joe Liggio, jumpstarted the research.

Manatee jawbones have a distinct S-shaped curve that immediately caught Godwin's eye. But Godwin said he was met with scepticism when he sought other manatee fossils for comparison. He recalls reaching out to a local fossil enthusiast who told him point-blank, "there are no Pleistocene manatees in Texas."

But an examination of the fossils by Bell and Lewis proved otherwise. The bones belonged to the same species of manatee that visits the Texas coast today, Trichechus manatus. An upper jawbone donated by U.S. Rep. Brian Babin was found to belong to an extinct form of the manatee, Trichechus manatus bakerorum.

The age of the manatee fossils is based on their association with better-known ice age fossils and paleo-Indian artefacts that have been found on the same beaches.

It is assumed that the cooler ice age climate would have made Texas waters even less hospitable to manatees than they are today. But the fact that manatees were in Texas — whether as visitors or residents — raises questions about the ancient environment and ancient manatees. The Texas coast stretched much farther into the Gulf of Mexico and hosted wider river outlets during the ice age than it does today. Either the coastal climate was warmer than is generally thought, or ice age manatees were more resilient to cooler temperatures than manatees of today.

Subsurface imaging of the now flooded modern continental shelf reveals both a greater number of coastal embayments and the presence of significantly wider channels during ice age times.

If there was a population of ice age manatees in Texas, it is entirely plausible that they would have ridden out winters in these warmer river outlets similar to how they do today in Florida and Mexico.

Reference: Christopher Bell, William Godwin, Kelsey Jenkins, Patrick Lewis. First fossil manatees in Texas: Trichechus manatus bakerorum in the Pleistocene fauna from beach deposits along the Texas Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Palaeontologia Electronica, 2020; DOI: 10.26879/1006

ELASMOSAURID PLESIOSAUR FROM MOROCCO

Libonectes atlasense / Andy Chua Collection

A beautifully preserved mandible of Libonectes atlasense, an elasmosaurid plesiosaur from early Turonian, Upper Cretaceous,  deposits of the Akrabou Formation near Asfla Village, Goulmima, Errachidia Province in eastern central Morocco.

The collecting area is in the region of Drâa-Tafilalet. You may know Errachidia as Ksar Souk. It was renamed My Rachid, in honour of the Moroccan royal family. Libonectes is a genus of sauropterygian reptile belonging to the plesiosaurs. Specimens have been found in the Britton Formation of Texas and the Akrabou Formation of Morocco.

Sauropterygian reptiles were a diverse taxon of extinct aquatic reptiles that arose from terrestrial ancestors just after the Permian extinction event. They flourished during the Triassic then all but the plesiosaurs became extinct at the end of the Triassic — with the plesiosaurs dying out at the end of the Cretaceous.

The holotype of Libonectes atlasense is an almost complete skeleton from Upper Cretaceous (mid-Turonian) rocks of the Goulmima area in eastern Morocco. Sven Sachs from the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld and Benjamin P. Kear from Uppsala University co-authored a paper redescribing the elasmosaurid plesiosaurian Libonectes atlasense from the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco. They did an initial assessment of the specimen in 2005, proposing a generic referral based on stratigraphical contemporaneity with Libonectes morgani from the CenomanianeTuronian of Texas, U.S.A.

Relative differences in the profile of the premaxillary-maxillary tooth row, position of the external bony nasal opening, number of teeth and rostrad inclination of the mandibular symphysis, proportions of the axial neural arch, and number of cervical and pectoral vertebrae were used to distinguish between these species.

Libonectes Scale Drawing / Hyrotrioskjan

As part of an on-going comparative appraisal of elasmosaurid plesiosaurian osteo-anatomy, they re-examined the type and formally referred material of both L. atlasense and L. morgani in order to establish species validity, as well as compile a comparative atlas for use in future works.

Their work revealed that these reportedly distinct species-level fossils are in fact virtually indistinguishable in gross morphology.

Indeed, the only substantial difference occurs in relative prominence of the midline keel along the mandibular symphysis, which might be explained by intraspecific variation. Their observations permit an amendment to the published generic diagnosis of Libonectes with the confirmation of important states such as the likely presence of a pectoral bar, distocaudad expansion of the humerus, and an epipodial foramen.

And we see some entirely new features. Novel features include a prominent ‘prong-like’ ventral midline process on the coracoids and the development of a median pelvic bar that encloses a central fenestration. Their work shows that the composite remains of L. morgani thus constitute one of the most complete elasmosaurid skeletal hypodigms documented worldwide, and evidence a trans-Atlantic distribution for this apparently dispersive species during the early Late Cretaceous. The impressive mandible you see here is in the collection of Andy Chua.

Sachs, Sven and Kear, Benjamin. (2017). Redescription of the elasmosaurid plesiosaurian Libonectes atlasense from the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco. Cretaceous Research. 74. 205-222. 10.1016/j.cretres.2017.02.017.

Photo: Libonectes atlasense specimen, Andy Chua

Drawing By Hyrotrioskjan - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57716018

FOSSIL HUNTRESS PODCAST: DEAD SEXY SCIENCE

Geeky goodness from the Fossil Huntress. If you love paleontology, you will love this stream. Dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites—you'll find them all here!

Close your eyes & fly with me as we head out together to explore Earth's rich history written in her rock. Travel to extraordinary places, sacred sites & unearth mysteries millions of years old on the Fossil Huntress Podcast.

This stream is for those who share an enduring passion for our world's hidden treasures, its wild places & want to uncover her beauty stone by stone.

This is the story of the making of our Earth and the many wonderful creatures who have called it home.

Join in the exploration of the fascinating science of paleontology — that lens that examines ancient animals, plants & ecosystems from wee single-celled organisms to big & mighty dinosaurs. Save the stream to your favorites to listen while you drive, head out fossil collecting or snuggle in for the night!

​To listen now, visit: https://open.spotify.com/show/1hH1wpDFFIlYC9ZW5uTYVL

OIL IN WATER BEAUTY: FOSSILS OF FOLKSTONE

Sheer beauty — a beautiful Euhoplites ammonite from Folkstone, UK. I've been really enjoying looking at all oil-in-water colouring and chunkiness of these ammonites.

Euhoplites is an extinct ammonoid cephalopod from the Lower Cretaceous, characterized by strongly ribbed, more or less evolute, compressed to inflated shells with flat or concave ribs, typically with a deep narrow groove running down the middle.

In some, ribs seem to zigzag between umbilical tubercles and parallel ventrolateral clavi. In others, the ribs are flexious and curve forward from the umbilical shoulder and lap onto either side of the venter.

Its shell is covered in the lovely lumps and bumps we associate with the genus. The function of these adornments are unknown. I wonder if they gave them greater strength to go deeper into the ocean to hunt for food. 

They look to have been a source of hydrodynamic drag, likely preventing Euhoplites from swimming at speed. Studying them may give some insight into the lifestyle of this ancient marine predator. Euhoplites had shells ranging in size up to a 5-6cm. 

We find them in Lower Cretaceous, middle to upper Albian age strata. Euhoplites has been found in Middle and Upper Albian beds in France where it is associated respectively with Hoplites and Anahoplites, and Pleurohoplites, Puzosia, and Desmoceras; in the Middle Albian of Brazil with Anahoplites and Turrilites; and in the Cenomanian of Texas.

This species is the most common ammonite from the Folkstone Fossil Beds in southeastern England where a variety of species are found, including this 37mm beauty from the collections of José Juárez Ruiz.

HEROES, VILLAINS AND FOSSILS: HORNBY ISLAND HISTORY

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset. 

If you pick through the literature, it is a whose who of monied European explorers literally making a name for themselves, sometimes at great cost to their rivals. 

This truth plays out on British Columbia's West Coast and gulf islands and on Hornby Island, in particular. 

The beautiful island of Hornby is in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch or K’ómoks First Nation, who call it Ja-dai-aich, which means the outer island — a reference to Hornby being on the outside of Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The island is a mix of beach and meadow, forest and stream. While I often walk the lower beachfront, this island boasts a lovely and very walkable mixed forest that covers its higher ground. 

If you explore here, off the beaten path, you will see a mix of large conifers — Western Hemlock, Grand Fir and Lodgepole Pine on the island. Of these, the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is the most prized by First Nations. It is the Tree of Life that provides bountiful raw materials for creating everything from art to homes to totems and canoes. 

If you explore these forests further, you will also see wonderful examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a wee evergreen that holds a special place in the hearts of First Nations whose carvers use this wood for bows and paddles for canoes.

Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.

There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby. 

Local First Nations fire-managed these stands of Garry oak, burning away shrubs and other woody plants so that the thick-barked oaks and nutritious starch-rich plants like great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, could thrive without any nutrient competitors. 

Only about 260 acres (1.1 km2) of undisturbed stands of older forests have been identified on Hornby. They amount to roughly 3.5% of the island's surface area. There are roughly 1,330 acres (540 ha) of older second-growth stands on the island, roughly 19% of the island.

Most of the trees you see on the island are Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, an evergreen conifer species in the pine family. My Uncle Doug recognized this tree species because of how much the bark looks like bacon — a food he loved. The common name is a nod to the Scottish botanist, David Douglas, who collected and first reported on this large evergreen.

Captain George Vancouver's Commission to Lieutenant

Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. 

He is also credited with the scientific naming of our lovely arbutus trees. 

Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Their voyage was built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals — those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C — and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. 

Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was the poster child for British colonialism and Valentine's gone horribly wrong. He was attacked and summarily killed on February 14, 1779, during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific. Having foolishly considered the "natives" as specimens and not human beings, he met his end while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. 

During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take. 

The expedition returned to a Britain more interested in its ongoing war than in Pacific explorations. Vancouver was attacked by the politically well-connected Menzies for various slights, then challenged to a duel by Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron of Camelford. 

The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.

And while it is now called Vancouver the city has many names as it falls within the traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish (Sḵwxwú7mesh), Tsleil-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem ("Musqueam"—from masqui "an edible grass that grows in the sea"), and on the southern shores of Vancouver along the Fraser River, the Xwméthkwyiem.

If you would like to explore more of the history of eponymous naming from Linnaeus to Darwin, to Bowie himself, take a boo at a new book from Stephen B. Heard, "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. It is fresh off the press and chock full of historical and pop-culture icons.

References: The City of Vancouver Archives has three George Vancouver documents of note:

• The Commission, dated July 10, 1783, appointing him fourth Lieutenant of the HMS Fame (this is the official document confirming a field commission given to him May 7, 1782)
• A letter to James Sykes (a Navy Agent in London) written from the ship Discovery (not the same Discovery used by Cook) while in Nootka Sound near the end of Vancouver’s exploration of the West Coast, October 2, 1794. Vancouver states that they have determined that the Northwest Passage does not exist, which was one of the main goals of his voyage
• A letter to James Sykes written from Vancouver’s home in Petersham, England, after his voyage, October 26, 1797 

THRISSOPS FORMOSUS: A SLEEK HUNTER FROM THE JURASSIC SEAS

Meet Thrissops formosus, a beautifully streamlined ray-finned fish that patrolled the warm tropical waters of Europe during the Late Jurassic, roughly 150 million years ago. 

At first glance, this handsome fellow looks surprisingly modern—rather like a herring decided to grow teeth, become a serious predator and pose magnificently for the fossil record.

Thrissops formosus was an early teleost, belonging to the enormously successful branch of ray-finned fishes that includes most living fish species. The name “ray-finned” refers to fins supported by slender bony rays rather than the muscular, fleshy lobes seen in coelacanths, lungfish and the distant ancestors of land vertebrates.

With its elongated body, pointed head and deeply forked tail, Thrissops was built for swimming through open water. Its jaws carried rows of small, sharp teeth suited to seizing other fish. 

Some individuals may have approached 80 centimetres in length, making T. formosus one of the larger predatory teleosts of its ecosystem—not a sea monster, certainly, but probably an unwelcome sight if you happened to be a small Jurassic fish going about your day.

Its narrow tail base and strongly forked caudal fin suggest an active swimmer capable of bursts of speed. The dorsal and anal fins were positioned far back on the body, where they would have helped stabilize the fish during pursuit. This was not an animal designed to shuffle politely along the seabed. Thrissops belonged in the water column, where lunch was mobile and catching it required some effort.

Fossils of Thrissops formosus are best known from the famous lithographic limestones of the Solnhofen Archipelago in Bavaria, southern Germany. 

The species was originally named by Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz in 1833, with its type material coming from Late Kimmeridgian rocks near Kelheim. Additional specimens are known from Late Kimmeridgian and Early Tithonian deposits at localities including Solnhofen, Eichstätt and Ettling. 

Fossils assigned to the species have also been reported from the Late Jurassic limestones of Cerin in eastern France. Together, these finds place the species near the close of the Jurassic Period. A recent taxonomic review documents the species and its principal localities.

At the time, this part of Europe was not the continuous landscape we know today. It was an archipelago of small islands surrounded by warm, shallow seas along the northern margin of the Tethys Ocean. 

Quiet, restricted lagoons accumulated extremely fine carbonate mud. When animals sank into these low-oxygen environments, scavenging and decay could be slowed long enough for remarkably detailed fossils to form.

These same delicious deposits preserved Archaeopteryx, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, crustaceans, ammonites, insects and an extraordinary variety of fishes. 

The fine-grained limestone captured delicate structures that would normally disappear, including fin membranes, soft tissues and, in exceptional Thrissops specimens, traces of the fish’s original colour pattern.

Dark markings have been detected within or associated with the scales of some specimens. These are linked to preserved melanin—the pigment responsible for many dark colours in living animals. 

We cannot yet restore the fish’s entire wardrobe with confidence, but the fossils indicate that Thrissops formosus was not necessarily the plain silver torpedo we might otherwise imagine. After 150 million years, even a hint of its original patterning feels astonishingly intimate.

One beautifully preserved specimen from Ettling also carries evidence of an injured tail. The damage appears to have healed while the fish was alive, meaning this particular Thrissops escaped an attack and continued swimming. The likely attacker may have been another predatory fish. Apparently, the Jurassic seas offered both excellent fossilization and absolutely dreadful customer service.

As for its family connections, Thrissops formosus belonged to the extinct order Ichthyodectiformes. These fishes first appeared during the Jurassic and survived into the Late Cretaceous. They were generally streamlined marine predators, although the group eventually produced a remarkable variety of sizes and body forms.

The closest relatives of T. formosus were other species of Thrissops and closely allied Jurassic ichthyodectiforms such as Allothrissops. 

Cretaceous Predator, Xiphactinus

More distant members of the same evolutionary radiation included Ichthyodectes, Saurodon, Cladocyclus and the enormous Cretaceous predator Xiphactinus. 

At around five metres long, Xiphactinus was the sort of relative whose arrival would cause everyone else at the family reunion to quietly leave the swimming pool.

That relationship does not mean Thrissops was a miniature Xiphactinus or its direct ancestor. 

Both belonged to the ichthyodectiform branch, but they occupied different positions within a lineage extending across more than 100 million years. Thrissops represents one of the early experiments in the fast-swimming, fish-eating body plan that later ichthyodectiforms carried to much larger—and occasionally outrageous—proportions.

Its relationship to living fish requires a little more care. Thrissops formosus has no close living equivalent and the entire ichthyodectiform lineage is extinct. Some evolutionary studies place Ichthyodectiformes just outside Teleocephala, the great group containing the vast majority of living teleost fishes. 

In that interpretation, Thrissops was close to the early evolutionary assembly of modern teleost anatomy, but it was not itself a member of any living family. Its precise position remains debated as researchers continue comparing skulls, vertebrae, fins and tail skeletons across early fossil teleosts. One broad analysis recovered T. formosus as the sister taxon to Teleocephala.

Recent research has also shown that the genus Thrissops was more diverse than previously recognized. Newly described species from the Kimmeridge Clay of Dorset, England, and the Ettling deposits of Bavaria demonstrate that several related forms occupied Late Jurassic European seas. This work reinforces the importance of Thrissops as one of the earliest groups of comparatively large predatory teleosts.

What makes Thrissops formosus so compelling is the combination of familiarity and deep time. Its streamlined shape, forked tail and predatory lifestyle would not look entirely out of place in a modern ocean, yet this fish lived alongside ammonites, marine crocodile relatives, pterosaurs and Archaeopteryx. 

It emerged during an important chapter in teleost evolution, long before ray-finned fishes achieved their present extraordinary diversity.

Today, teleosts inhabit nearly every aquatic environment on Earth, from coral reefs and mountain streams to polar seas and the deepest ocean trenches. 

Thrissops formosus belonged near the beginning of that astonishing story: a swift Jurassic hunter preserved in limestone, carrying within its skeleton clues to the evolutionary rise of the fishes that would eventually conquer the world’s waters.

Not bad for an animal that looks, at first glance, like someone left a particularly ambitious herring pressed between the pages of Earth’s oldest scrapbook.

Lead Image: Asset ID: 2711635879. Vernadsky State Geological Museum, Moscow, Russia

MEET THE ICHTHYOSAURS: THE ORIGINAL SEA DRAGONS

Long before whales began singing through the oceans—and while dinosaurs were still finding their feet on land—sleek, sharp-toothed reptiles were already patrolling the ancient seas.

Meet the ichthyosaurs.

Their name means “fish lizard,” though they were neither fish nor dinosaurs. Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles whose distant ancestors had lived on land before returning to the water. 

Over millions of years, evolution reshaped their bodies for life at sea: legs became flippers, snouts lengthened, tails deepened and streamlined bodies emerged that looked remarkably like those of modern dolphins.

This similarity is a lovely example of convergent evolution. When unrelated animals face the same challenges, evolution sometimes arrives at strikingly similar solutions. If you need to move quickly through water, a torpedo-shaped body is difficult to improve upon. Dolphins would not appear until tens of millions of years after the last ichthyosaurs vanished, but nature had already tested the design—and it worked beautifully.

The earliest known ichthyosaur relatives appeared around 250 million years ago, shortly after the devastating end-Permian mass extinction. They diversified rapidly during the Triassic Period and remained part of marine ecosystems for roughly 160 million years. 

Some early forms had long, flexible bodies and may have swum with an eel-like motion. Later species developed the familiar compact, dolphin-shaped profile, complete with powerful tails and paddle-like limbs. Natural History Museum

They came in a remarkable range of sizes. Some were only a metre or two long, while others became true ocean giants. 

One of the most extraordinary was Shonisaurus sikanniensis, discovered beside the Sikanni Chief River in northeastern British Columbia. At approximately 21 metres long, this immense Triassic ichthyosaur was longer than many modern whales. 

Excavating it from its remote riverside resting place required three field seasons between 1999 and 2001. Today, the specimen is displayed at Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum—a magnificent reminder that some of the largest creatures ever to swim once moved through seas covering what is now western Canada. Royal Tyrrell Museum

Ichthyosaurs were active predators. Depending on the species, they hunted fish, squid-like cephalopods and other marine animals. Their long jaws were often lined with conical teeth ideal for gripping slippery prey—nature’s answer to the problem of trying to catch lunch when lunch is wet, fast and deeply opposed to being eaten.

Many ichthyosaurs also possessed enormous eyes supported by rings of bone called sclerotic rings. These structures helped the eyes maintain their shape under water and may have allowed some species to hunt in dimly lit depths. Ophthalmosaurus—whose name appropriately means “eye lizard”—had eyes among the largest known in any vertebrate. 

Imagine a marine reptile cutting through dark Jurassic water, guided by eyes built to gather the faintest traces of light. It is equal parts beautiful and unsettling, which is really the sweet spot for prehistoric ocean life.

Perhaps the most intimate ichthyosaur fossils are those preserving mothers with embryos inside their bodies. Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young rather than crawling ashore to lay eggs. Some extraordinary specimens even preserve babies in the process of being born.

Their young were generally delivered tail-first, an adaptation that may have reduced the danger of drowning during birth. For an animal whose limbs had become flippers and whose body was completely committed to life at sea, returning to land was no longer an option. The ocean was not merely where ichthyosaurs hunted—it was where they lived, mated, gave birth and died.

Their fossils can preserve astonishing details. In a few exceptional specimens, the outlines of skin and soft tissue reveal dorsal fins and the shape of the tail, features that bones alone cannot fully show. 

Gastroliths from Trent River Ichthyosaur

Fossilised stomach contents offer glimpses of their final meals, while injuries and healed bones record encounters with predators, prey and the everyday hazards of life in Mesozoic seas.

Ichthyosaurs survived several enormous environmental changes, but they disappeared approximately 90 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous—well before the asteroid impact that ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs. 

Their extinction appears to have been connected to changing oceans, climatic instability and disruptions to marine ecosystems rather than one tidy dramatic event. Evolution rarely provides us with a simple exit scene.

The story of the ichthyosaur is also woven into the beginnings of palaeontology. 

In the early nineteenth century, the brilliant fossil hunter Mary Anning helped excavate an important ichthyosaur skeleton from the cliffs near Lyme Regis, England. Her discoveries challenged contemporary ideas about extinction and revealed that Earth had once been inhabited by animals unlike anything living today. Natural History Museum

To stand before an ichthyosaur fossil is to look at one of evolution’s great experiments: a land-dwelling reptile transformed into a master of the open ocean. It carried no snorkel, laid no eggs on a convenient beach and bore no relation to the dolphins it so strongly resembled.

It was something older, stranger and entirely its own. A fish-shaped reptile. A mother of the Mesozoic seas. A swift hunter with dinner-grabbing teeth and, in some species, eyes large enough to make even the darkness nervous. A true sea dragon from a world long gone.

Image: Asset ID: 2547389153

TINY DINOSAUR WITH BIG SECRETS: ALNASHETRI

Alnashetri cerropoliciensis

Slip back 90 million years and wander the sun-baked floodplains of Patagonia, where the giants get all the glory—but it’s the tiny, fleet-footed oddballs that hold the real secrets.

Meet Alnashetri cerropoliciensis, a delicate little dinosaur with a big story to tell. We’re talking under two pounds soaking wet—lighter than your average house cat—but armed with clues powerful enough to untangle one of palaeontology’s most puzzling lineages: the alvarezsaurs.

These were no ordinary theropods. Picture a bird-like body, teeth reduced to tiny pegs, and arms so short they seem almost comical—until you notice the business end: a single, oversized claw built for digging. Think ant-eater, but make it a dinosaur.

For decades, alvarezsaurs have been a bit of a head-scratcher. Beautiful fossils from Asia told part of the tale, but their South American cousins? Fragmentary, elusive, maddeningly incomplete. Then along comes Alnashetri—a near-complete skeleton pulled from the fossil-rich beds of La Buitrera—and suddenly the story sharpens into focus.

And what a twist it is.

This wee creature shows us that alvarezsaurs didn’t shrink because they specialized—they were already pint-sized before evolving their quirky, ant-snuffling toolkit. Longer arms, bigger teeth—Alnashetri still carries the echoes of its less specialized ancestors. It’s evolution mid-sentence, frozen in bone.

Even better, it’s fully grown. No baby here. Just a tiny adult navigating a world of much larger predators with speed, stealth, and a very particular taste in snacks.

The real magic? This fossil acts like a Rosetta Stone for the group, giving scientists a reference point to decode those scrappy, half-told specimens tucked away in collections around the world. Suddenly, the family tree starts to make sense.

And the plot thickens.

Rather than evolving in one place and spreading outward, these curious little dinosaurs likely trace their roots back to Pangaea—before the continents tore themselves apart. As the landmasses drifted, so too did their descendants, leaving behind a scattered but connected fossil trail across the globe.

So here we have it: a tiny dinosaur rewriting a very big story. A cheeky wee dino challenging what we thought we knew!

Reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10194-3

DINOSAUR RIVALRY: MANTELLISAURUS

Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis 

This story begins some 125 million years ago on the lush floodplains of what is now the Isle of Wight, back in the Cretaceous.

Forget the cool, windswept English coastline of today. This was a warm, subtropical world of broad rivers, oxbow lakes and sprawling wetlands, where towering conifers, cycads and tree ferns sheltered one of Europe's richest dinosaur ecosystems. 

Early flowering plants were just beginning to appear, while insects buzzed through the forests and reptiles called across the floodplains.

Here, herds of Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis browsed on tender vegetation. At seven to eight metres (23–26 feet) long, these elegant herbivores were among the largest animals in their world. 

Their long hind limbs suggest they could move surprisingly quickly when needed—particularly if a hungry Neovenator emerged from the trees. 

Nothing encourages cardio quite like becoming someone else's lunch.

Its hands were every bit as remarkable as the rest of the animal. Projecting from each was a formidable thumb spike. Victorian artists loved depicting these dinosaurs charging into battle like armoured knights, but the reality was likely less theatrical. 

The spikes probably served as defensive weapons, may have helped settle disputes during the breeding season and perhaps even assisted in pulling down stubborn vegetation. Evolution has always appreciated a multitool.

The elongated fifth finger tells another story. Unlike the stout thumb, it was surprisingly flexible, capable of curling around branches to draw foliage closer—a wonderfully delicate adaptation for an animal weighing well over a tonne.

This specimen was discovered in 1914 by geologist Reginald Walter Hooley in the Upper Vectis Formation near Atherfield on the Isle of Wight. 

Described in 1917 and formally named Iguanodon atherfieldensis in 1925, it spent more than eighty years as a member of the ever-growing Iguanodon family.

That changed in 2007, when American palaeoartist and researcher Gregory S. Paul recognised that it was something quite different. 

More lightly built, with longer limbs and closer evolutionary ties to the African iguanodontian Ouranosaurus, it deserved a genus of its own. Paul named it Mantellisaurus, honouring Dr Gideon Algernon Mantell, the Sussex physician whose discoveries helped launch the science of dinosaurs.

Mantell's story is one of brilliance, perseverance and one of Victorian science's greatest rivalries.

In 1822, he described Iguanodon, only the second dinosaur ever scientifically named.

Mantell spent decades collecting fossils and championing these extraordinary animals, only to find himself increasingly at odds with the formidable anatomist Sir Richard Owen.

Owen coined the word Dinosauria and later became the driving force behind London's Natural History Museum, but he also had a habit of eclipsing rivals—and few felt that more keenly than Mantell. The two men disagreed about almost everything, from dinosaur anatomy to broader questions of evolution, as they emerged in Victorian science.

Mantell increasingly recognised that these animals were active, lightly built and far more dynamic than giant lizards. Owen preferred to reconstruct them as slow, heavily built, rhinoceros-like reptiles that fit comfortably within his creationist view of nature.

When Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins created the famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs during the 1850s, it was Owen's interpretation that guided the sculptures. 

Visitors marvelled at enormous reptilian beasts, including an Iguanodon sporting what appeared to be a horn proudly perched upon its nose.

As science advanced—and as more complete skeletons were discovered, particularly the spectacular Bernissart specimens from Belgium—we learned that the famous "horn" was, in fact, the thumb spike.

One of the most iconic mistakes in palaeontology had become one of its best-known corrections.

SPOTTED HYENA: THE BONE-CRUSHING GENIUS OF THE ICE AGE

Spotted Hyena, Crocuta crocuta

This charming fellow with the questionable dental hygiene is a Spotted Hyena, Crocuta crocuta. 

As a whole, these lovelies have been terribly misrepresented.

For generations, the hyena has been portrayed as a skulking, cowardly scavenger that loiters at the edge of someone else’s dinner, laughs unpleasantly and waits for an opportunity to steal the leftovers.

This is slander.

Spotted hyenas are intelligent, highly social and extremely capable predators. They hunt much of their own food, maintain complex relationships within large clans and possess jaws powerful enough to dismantle bones that would cause most carnivores to reconsider their career choices.

They are hunters, scavengers, bone-crushers, attentive mothers and enthusiastic recyclers. They are also survivors from an ancient lineage that once ranged far beyond Africa.

A SURVIVOR WITH AN ICE AGE PAST

Today, spotted hyenas live in sub-Saharan Africa, occupying savannas, grasslands, open woodlands, scrublands and semi-desert environments. Their fossil record, however, tells a much larger story.

During the Pleistocene, hyenas belonging to the genus Crocuta lived across vast portions of Africa and Eurasia. Their range extended through Europe and Asia, including regions that are far too cold to support spotted hyenas today.

The great Eurasian form is commonly called the cave hyena. It has traditionally been classified as Crocuta crocuta spelaea, a prehistoric subspecies of the living spotted hyena. Some researchers have argued that it deserves recognition as a separate species, Crocuta spelaea. 

Fossil anatomy and genetic evidence indicate that the relationship between living spotted hyenas and the vanished cave hyenas was close, although their exact classification continues to be discussed.

Cave hyenas were generally large and powerfully built. Their fossils are frequently found in caves, but they were not necessarily permanent cave dwellers. Caves were used as dens, sheltered places to raise young and convenient locations for dragging food away from competitors.

Apparently, “Do not bring bones inside” was not a house rule in the Pleistocene.

Fossil hyena dens can contain hundreds or even thousands of animal bones. These assemblages are extraordinarily valuable to us because they preserve evidence of prey selection, feeding behaviour and ancient carnivore communities.

NOT A DOG, DESPITE THE OUTFIT

Spotted Hyena, Crocuta crocuta

At first glance, a spotted hyena may appear vaguely dog-like. It has a long muzzle, rounded ears, long legs and a sloping back. 

Yet hyenas are not dogs.

They belong to the suborder Feliformia, the cat-like branch of the mammalian order Carnivora. Their evolutionary relatives include cats, mongooses, civets and genets.

Yet, if you had to guess, you would be making a reasonable one at thinking they were a relative of our canine friends. 

The resemblance to dogs is an example of convergent evolution. Hyenas and certain canids independently developed similar features because they occupied comparable ecological roles as active, ground-dwelling predators.

The spotted hyena’s unusual profile is produced by its long forelimbs and shorter hind limbs. Its shoulders are powerful, its neck is heavily muscled and its skull is built to withstand tremendous forces generated while biting and processing bone.

This is not an animal casually dressed as a dog.

It is a heavily engineered bone-processing machine wearing spots.

THE JAWS THAT LEAVE VERY LITTLE BEHIND

Spotted hyenas possess exceptionally strong jaws and massive premolar teeth. These specialized teeth can crack open the limb bones of large mammals, allowing hyenas to reach the nutritious marrow sealed inside.

Their digestive systems can process skin, tendons, ligaments and bone. Much of the mineral content is absorbed, which is why hyena droppings can appear pale or chalky white.

Hair, hooves and certain other resistant materials may be regurgitated rather than digested. There are limits, after all. Even a hyena has standards.

This ability to consume nearly every usable part of a carcass gives spotted hyenas an important ecological role. They recover nutrients that would otherwise remain trapped inside bones, clean up carrion and reduce the amount of decaying animal matter on the landscape.

They are not merely scavengers. They are ecosystem sanitation specialists with industrial equipment.

We can identify hyena activity by examining the damage preserved on fossil bones. Tooth pits, punctures, scoring, gnawed ends and characteristic patterns of breakage can reveal whether a bone passed through the jaws of a hyena. 

Some bones may also have been partly digested, leaving their surfaces rounded, polished or chemically altered.

A fossil bone covered in hyena tooth marks is more than a damaged specimen. It records behaviour. It tells us that a carnivore found the carcass, chose particular portions, carried or consumed them and altered the remains in recognizable ways.

The hyena left notes. It simply wrote them with its teeth.

HUNTERS, NOT MERELY THIEVES

Spotted hyenas are opportunistic carnivores. They scavenge when carcasses are available, but they are also skilled hunters capable of killing animals ranging from small antelope to zebras, wildebeest and other large ungulates.

They may hunt alone or cooperatively, depending on the prey and circumstances. During group hunts, hyenas can pursue animals over considerable distances, relying on stamina rather than a short explosive ambush.

Lions and hyenas frequently compete for food. Contrary to popular storytelling, theft occurs in both directions. Lions steal kills from hyenas, and hyenas steal from lions when their numbers and confidence permit it.

The question is not which species possesses superior moral character.

The question is who currently has enough relatives nearby to defend lunch.

Although scavenging has been framed negatively in popular culture, it is an entirely sensible survival strategy. Hunting is dangerous and energetically expensive. A predator that ignores an available carcass because it did not personally make the kill is not noble. It is hungry for no good reason.

A MATRIARCHAL SOCIETY

Spotted hyenas live in social groups called clans. Some clans contain only a handful of animals, while others may include dozens of individuals.

Females dominate males, and even lower-ranking adult females generally outrank immigrant males. Rank is often inherited through the maternal line. Young hyenas learn their social position through interactions with their mother and other clan members.

Females are typically larger and more assertive than males. They possess unusually high levels of androgen hormones, which contribute to their muscular build and complex reproductive anatomy.

Female spotted hyenas have an elongated clitoris that resembles a penis externally. They urinate, mate and give birth through this structure. Birth can be difficult, particularly for first-time mothers, making the spotted hyena reproductive system one of the most remarkable—and least convenient—arrangements found among mammals.

Their social lives are equally complex. Clan members recognize individuals, form alliances, maintain rank relationships and cooperate during territorial defence. They use scent markings, body postures and a wide range of vocalizations to communicate.

The famous hyena “laugh” is not a sign that the animal has just remembered an excellent joke. The giggle-like call can communicate excitement, nervousness, submission or social tension. Its pitch may also provide information about the caller’s age and identity.

Spotted hyenas also whoop, grunt, growl, whine and squeal. A hyena clan is not quiet.

There are reputations to manage, alliances to maintain and neighbours to shout at across the savanna.

DEVOTED MOTHERS AND FORMIDABLE CUBS

Spotted hyena cubs are born unusually well developed. Their eyes are open, their teeth have erupted and they are capable of aggressive interactions almost immediately.

Litters commonly consist of one or two cubs. Siblings may compete fiercely, particularly when food is limited or when cubs are the same sex. In some cases, this aggression can result in the death of one cub.

Mothers nurse their young with exceptionally rich milk for an extended period—sometimes well over a year. The cubs depend upon their mothers not only for nutrition, but also for protection and social position within the clan.

A high-ranking mother can provide her offspring with better access to food and influential social partners. In hyena society, knowing the right individuals is important.

Preferably, one of them is your mother.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CAVE HYENAS?

Cave hyenas disappeared from much of Eurasia toward the end of the Pleistocene. Their extinction was probably not caused by a single event.

Climatic changes altered vegetation, prey populations and open habitats. Other large carnivores competed for food and denning sites. Humans also expanded across Eurasia, hunting some of the same animals and occupying caves that hyenas used for shelter and raising cubs.

Humans and cave hyenas may have competed directly for access to caves. This was not a minor disagreement over real estate. A well-positioned cave offered protection, a stable temperature and a defensible place to raise young.

One can imagine the prehistoric property listing:

Spacious limestone chamber. Excellent shelter. Convenient access to migrating herbivores. Previous occupants extremely bitey.

As Eurasian environments changed, cave hyena populations became fragmented and eventually vanished. Their African relatives endured, carrying the spotted hyena lineage into the modern world.

THE LAST LAUGH

The spotted hyena is neither a failed cat nor a peculiar dog. It is a highly specialized carnivore with its own extraordinary evolutionary history.

Its jaws can dismantle skeletons. Its stomach can process materials most predators abandon. Its clans rival primate societies in their complexity, and its fossil relatives once moved through the same Pleistocene landscapes as mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions and early humans.

Far from being a cowardly hanger-on, the spotted hyena is one of the most successful large carnivores alive today.

And after several million years of poor publicity, it may finally deserve to have the last laugh.

THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS: BUILT LIKE A TANK DRESSED FOR WINTER

Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis

The Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis, was one of the great lumbering herbivores of Pleistocene Eurasia. 

Its range stretched across northern Asia and Europe, where it occupied the cold, dry grasslands often called the mammoth steppe.

This was not a modern rhinoceros that had simply found a large coat and decided to brave the snow. It was superbly adapted to cold environments. 

Woolly rhinoceroses possessed thick skin, a dense coat of hair, small ears and a compact body that helped conserve heat. 

A substantial fatty hump over the shoulders provided additional energy reserves and supported the powerful muscles needed to carry its enormous head and horns.

The result was an animal roughly comparable in size to a living white rhinoceros, but with the appearance of someone who had dressed for winter and then lost patience with absolutely everyone.

Its skull supported two horns. The front horn was especially long and flattened from side to side. 

Some researchers have suggested that woolly rhinoceroses may have used this horn to sweep snow away from low-growing vegetation, although it was undoubtedly useful for defence and displays as well.

Its scientific name is particularly delightful. Coelodonta means “hollow tooth,” referring to the deep grooves in the animal’s molars. Those teeth were built for grinding tough, abrasive grasses and other low vegetation. 

Woolly rhinoceroses were predominantly grazers, harvesting the mammoth steppe with all the delicacy of a heavily armed lawnmower.

Their wide lips and low head posture were well suited to cropping plants close to the ground. Microscopic wear and chemical evidence preserved in their teeth also help us reconstruct what they ate and the environments in which they lived.

The woolly rhinoceros was so familiar to Palaeolithic people that it appears in prehistoric art. 

Ancient humans painted and engraved these formidable animals on cave walls and pieces of bone. 

One can imagine that a woolly rhinoceros crossing the landscape was not easily overlooked. It was several tonnes of fur, horn and territorial opinion.

The species survived until approximately 14,000 years ago. Recent genetic research suggests its disappearance may have been relatively rapid and closely associated with abrupt climatic warming and the transformation of its cold, dry habitat. 

Rather than declining steadily through a long period of severe inbreeding, some of the final populations may have remained genetically healthy until conditions changed dramatically. 

The disappearance of the mammoth steppe meant the loss of the particular environment upon which this highly specialized grazer depended. 

Being impressively furry, exceptionally large and equipped with a magnificent horn can take you only so far when your entire ecosystem begins changing beneath your feet.

WOOL, SABRES AND BONE-CRUSHERS: AN ICE AGE MEET-AND-GREET

Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis

Travelling widely is one of the great pleasures of our age. Modern transport makes trips hither and thither much easier than in the past.

You discover new possibilities, see exciting new things and get to see the weird and wacky around the globe. As you know, I love a good museum and greatly enjoy the creativity that goes into making a compelling museum display.

There are museum displays that invite quiet contemplation.

And then there are museum displays that seem to say, “Welcome to the Pleistocene. Please keep your hands, snacks and easily punctured body parts to yourself.”

At the Shanghai Natural History Museum in China, three magnificent mammals stand together in skeletal splendour: the woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis; the sabre-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis; and the spotted hyena, Crocuta crocuta.

It is an impressive gathering of horn, fang and bone-cracking confidence. But before we imagine the three of them meeting at an Ice Age watering hole and arguing over who had the most intimidating dental plan, there is an important palaeontological detail to address.

They did not all live together.

The woolly rhinoceros and prehistoric populations of spotted hyenas inhabited parts of Eurasia, but Smilodon fatalis lived in the Americas. 

The Shanghai display brings these animals together as representatives of the Pleistocene world, not as a reconstruction of one prehistoric ecosystem. Think of it as an international Ice Age convention—everyone belongs to the same broad geological era, but they arrived from different continents.

And what a convention it is.

Image: Asset id: 2481462139. Shanghai China Jun 11th 2024: the fossil in Shanghai Natural History Museum: Woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), Saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon fatalis) and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta).

THE MARINE MAMMAL THAT LOOKS LIKE A HIPPO DESIGNED BY COMMITTEE

Standing in the Age of Mammals Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is one of the most delightfully perplexing mammals ever to paddle, wade or lumber along the Pacific coast.

At first glance, its skeleton appears almost familiar.

It has the solid, barrel-shaped build of a hippopotamus, the heavy bones of a marine herbivore, the forward-projecting teeth of an animal with very strong opinions about vegetation, and four stout limbs that look as though they might have carried it across the seafloor—or at least helped it negotiate the shallows with considerable determination.

But this is neither a hippopotamus nor a manatee.

It is a desmostylian: a member of an entirely extinct order of aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals that once lived around the northern Pacific Rim.

The museum specimen has often been identified in photographs and older references as Paleoparadoxia. 

More precisely, it is now classified as Neoparadoxia cecilialina, a close relative within the paleoparadoxiid family. Taxonomy is a living science, and fossil animals occasionally receive new names as researchers examine their skeletons in greater detail. The animal has not changed, of course. It remains magnificently deceased and entirely unconcerned about the paperwork.

Neoparadoxia cecilialina lived approximately 10.5 million years ago during the Late Miocene Epoch, when the coastline, climate and marine communities of California were very different from those we know today.

This remarkably complete skeleton was recovered from rocks of the Monterey Formation in Orange County, California. The individual was approximately 2.4 metres—or about eight feet—long when it died. It was not yet fully grown. An adult may have reached approximately 2.7 metres in length, making it roughly the length of a large sofa, although considerably more difficult to arrange around a coffee table.

It may have been about eleven years old at the time of its death, though estimating the age of an extinct mammal with no perfect modern equivalent requires careful comparison and a certain amount of scientific humility.

And desmostylians demand humility.

They were such peculiar animals that scientists have debated almost every aspect of them: how they moved, how much time they spent on land, what they ate, how they were related to other mammals and whether their heavy bodies were better suited to swimming, wading or walking underwater.

Imagine a hippo, a manatee and a small elephant submitting design suggestions for the same animal.

Then imagine the committee approving all three.

Desmostylians appeared during the Oligocene and survived into the Miocene, living along the margins of the North Pacific. Their fossils have been found on both sides of the ocean, including western North America and Japan. Unlike seals, whales and sea cows, however, they left no living descendants. The entire order vanished.

That makes Desmostylia especially intriguing. We are not merely looking at an unusual extinct species; we are looking at the remains of a completely lost experiment in marine mammal evolution.

The name Desmostylia comes from Greek words referring to “bundled pillars,” a wonderfully architectural description of the animals’ extraordinary back teeth. 

Their molars were composed of clustered columns of enamel, giving them an appearance rather like bundles of tightly packed tubes.

These were not delicate little teeth designed for nibbling parsley.

They formed a powerful crushing surface, suited to processing tough vegetation. Desmostylians are generally interpreted as herbivores that fed in or near coastal waters, possibly consuming aquatic plants, sea grasses, algae or shoreline vegetation. 

Exactly what appeared on the menu remains debated because stomach contents and polite Miocene restaurant receipts have not survived.

The front of the mouth was equally impressive. Neoparadoxia had forward-projecting incisors and enlarged canine-like teeth. Combined with the deep lower jaw, they gave the skull a wonderfully strange profile.

Some reconstructions make the mouth look rather like the scoop of a small excavator.

I do not wish to suggest that Neoparadoxia was the backhoe of the Miocene, but if it had arrived at a construction site wearing a reflective vest, few of us would have questioned its credentials.

Those teeth and jaws may have helped the animal grasp, uproot or gather vegetation from the seabed. Its long snout could have been used to crop plants while its heavy body remained submerged in shallow coastal water.

The skeleton also reveals an animal built very differently from a whale or dolphin. Its limbs were still substantial and weight-bearing. Rather than being transformed into sleek flippers, they retained strong bones and distinct digits. This suggests that Neoparadoxia could support itself on the bottom and perhaps travel on land, although it would hardly have been graceful.

There is still scientific disagreement about precisely how desmostylians moved. Some studies have interpreted paleoparadoxiids as slow swimmers or bottom walkers inhabiting relatively shallow water. Their dense bones could have acted as ballast, helping them remain submerged without bobbing helplessly back to the surface.

Think of a diver’s weight belt, except the weight belt is the skeleton and removing it is not an option.

Dense bones are found in several aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals. They can help counteract the buoyancy produced by lungs and body fat, allowing an animal to remain at a preferred depth while feeding. 

Research into desmostylian bone structure suggests that different members of the group developed different degrees of aquatic adaptation.

Paleoparadoxia and its relatives possessed particularly dense bones and may have moved slowly through shallow coastal environments, hovering, paddling or walking along the bottom as they searched for food.

This was not a creature built for chasing tuna across the open ocean.

It was built to approach a bed of aquatic vegetation with patience, mass and purpose.

Its broad body, powerful shoulders and large pelvis suggest an animal capable of pushing itself through water and over uneven substrates. On land, it may have moved with an awkward, rolling gait. In the water, the same body could have been far better supported.

The result was likely an animal that looked somewhat cumbersome from our perspective but was well adapted to its own coastal world. Evolution does not work toward elegance as judged by humans. It works toward surviving long enough to reproduce.

Sometimes the result is a gazelle.

Sometimes the result is an eight-foot marine mammal that resembles a hippopotamus wearing an elephant costume over a manatee foundation garment.

For many years, desmostylians were commonly placed near proboscideans—the group containing elephants—and sirenians, which include manatees and dugongs. More recent analyses have complicated that picture, and their precise position within the mammalian family tree remains debated.

This uncertainty is not a failure of palaeontology. It is one of the reasons the science is so compelling.

Fossils preserve evidence, but rarely all of it. Researchers must compare the shapes of bones, patterns of tooth development, microscopic bone structure, geological age and evolutionary relationships. New discoveries can strengthen an old interpretation or turn it neatly on its head.

Neoparadoxia is a beautiful reminder that classification is not merely the act of attaching a label to a display. It is an ongoing investigation into ancestry, adaptation and deep time.

The museum skeleton is particularly valuable because it is so complete. Many fossil mammals are known from isolated teeth, fragments of jaw or scattered bones. A nearly complete skeleton allows palaeontologists to examine how the skull, spine, ribs, limbs and pelvis worked together.

One tooth can tell us that an animal existed.

A skeleton can begin to tell us how it lived.

The individual displayed in Los Angeles is also scientifically important because it represents one of the youngest known desmostylians. It lived near the end of the group’s long evolutionary history, shortly before these peculiar marine mammals disappeared from the fossil record.

Why did they vanish?

We do not yet have a simple answer. Changes in sea level, climate, coastal habitats, available vegetation and competition with other marine herbivores may all have contributed. As desmostylians disappeared, sirenians—manatees and dugongs—became the surviving large marine herbivores.

That does not necessarily mean that sea cows marched into the North Pacific and evicted them with tiny legal notices. Evolutionary replacement is rarely so tidy. Environmental change can alter habitats and food sources, favouring one group while placing another under increasing pressure.

Whatever happened, the desmostylian experiment eventually ended.

Today, their bones survive in Miocene marine rocks around the Pacific and in museum collections where we continue to ask questions of them.

This is why museum displays matter.

A mounted skeleton is not simply an attractive object placed in a hall for paleontological tourism. It is the visible result of discovery, excavation, preparation, anatomical study, comparison and scientific revision. It allows schoolchildren, researchers, travellers and gloriously enthusiastic fossil people to stand face-to-face with an organism unlike anything alive today.

We are accustomed to imagining marine mammals as whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, manatees and dugongs. Neoparadoxia challenges that tidy modern picture. The ancient oceans supported entire forms of mammalian life that have since disappeared.

Ten and a half million years ago, something large and heavy moved through California’s coastal waters. It lowered its peculiar head toward the bottom, used its formidable jaws to gather vegetation and carried a skeleton dense enough to help anchor it beneath the waves.

It had no way of knowing that one day its bones would stand in a museum in Los Angeles, surrounded by visitors attempting to decide whether it looked more like a hippo, a manatee, an elephant or an ambitious piece of earth-moving equipment.

The scientifically correct answer is that it was none of them.

It was a desmostylian. It was Neoparadoxia cecilialina. And it was gloriously, marvellously strange.

Sources: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County—Vertebrate Paleontology, Smithsonian Ocean—Desmostylian locomotion and ecology, PLOS ONE—Bone structure and aquatic adaptation in Desmostylia, and Royal Society Open Science—Desmostylian fossil history.

Lead Image: Asset id: 2710687265. Los Angeles, USA 9.04.2025: Preserved skeleton of a prehistoric Paleoparadoxia fossil mammal displayed at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles