LIMESTONE AND LIGHT: EGYPT BEFORE THE PHARAOHS

Much of Egypt’s history is carved in her rock. We think of Egypt as ancient—a land of pharaohs, pyramids, and hieroglyphs etched in stone—but the land itself tells a far older story. 

Long before kings rose and dynasties fell, before the Nile carved its fertile ribbon through desert sands, the foundations of Egypt were being forged deep within the Earth.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, occupies the northeastern corner of Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula extending beyond the continental boundary into Asia. 

It is bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. To the north, the Mediterranean Sea opens toward Europe—Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey—while across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia and, beyond the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan.

To understand Egypt’s true antiquity, one must look not to its monuments, but to its bedrock. 

Five hundred kilometres southwest of Cairo, the flat sabkha plains stretch toward the horizon, scattered with wind-polished pebbles and eerie limestone pillars—natural monuments of a different kind. 

This striking karst landscape, weathered by time and the desert’s relentless breath, tells of ancient seas, tectonic upheaval, and long-vanished ecosystems.

Once the breadbasket of the Pharaohs and now scarred by oil pipelines and rusted trucks, this land has seen empires rise and vanish. Beneath the sand and relics of human ambition lies a deeper record—a geological archive of oceans, volcanoes, and shifting continents.

The story begins deep in time, during the Archaean Eon, when the Earth’s crust was first beginning to cool, between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago. The rocks from this period, preserved as ancient inliers in Egypt’s Western Desert, are among the oldest on the African continent. Later, during the Proterozoic, when oxygen was only just beginning to fill the planet’s atmosphere, new rocks were laid down in the Eastern Desert—igneous and metamorphic foundations formed when bacteria and marine algae were the dominant life on Earth.

These ancient crystalline roots form the basement complex upon which Egypt’s later history—both geological and human—would unfold. 

Over this foundation lie younger Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks, followed by widespread Cretaceous outcrops that speak of warm inland seas and lush river deltas. 

Still younger Cenozoic sediments record the rhythmic rise and fall of global sea levels—cycles of transgression and regression that alternately drowned and exposed the land. 

Each layer marks a new chapter in the story of water, time, and transformation. It is from these Cenozoic limestones, formed some 50 million years ago in the shallow seas of the Eocene epoch, that the stones of the Great Pyramids were quarried. Composed largely of the fossilized remains of ancient marine organisms—especially the large, coin-like foraminifera known as Nummulites—these rocks are both geological and biological archives. 

Every pyramid block is built from the remains of an ancient ocean, each fossilized shell a fragment of life that once thrived beneath the waters of the long-vanished Tethys Sea.

The pyramids of Giza, with their luminous exteriors of fine-grained white limestone from the quarries of Tura, stand as enduring testaments to human ingenuity and Earth’s deep-time creativity. They are monuments raised from the bones of microscopic life, shaped by hands that would have been surprised to know they were building with the remnants of a vanished world.

From the glittering deserts of Giza to the fossil beds of the Fayum, Egypt’s landscapes tell stories written in stone—of ancient oceans, shifting continents, and the eternal dialogue between life, death, and time. The Great Pyramid may have been built for eternity, but its foundations were set in motion eons before humanity’s first spark.

Beneath the gaze of the Sphinx and the shadow of Khufu’s towering pyramid, the story of Egypt’s limestone deepens. Those pale, gleaming blocks that once caught the desert sun are more than architectural marvels—they are the fossilized remains of an ancient sea, built from the microscopic shells of creatures that lived and died millions of years before the first pharaoh dreamed of eternity.

It is here, in the very stone of the Great Pyramid, that Egypt’s human history meets Earth’s geological past.

ANCIENT OCEAN: SWIMMING IN ORDOVICIAN SEAS

Ordovician Seas

Ordovician seas, some 485 to 444 million years ago, were gloriously alive. 

If the Cambrian was Earth's exuberant dress rehearsal for complex life, the Ordovician was opening night. 

The oceans swelled with innovation, diversity, and a cast of characters that would shape marine ecosystems for millions of years to come.

Shallow seas spreading across vast continental shelves. No birds called overhead. No flowers scented the breeze. The continents themselves sat strangely arranged beneath unfamiliar skies. Yet beneath the waves, life flourished in spectacular fashion.

Trilobites scuttled across the seafloor in astonishing variety, from tiny bottom-dwellers to larger, elaborately ornamented species. 

These armoured arthropods had already survived the tumult of the Cambrian and now diversified into an impressive array of ecological roles. Some burrowed through soft mud in search of food; others prowled the sediment surface like ancient vacuum cleaners with very good posture.

Brachiopods carpeted the seabed in their millions. Though often mistaken for clams, these shelled creatures belonged to their own distinctive branch of the animal kingdom. They clustered alongside bryozoans, delicate colonial animals that built intricate lace-like structures across reefs and hard surfaces.

Crinoids — the elegant "sea lilies" of the Paleozoic and a personal fav — anchored themselves to the ocean floor, extending feathery arms into passing currents to capture drifting morsels. Their relatives, the blastoids, added yet another flourish to these underwater gardens.

The reefs themselves looked rather different from today's coral-dominated ecosystems. Massive stromatoporoid sponges and colonial tabulate and rugose corals began constructing complex reef communities that provided shelter for countless marine inhabitants. These early reef systems bustled with life, serving as both refuge and hunting ground.

Drifting through the water column were the graptolites, delicate colonial organisms that floated like tiny biological calligraphy pens across the ancient seas. Their beautifully preserved fossils now help palaeontologists unravel the relative ages of Ordovician rocks around the globe.

And then there were the cephalopods — the undisputed giants of their day.

Fossil Sea Scorpion, Eurypterid

Long before sharks achieved their cinematic reputation, orthoconic nautiloids ruled the Ordovician oceans. 

Some species stretched several metres in length, their straight shells housing agile predators equipped with powerful tentacles and keen senses. 

One can only imagine the unease inspired in smaller marine creatures as these formidable hunters glided silently overhead like underwater submarines of impeccable design.

The earliest jawless fishes also made their appearance during this period. Small and armour-plated, these primitive vertebrates represented humble beginnings for a lineage that would eventually give rise to salmon, sturgeon, dinosaurs, blue whales, and, much later, us hoomins armed with rock hammers.

Impressive sea scorpions, or eurypterids, were there too, though they would reach their greatest diversity later in the Paleozoic. Worms burrowed through the sediment. Sponges filtered the water. Countless tiny plankton drifted through sunlit surface waters, fuelling food webs of increasing complexity.

This flourishing of life became known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event — one of the most significant radiations in Earth's history. Marine diversity surged dramatically as ecosystems grew richer and more interconnected. New ecological strategies emerged. Predators became more specialised. Communities became increasingly sophisticated.

Yet even this golden age would not last forever. Like many times in our Earth's history, life on a mass scale was wiped out.

Toward the close of the Ordovician, shifting climates and widespread glaciation triggered one of Earth's great mass extinctions. Sea levels fell. Habitats vanished. Entire lineages disappeared. It was a sobering reminder that life on our planet has always been both resilient and vulnerable.

Still, for tens of millions of years, the Ordovician seas represented one of evolution's great triumphs — an ancient world of trilobite processions, elegant crinoid meadows, drifting graptolite colonies, and giant nautiloid predators patrolling the depths.

Lead Image: Esteban De Armas (#1945617343)

THE QUAGGA: THE ZEBRA WHO MISPLACED ITS STRIPES

The Extinct Quagga, Equus quagga

The quagga was one of southern Africa’s most distinctive grazing animals—a zebra at the front, a chestnut-brown horse at the back, and something of a fashion rebel throughout. 

Its head, neck and shoulders carried dark stripes, while those stripes gradually faded along the body, leaving the hindquarters largely brown and the legs pale.

Once treated as a separate species, the quagga is now generally classified as an extinct southern form of the plains zebra: Equus quagga quagga. 

Genetic research confirms that it was not a strange half-horse or an evolutionary experiment abandoned halfway through painting. It belonged firmly within the plains zebra family and was less genetically distinct from other plains zebras than its unusual coat might suggest.

The deeper fossil history of the quagga requires a little scientific caution. Fossil teeth and bones rarely preserve the coat markings used to recognize the historical quagga. As a result, we can identify remains as plains zebra—Equus quagga—but cannot confidently determine whether they belonged specifically to the quagga subspecies.

Fossils attributed to Equus quagga are found in Pleistocene deposits across Africa, including numerous cave and karst sites in South Africa. 

The species was present in southern Africa by roughly one million years ago, although older African remains extending beyond two million years have sometimes been assigned to it. Some early identifications remain disputed because zebra teeth are frustratingly similar and heavily worn specimens are not always cooperative witnesses.

At South African sites, plains zebras lived alongside the much larger extinct Cape zebra, Equus capensis, as well as three-toed equids such as Eurygnathohippus cornelianus. Fossil zebra remains are especially useful for reconstructing ancient environments because these animals were predominantly grazers. Their presence usually points towards open grasslands with an ample supply of tough, abrasive vegetation.

Genetic evidence suggests that living plains zebra populations expanded from southern Africa approximately 370,000 years ago. The quagga appears to have developed its dramatically reduced striping relatively recently—possibly during the last 120,000 to 290,000 years—as plains zebra populations adapted to different environments across the continent. Its coat was therefore not evidence of an ancient halfway stage between horses and zebras. It was a comparatively recent regional variation on the zebra wardrobe.

Quaggas once roamed the grasslands of what is now South Africa, particularly the Cape and Orange Free State regions. European settlers hunted them heavily for meat and hides and killed them because they were considered competitors with domestic livestock. 

By the late nineteenth century, the wild population had disappeared.

The last known captive quagga, a female held at Amsterdam’s zoological garden, died on August 12, 1883. At the time, people did not fully appreciate that she may have been the final living member of her kind. Extinction has an unpleasant habit of being recognized only after the last hoofbeat has faded.

The quagga did achieve a comeback of sorts a century after its extinction. 

In 1984, researchers recovered and sequenced mitochondrial DNA from preserved quagga tissue. It was the first published DNA sequence obtained from an extinct animal and helped launch the modern field of ancient DNA research.

Later genetic studies using several museum specimens demonstrated that quaggas carried relatively little genetic diversity and belonged within the natural variation of plains zebras. Their famous coat was striking, but genetically they were not separated from other plains zebras by a vast evolutionary canyon.

A selective-breeding programme in South Africa has since produced plains zebras with reduced striping and quagga-like colouring. These animals may recreate aspects of the quagga’s appearance, but they are not resurrected historical quaggas. Selective breeding can retrieve a visible coat pattern; it cannot recover every lost gene, behaviour and ecological relationship of an extinct population.

The quagga’s story is both scientifically fascinating and deeply sobering. It moved from living herds, to museum skins, to fragments of DNA in barely a century. 

Fossils preserve the long evolutionary history of its species, while historical specimens record just how quickly human actions can erase a unique animal from the landscape.

FOSSIL SEA LILLIES: CRINOIDS

Uintacrinus socialis from Utah, USA

Crinoids are one of my favourite echinoderms. It is magical when all the elements come together to preserve a particularly lovely specimen in such glorious detail. 

If you look closely at the detail here you can see a stunning example of Upper Cretaceous, Santonian age, Uintacrinus socialis — named by O.C. Marsh for the Uinta Mountains of Utah nearly 150 years ago.  

These lovelies are best known from the Smoky Hills Niobrara Formation of central Kansas.

Crinoids are unusually beautiful and graceful members of the phylum Echinodermata. They resemble an underwater flower swaying in an ocean current. 

But make no mistake they are marine animals. Picture a flower with a mouth on the top surface that is surrounded by feeding arms. Awkwardly, add an anus right beside that mouth. 

Crinoids with root-like anchors are called sea lilies. They have graceful stalks that grip the ocean floor. Those in deeper water have longish stalks up to 3.3 ft or a meter in length. Then there are other varieties that are free-swimming with only vestigial stalks. They make up the majority of this group and are commonly known as feather stars or comatulids. 

Unlike the sea lilies, the feather stars can move about on tiny hook-like structures called cirri. It is these same cirri that allow crinoids to latch to surfaces on the seafloor. Like other echinoderms, crinoids have pentaradial symmetry. The aboral surface of the body is studded with plates of calcium carbonate, forming an endoskeleton similar to that in starfish and sea urchins.

These make the calyx somewhat cup-shaped, and there are few, if any, ossicles in the oral (upper) surface, an area we call the tegmen. It is divided into five ambulacral areas, including a deep groove from which the tube feet project, and five interambulacral areas between them. 

Crinoids are alive and well today. They are also some of the oldest fossils on the planet. We have lovely fossil specimens dating back to the Ordovician — if one ignores the enigmatic Echmatocrinus of the Burgess Shale. And they can be quite plentiful. Crinoid fossils, and in particular disarticulated crinoid columnals, can be so abundant that they at times serve as the primary supporting clasts in sedimentary rocks.

PTEROSAURS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD

Dsungaripterus weii

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles—not birds, nor dinosaurs—that ruled the skies from the Late Triassic until the end of the Cretaceous, roughly 228–66 million years ago. 

They ranged from tiny, bird-sized fliers to giants such as Quetzalcoatlus northropi, whose wings stretched about 10–11 metres—nearly the span of a small aeroplane.

Their delicate, hollow bones were excellent for flight but dreadful for fossilization, so complete skeletons are rare. 

Pterosaur remains have nevertheless been discovered worldwide, with exceptional fossils coming from China, Germany, Brazil, Britain and North America. Fine-grained lake and lagoon sediments sometimes preserved not only bones, but wing membranes, crests and traces of soft tissue.

At the Shanghai Natural History Museum in China, visitors can see Dsungaripterus weii, a wonderfully peculiar Early Cretaceous pterosaur discovered in Xinjiang’s Junggar Basin. It had a wingspan of roughly three metres, a distinctive crest and powerful jaws with rounded teeth suited to crushing hard-shelled prey.

Pterosaurs may have been built lightly, but their fossil record reveals more than 160 million years of aerial experimentation—from little insect hunters to flying reptiles large enough to cast a truly alarming shadow.

Lead Image: Asset ID: 1082017409

FOSSIL STARFISH: AN ANCIENT STAR IN A CHANGING SEA

Fossil Sea Star

Starfish—or, more accurately, sea stars—look almost too geometrically tidy to be real. 

Their familiar five-pointed form resembles a symbol drawn by hand, yet sea stars are living animals with hundreds of hydraulically operated tube feet, light-sensitive eyespots at the tips of their arms and the remarkable ability to regenerate damaged tissue. 

Some can even push their stomach outside their body to digest prey. Nature, as usual, saw no reason to stop after inventing something elegant.

Sea stars belong to the class Asteroidea within the phylum Echinodermata. They are related to brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers and crinoids. Their closest living relatives are generally considered to be the brittle stars of the class Ophiuroidea; together, sea stars and brittle stars form the Asterozoa. 

Sea stars move using a water vascular system that powers their tube feet, while brittle stars generally travel by flexing their slender, sharply defined arms.

The evolutionary story of these animals reaches back nearly half a billion years. Star-shaped echinoderms called asterozoans appear in Lower Ordovician rocks more than 480 million years old. Some early forms belonged to extinct groups such as the somasteroids, which possessed a mixture of features associated with later sea stars and brittle stars. 

Fossils from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota of Morocco have helped us examine this important stage in asterozoan evolution. Molecular and fossil evidence indicates that the sea-star and brittle-star lineages had separated by approximately 477 million years ago.

Ancient sea stars did not necessarily look exactly like the species crawling through modern tide pools. 

Many Palaeozoic forms possessed narrow arms, small central discs and arrangements of skeletal plates unlike those of their living descendants. 

Sea stars survived several major extinction events, although the end-Permian mass extinction approximately 252 million years ago profoundly reorganized marine ecosystems. Most of the sea stars alive today belong to evolutionary groups that diversified during the Mesozoic.

Despite their long history, complete fossil sea stars are rare. Their bodies are supported by thousands of small calcite plates called ossicles, connected by soft tissues and ligaments. Soon after death, those tissues decay and the skeleton usually collapses into a jumble of pieces. 

Finding an articulated fossil sea star therefore means that the animal was buried quickly—perhaps by a storm deposit, underwater sediment flow or sudden pulse of fine mud—before currents and scavengers could dismantle it. A complete sea star is less a routine fossil than a small geological miracle.

On and around Vancouver Island, fossil sea stars occur within the Upper Cretaceous Nanaimo Group. Specimens have been collected from the Northumberland Formation at Manning and Collishaw Point on Hornby Island (known locally as Boulder Point), where fine marine mudstones and carbonate concretions preserve a diverse deep-water community. 

These roughly Late Campanian deposits have produced sea stars alongside ammonites, bivalves, gastropods, sea urchins, fish, and shark teeth.

These fossils tell us that starfish were already established members of the northeastern Pacific ecosystem while mosasaurs still hunted offshore. Their rarity also makes fragments important: isolated marginal plates, arm ossicles and other skeletal pieces may not produce the dramatic outline of a complete star, but they can still reveal which groups lived in an ancient sea. They are a wonderful fossil to find and oh, so pleasing to behold!

Elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, asteroid fossils and isolated ossicles occur in marine sedimentary formations in Washington and Oregon. Cenozoic units. Washington’s Lincoln Creek Formation preserve evidence of sea stars within the rich marine communities that occupied the northeastern Pacific during the Eocene and Oligocene. 

Together with the marine formations of southwestern Vancouver Island, these rocks record changing coastlines, ocean temperatures and seafloor habitats over tens of millions of years.

Worldwide, fossil sea stars have been recovered from Ordovician rocks in Morocco, Europe, North America and Australia; Silurian deposits in Britain; the Devonian Hunsrück Slate of Germany; Jurassic marine beds in Europe; Cretaceous deposits in Lebanon and North America; and younger Cenozoic rocks on several continents. Exceptional deposits sometimes preserve whole animals, while more ordinary marine rocks yield scattered ossicles. Because these tiny elements are easily overlooked, the history of sea stars is undoubtedly richer than the visible fossil record suggests.

Today, approximately 1,900 species inhabit every ocean, from tropical reefs and temperate tide pools to polar waters and the deep sea. They include heavily armoured forms, delicate mud-dwellers, cushion stars and many-armed giants. 

Along the British Columbia coast we find the ochre sea star, Pisaster ochraceus; the mottled star, Evasterias troschelii; the leather star, Dermasterias imbricata; and the extraordinary sunflower sea star, Pycnopodia helianthoides, which may possess more than 20 arms.

Sea stars are not merely colourful tide-pool decorations. Many are influential predators that regulate mussels, clams, barnacles, snails and sea urchins. 

The ochre sea star helped inspire the ecological concept of a “keystone species”: an animal whose influence on its community is far greater than its abundance might suggest. Sunflower sea stars perform a similarly important role by consuming sea urchins that would otherwise overgraze kelp forests.

That ecological balance was shaken in 2013, when sea star wasting disease swept along the Pacific coast from Mexico to Alaska. 

On Vancouver Island, diseased stars were observed around Bamfield and Ucluelet on Vancouver Island's far western shores and later around Nanaimo and Nanoose. More than 20 species were affected. Infected animals developed lesions, twisted their arms unnaturally, lost limbs and eventually disintegrated into pale masses of decomposing tissue.

After more than a decade of investigation, researchers identified the culprit as a strain of the bacterium Vibrio pectenicida, designated FHCF-3, as a causative agent of wasting disease in sunflower sea stars. Scientists detected it in the animals’ coelomic fluid—the internal fluid that functions in some respects like blood—and then cultured the bacterium and reproduced the disease experimentally. The results were published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in 2025.

The sunflower sea star suffered catastrophic losses, with billions believed to have died and populations falling by more than 90 percent in many parts of its range. 

Our records and many a beach walk show a striking increase in areas where the species was absent after the outbreak, including waters around Vancouver Island, the Strait of Georgia, Barkley Sound and parts of the central and northern coast. It was a tragic loss. The species is now assessed as Endangered in Canada and Critically Endangered globally.

Warming seas may make conditions more favourable for some Vibrio bacteria and can place additional stress on their hosts, although temperature is not the only factor governing outbreaks. Sea stars also face marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, declining oxygen, pollution, habitat disturbance and changes to their food webs. The loss of major predators such as Pycnopodia helianthoides can allow sea urchin populations to expand, contributing to the destruction of kelp forests and transforming entire coastal ecosystems.

Sea stars have endured almost 500 million years of continental movement, changing oceans and mass extinction. Their fossils prove that the star-shaped body plan is one of evolution’s great survivors. Yet their antiquity does not make them invulnerable. 

The same animals whose delicate skeletons so rarely remain intact in stone are now reminding us, in living waters along Vancouver Island and the wider Pacific coast, just how quickly an ancient ecological relationship can come apart.

SUE THE T. REX: THE QUEEN—OR KING—OF CHICAGO

SUE, the T Rex at the Field Museum, Chicago

Standing more than 12 metres (40 feet) long and roughly 4 metres (13 feet) tall at the hips, SUE is one of the largest, most complete and best-preserved specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered. 

Their fossilized bones are displayed in a private gallery within the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet at Chicago’s Field Museum—and yes, SUE has their own suite. After 67 million years, it seems only fair.

Despite the familiar name, scientists do not know whether SUE was biologically female or male. I think of SUE as going with the pronouns they/them. 

The dinosaur is named for fossil hunter and explorer Sue Hendrickson, who discovered several enormous vertebrae protruding from an eroding bluff near Faith, South Dakota, on August 12, 1990. 

Hendrickson was working with the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research when a flat tire gave her time to explore a nearby outcrop. It was possibly the most productive flat tire in palaeontological history. Six people spent 17 days excavating the skeleton.

Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA

After a lengthy ownership dispute, the Field Museum purchased SUE at auction in 1997. The bones arrived in Chicago still partly enclosed in the surrounding rock, or matrix. 

Preparing them was no small undertaking: twelve skilled fossil preparators spent approximately 30,000 hours removing rock, cleaning, repairing and stabilizing the fossils. 

The work was carried out in preparation laboratories at the Field Museum and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where visitors could watch the painstaking process through glass.

The preparation team included Field Museum fossil specialists Bill Simpson and Paul Brinkman, along with other museum preparators and volunteers. 

Far from simply brushing away a little dust, they used fine hand tools, air scribes, adhesives and an extraordinary amount of patience to free each bone without damaging its surface. Altogether, the preparation required the equivalent of about twelve person-years of work. 

Another 20,000 hours went into studying, casting, mounting and constructing the original exhibition. It was a true labour of love.

About 250 of the estimated 380 bones in a T. rex skeleton are represented, making SUE about 90 percent complete by bone volume. The mounted skeleton contains mostly genuine fossil bone, while specially coloured replicas fill some gaps. 

SUE’s immense original skull—too heavy and scientifically valuable to place safely on the neck—is exhibited separately at eye level. A lighter cast sits on the mounted skeleton that you see in the photo here.

SUE provides an unusually complete look at the anatomy of an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. Detailed study and CT scanning of the skeleton and skull have helped researchers examine the construction of the jaws, braincase, vertebral column, limbs and sensory systems. 

SUE also preserves a furcula, or wishbone, adding to the extensive anatomical evidence linking theropod dinosaurs with birds. The beautifully preserved gastralia—rib-like bones positioned beneath the ordinary ribs—show that T. rex possessed a deep, muscular belly rather than the fashionably shrink-wrapped waist once given to dinosaurs in older reconstructions. These bones may also have helped move air through the respiratory system.

SUE represents the highly specialized endpoint of a much longer tyrannosaur evolutionary story. The earliest tyrannosauroids were relatively small, lightly built hunters. 

Over tens of millions of years, members of the group developed increasingly powerful senses, reinforced skulls, deep jaws and bone-crushing bites. Fossils such as the horse-sized Timurlengia euotica, which lived about 90 million years ago, indicate that sophisticated brains and sharp sensory abilities evolved before tyrannosaurs became gigantic. 

Later tyrannosaurids shifted much of the business of catching and processing prey to the head, while the forelimbs became shorter and the body grew truly colossal.

SUE shows us the result of that transformation: a huge, powerfully balanced predator with a massive skull, robust hind limbs and a long tail acting as a counterweight. This was not simply an oversized version of an earlier meat-eating dinosaur. 

Tyrannosaurus rex was an evolutionary specialist, built around an exceptionally strong bite, keen senses and the ability to dominate the final Late Cretaceous ecosystems of western North America.

The skeleton also preserves the history of one remarkably battered life. SUE suffered injuries and disease, including healed ribs, damaged vertebrae, arthritis and holes in the lower jaw associated with infection. 

Bone growth records indicate that SUE experienced a dramatic adolescent growth spurt, reached adult size at approximately 19 years of age and lived to around 28—an elderly individual by known T. rex standards. 

At one point during the teenage years, SUE may have gained roughly two kilograms, or 4.5 pounds, every day. That is what happens when adolescence involves fewer awkward school photographs and considerably more meat.

One skeleton cannot explain the entire evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex, but SUE provides an essential anatomical benchmark against which less complete specimens can be compared. Their nearly complete body helps palaeontologists distinguish evolutionary features shared by the species from injuries, individual variation and changes produced during growth.

SUE is therefore much more than an impressive museum mount. This extraordinary fossil records the evolutionary culmination of the tyrannosaur lineage, the rapid growth of a gigantic predator and the bruising reality of life near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.

And after surviving infections, injuries, 67 million years underground and 30,000 hours of fossil preparation, SUE still looks remarkably pleased with themselves.

Lead Image: Asset ID: 2569246875. SUE at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA

INDIAN WATER DRAGON: PHYSIGNATHUS COCINCINUS

Despite occasionally being called the “Indian water dragon,” Physignathus cocincinus is more accurately known as the Indochinese, Chinese, Asian or green water dragon. 

It is not native to India, but to the warm forests of southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. 

This spectacular green lizard belongs to Agamidae—the family that also includes bearded dragons, flying dragons, thorny devils and a wonderfully diverse assortment of reptiles that look as though evolution was briefly given access to a costume department.

The fossil record of Physignathus cocincinus itself is frustratingly sparse. No well-supported fossil sequence documents the modern species through time, partly because tropical forests are generally poor places for preserving small land animals. 

Warm temperatures, acidic soils, scavengers and rapid decay tend to dismantle a lizard before burial can preserve it. Most fossil agamids are therefore represented by isolated jaws, teeth and pieces of skull rather than handsome, articulated skeletons.

The wider agamid lineage has a much deeper history. Possible early acrodont lizards—the broader group containing agamids and chameleons—have been reported from Jurassic rocks, although fragmentary remains make some of these identifications uncertain. 

More securely identified stem acrodonts occur in Cretaceous deposits of Asia. Among them are extinct lizards such as Mimeosaurus and members of Priscagamidae from Mongolia and neighbouring regions. 

These were not necessarily direct ancestors of today’s water dragon, but they belonged to earlier branches of the evolutionary tree from which modern agamids eventually emerged. 

A beautifully preserved agamid from approximately 99-million-year-old Burmese amber also demonstrates that dragon-like lizards were already diversifying in the tropical forests of Cretaceous Asia.

Later agamids—including fossils historically compared or assigned to Physignathus—appear in Cenozoic deposits. Fossil water-dragon material has been reported from Miocene sites in Australia. These remains belong to the Australasian side of the family rather than providing proof that the living Southeast Asian species once occupied Australia. 

This distinction matters because the Australian water dragon, now called Intellagama lesueurii, was formerly placed in Physignathus. Older publications may therefore make the fossil history of the genus look tidier than modern evolutionary studies suggest it really was.

Genetic evidence places Physignathus cocincinus near the base of Amphibolurinae, the great radiation of agamid “dragons” found in Australia, New Guinea and parts of Southeast Asia. Its living evolutionary cousins consequently include Australian water dragons, bearded dragons of the genus Pogona, frilled lizards such as Chlamydosaurus kingii and many other Australasian agamids. 

Molecular analyses suggest that the lineage leading to the Southeast Asian water dragon separated from the Australasian radiation during the Cenozoic, perhaps roughly 14–41 million years ago. These dates remain estimates rather than a neat fossil-supported family calendar.

Today, Physignathus cocincinus lives in southern China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I have never had the pleasure of seeing them in the wild but it is one of the many sights on my bucket list.

They favour humid forests beside permanent freshwater—rivers, streams and swamps—where it spends much of its time perched on branches above the water. If danger approaches, the dragon simply drops into the river and swims away, which is considerably more dramatic than quietly hiding beneath a leaf. 

Adults may approach one metre in total length, although nearly 70 percent of that length is tail. The laterally compressed tail acts as a powerful paddle, while long limbs and sharp claws make the animal an accomplished climber. 

Water dragons can also run briefly on their hind legs and remain submerged for as long as 25 minutes.

Their diet is broad and opportunistic, including insects, other invertebrates, fish, small vertebrates, eggs and plant material. Males are generally larger and more brightly coloured than females, with more prominent heads, jowls and crests. 

Both sexes communicate through head-bobbing, arm-waving and throat-puffing—a perfectly respectable vocabulary when one is a bright green forest dragon. That particular display also makes my bucket list as I saw a video of these antics on a nature program and it was incredibly charming.

Physignathus cocincinus may not have left us a generous fossil autobiography, but its bones, genes and living relatives preserve pieces of a much older story. 

That story stretches from early Asian acrodonts through the expanding forests and waterways of the Cenozoic to the modern rivers of Southeast Asia—where a living dragon still waits on an overhanging branch, ready to vanish into the water at the first hint of trouble.

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