He hails from the Frasnian-aged Escuminac Formation at Parc national de Miguasha, tucked along the shores of Baie des Chaleurs in Québec—a place where deep time feels almost within reach.
Bothriolepis was a placoderm, one of the earliest groups of jawed vertebrates, clad head to tail in bony armour like a medieval knight who took a wrong turn into a river delta some 380 million years ago.
Its boxy head shield and jointed, limb-like pectoral fins hint at a life spent nosing along the bottom—likely sifting through sediment for organic morsels, a sort of Devonian vacuum cleaner with attitude.
And what a world it lived in.
The Miguasha biota is one of Canada’s most celebrated fossil Lagerstätten—and rightly so. For over 170 years, this site has yielded an extraordinary snapshot of life near the close of the “Age of Fishes.”
More than 18,000 specimens have been collected here, representing at least 20 species of early vertebrates—everything from jawless anaspids to lobe-finned fishes that would one day give rise to tetrapods (yes, that includes us).
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| By Hectonichus - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 |
For years, scientists pictured Miguasha as a quiet freshwater lake.
But the rocks had more to say.
A growing body of sedimentological and geochemical evidence now points to a brackish estuarine setting—where rivers met the sea in a dynamic, shifting environment rich in nutrients and, apparently, excellent at preserving the dead.
And preserve them it did.
Many of the fossils here are found fully articulated—bones still in life position, as though the animal simply paused mid-swim and slipped gently into the sediment.
Some even retain traces of soft tissues, which is about as close as we get to time travel in palaeontology. Even more remarkable, we have identified larval and juvenile stages for the majority of species, giving us rare insight into growth and development in these early vertebrates.
Multiple layers within the Escuminac Formation are now recognized as both Konservat-Lagerstätten—sites of exceptional preservation—and Konzentrat-Lagerstätten, where fossils occur in abundance. In other words, it’s a double jackpot.
This particular replica was picked up at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Miguasha and now lives in the collection of the wonderfully well-travelled John Fam—proof that sometimes the best souvenirs are 380 million years in the making.
If you ever find yourself in Québec with a bit of time and a love of fossils, Miguasha is well worth the pilgrimage. Few places on Earth offer such a vivid window into the early story of vertebrate life—where armoured fishes ruled, and the blueprint for our own bodies was just beginning to take shape.
The lead photo you see here is from the deeply awesome John Fam, Chair now of both the Vancouver Paleontological Society and the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance.
