TRAVEL THROUGH TIME: CHOOSE ANOTHER PERIOD
FOSSIL HUNTRESS GUIDES
Ammonites · Megalodon · Ancient Lands · Ancient Seas
Triceratops, Leiden, Netherlands.
Welcome to the landward side of deep time. Here we follow dinosaurs through Cretaceous landscapes, explore forests preserved in stone and meet mammals whose family trees contain some wonderfully unexpected branches.
A tooth, a feather or a footprint can bring an entire vanished world a little closer. Choose a trail below and we will see who was living there—and what the fossils allow us to say about them.
Explore this guide: Ancient forests · Dinosaur worlds · Feathers and flight · Remarkable mammals · Ice Age connections
The articles span different places and periods. Neighbours on this reading list were not necessarily neighbours in life. Each time label refers to the main fossil story; some articles also explore living relatives.
ANCIENT FORESTS AND SMALL WORLDS
Before we meet the larger residents, look closely at the scenery. Flowers, resin and tiny trapped creatures preserve some of the most intimate glimpses of life on land.
Petals Frozen in Time: The Princeton Chert
Eocene · British Columbia
Explore fossil plants and the traces of a warmer world in southern British Columbia.Trapped in Time: Fossils Preserved in Amber
Various ages · Forest life
Discover how fossilised tree resin preserves insects and other small inhabitants in remarkable detail.Harry’s Fossil Room: Ancient Treasures and Fossil Preparation
Various ages · Collections and discovery
Meet Harry Tabiner and explore the patient work of revealing small ancient treasures.
DINOSAURS AND THEIR WORLDS
Armour, horns, terrible claws and a handful of intriguing teeth: dinosaurs left us many ways into their lives.
Triceratops: The Herd That Changed the Story
Late Cretaceous · North America
Follow a fossil discovery that opens questions about how these horned dinosaurs lived together.Ankylosaurus: The Dinosaur with Built-in Security
Late Cretaceous · North America
Meet a plant-eater equipped with bony armour and an impressive tail club.Deinonychus: The Real Dinosaur Behind Jurassic Park’s Raptors
Early Cretaceous · North America
Get acquainted with the predator behind some of cinema’s most memorable dinosaur ideas.Siamosaurus: The Dinosaur Known from a Handful of Teeth
Early Cretaceous · Thailand
See what teeth can suggest about a dinosaur—and why incomplete fossils keep researchers talking.
FEATHERS, FLIGHT AND FOREST HUNTERS
Some of the most revealing dinosaur discoveries come with plumage. These stories explore the connections between ancient dinosaurs and the birds around us today.
Sinosauropteryx and Archaeopteryx: Feathers and the Origins of Birds
Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous · Europe and Asia
Meet two different animals whose fossils helped transform our picture of feathered prehistoric life.Norellraptor: A Feathered Dinosaur and the Many Paths to Flight
Early Cretaceous · China
Explore a newly described feathered dinosaur and questions about the evolution of flight.
REMARKABLE MAMMALS AND THEIR RELATIVES
The mammal family album contains giants, browsers, climbers and animals that took their hunting into the water. Familiar faces can have decidedly unfamiliar relatives.
Oreodonts: Mountain Teeth and Ancient Oregon
Eocene–Miocene · North America
Meet stocky plant-eaters and explore the changing landscapes recorded in Oregon’s John Day country.Indricotherium: A Giant with a Story in Its Teeth
Oligocene · Asia
Follow the teeth of an enormous hornless rhinoceros relative, commonly known as Paraceratherium.Wombats: Square Poo and Giant Fossil Cousins
Pleistocene Australia and living relatives
Begin with a modern wombat’s peculiar talent, then meet the oversized branches of its fossil family.Red Pandas: An Ancient Family in the Treetops
Miocene onward · Fossil relatives and living red pandas
Discover the broader history behind this small survivor of a once more widespread family.Megacauda: The Furry Hunter of Jurassic Waters
Middle Jurassic · China · Freshwater life
Explore a mammal relative that brings us to the water’s edge in a world shared with dinosaurs.
INTO THE ICE AGE—AND THE PRESENT
Antlers and living descendants connect our own landscapes with the worlds that came before them.
The Majesty of Irish Elk
Pleistocene and early Holocene · Eurasia
Meet Megaloceros, the giant deer behind one of prehistory’s most extraordinary sets of antlers.Antlers, Ancestors and a Certain Musky Majesty: Elk
Pleistocene ancestry and living Roosevelt elk
Follow the story into Vancouver Island’s rainforests and the elk around Cowichan Lake.
FOLLOW THE TRAIL TO THE WATER
Some animals crossed the boundary between land and water in extraordinary ways. Meet the sloths that went to sea, then explore the marine guides below.
Ammonites: A Guide to Ancient Oceans · Megalodon: A Guide to the Giant Shark
Continue your journey: Ancient Seas: A Guide to Prehistoric Oceans.
