TRAVEL THROUGH TIME: CHOOSE ANOTHER PERIOD
FOSSIL HUNTRESS GUIDES
Ammonites · Megalodon · Ancient Lands · Ancient Seas
Chariocrinus andrae. Collection: David Appleton.
Slip beneath the waves and we enter a world of crystal-eyed trilobites, coiled ammonites, sea lilies and hunters with extraordinary teeth. This is the Fossil Huntress reading guide to life in ancient oceans.
Choose a trail through the seafloor, follow the cephalopods or meet the reptiles, birds and mammals that made their lives at sea. There is plenty to admire. We will keep a respectful distance from the larger mouths.
Explore this guide: Seafloor life · Shells and tentacles · Sharks · Sea dragons · Whales, penguins and sea-going mammals
These articles span different oceans and geological periods. Animals grouped here did not all share the same sea. Time labels identify the main fossil story, and living connections are marked separately.
LIFE ON THE SEAFLOOR
Look beneath the great swimmers and a rich community comes into view: joint-legged animals, feeding crowns, burrowing shellfish and tiny organisms whose remains became rock.
Trilobite Eyes: The Original Stone-Cold Stare
Palaeozoic · Ancient marine arthropods
Peer through calcite lenses and investigate some of the fossil record’s most remarkable eyes.Crinoids: Ancient Sea Lilies
Palaeozoic onward · Fossil and living crinoids
Meet the animals behind those flower-like feeding crowns, and discover why a sea lily is no plant.Chariocrinus: La Belle of the Ball
Middle Jurassic · France
Admire a beautifully preserved gathering of crinoids from the Bathonian seas of what is now France.Clallam Bay Fossil Fauna
Early Miocene · Washington State
Explore fossil bivalves from the shores of the Olympic Peninsula and the marine world recorded in the Clallam Formation.Nummulites: Foraminifera of the Pyramids
Eocene · Egypt
Discover the small marine organisms whose shells help reveal the ancient seas behind monumental building stone.
SHELLS, SPIRALS AND TENTACLES
Ammonites and belemnites belonged to the cephalopods, a group whose living members include squid, octopuses, cuttlefish and nautiluses. Their fossils invite us to reconstruct animals around the hard parts they left behind.
Start with the full collection: Ammonites: A Guide to Ancient Oceans.
Ammonite Questions Answered: Shells, Spirals and Ancient Timekeepers
Mesozoic focus · Ammonite discoveries
Begin with questions about the animals, their shells and their usefulness in reading geological time.Nipponites: The Ammonite That Tied Itself in Knots
Late Cretaceous · Japan
Follow the twists of an ammonite whose shell took a wonderfully unconventional turn.Witches’ Fingers: The Fossils That Fell from the Sky
Jurassic and Cretaceous focus · Belemnites
Separate thunderbolt folklore from the internal shells of ancient squid-like swimmers.Wyoteuthis: The Chunky Belemnite from the Jurassic Sea
Late Jurassic · Wyoming
Meet an unusually stout cephalopod, newly named from rare fossils.Beautiful Pathology: Quenstedtoceras
Middle Jurassic · Russia
Look closely at an ammonite shell whose unusual growth preserves evidence of an ancient biological encounter.
SHARKS AND THE ANCIENT FOOD WEB
A tooth can reveal a cutting edge, a growth story or a clue to a vanished meal. The Megalodon series follows those clues from the shark’s mouth into the wider ocean.
Explore the full series: Megalodon: A Guide to the Giant Shark.
Is Megalodon Still Alive? Ten Big Questions
Miocene–Pliocene · Megalodon
Start with the evidence behind the giant shark and the questions readers ask most often.What Did Megalodon Eat?
Miocene–Pliocene · Feeding evidence
Follow bite marks on whale bones and chemical clues preserved in fossil teeth.Baby Megalodon: Growing Up in an Ancient Shark Nursery
Miocene–Pliocene · Early life
Investigate small teeth, growth estimates and the evidence for nursery habitats.Why Did Megalodon Go Extinct?
Pliocene · A changing ocean
Explore the pressures that may have made life increasingly difficult for an enormous predator.
SEA DRAGONS
Long before modern whales, marine reptiles explored extraordinary ways to live and hunt beneath the waves.
Sea Dragons: The Remarkable Marine Reptiles of Ancient Oceans
Mesozoic · Ichthyosaurs
Meet streamlined marine reptiles and explore the fossil history behind their dolphin-like forms.
WHALES, PENGUINS AND MAMMALS THAT WENT TO SEA
Returning to water changed bodies, movement and feeding. These stories follow several very different branches of vertebrate life into marine habitats.
Echoes of the Eocene: A Whale Between Worlds
Late Eocene · Early whales
Explore an ancient whale and the evolutionary story connecting land mammals with fully aquatic descendants.Kumimanu: The Giant Penguin That Tipped the Scales
Late Palaeocene · Aotearoa New Zealand
Meet a penguin of extraordinary estimated body mass from the seas after the end-Cretaceous extinction.Sloths: The Relatives Who Went to Sea
Miocene–Pliocene · Pacific South America
Follow Thalassocnus and the changing bones that record an increasingly aquatic life.Steller’s Sea Cow: A Gentle Giant Lost to History
Historical extinction · North Pacific, with deeper evolutionary roots
Meet a more recent lost marine giant and explore its place in the long story of sea-going herbivores.
LIVING CONNECTIONS
Our oceans still contain animals with deep evolutionary histories. These companion stories explore living marine life alongside fossil connections.
Frogfish: The Fish That Walks, Fishes and Swallows Its Dinner Whole
Living animals and Eocene fossil connections
Meet an extraordinary ambush hunter and follow its story into the fossil record.Barnacles: Cuvier to Darwin
Living animals · Natural history
Take a closer look at familiar shoreline neighbours and the scientists who investigated them.Kelp Forests and Carbon Sinks
Living ecosystems · Marine habitat
Explore the underwater forests that help us think about food, habitat and ocean relationships.
KEEP EXPLORING
From a tiny shell to a giant shark, each fossil preserves part of a larger world. Return to the Ammonites guide or the Megalodon guide to follow a favourite branch more deeply.
Back on land: Ancient Lands: A Guide to Prehistoric Life.
