TRICERATOPS: THE HERD THAT CHANGED THE STORY

Triceratops, Leiden, Netherlands

At the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, a visit to the dinosaur gallery is also a glimpse into the work of a research institute. 

Naturalis studies life on Earth through its vast natural history collection, and its dinosaur discoveries have given us something remarkable to talk about.

Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden traces its beginnings to 1820, when King William I founded the Netherlands’ National Museum of Natural History by bringing together existing collections and scientific cabinets. 

Its holdings grew through research expeditions, collections from other Dutch institutions and gifts from private collectors. That history has a difficult side: some specimens were collected in colonial settings under circumstances Naturalis now investigates through provenance research. 

Today, the collection holds more than 43 million objects, though only a fraction are on display. Visitors can meet Trix the T. rex and Triceratops in the Dinosaur Age gallery, explore mammoth fossils and other Ice Age animals, and discover how life has changed over billions of years.

It is there wonderful triceratops display you see in the photo here. It showcases Triceratops horridus: three horns, a broad bony frill, a sturdy plant eater’s body, and a face that has been a dinosaur icon for generations. 

It lived in North America near the end of the Cretaceous, roughly 67 million years ago.

These fellows are some of my favourite dinosaurs. I had a lovely figurine of one that I played with as a youth and still sits on my shelf to this day.

We often picture Triceratops roaming in herds, but fossils had offered little firm evidence for that familiar scene. Then Naturalis researchers uncovered the remains of five individuals together in Wyoming. Naturalis excavated six Triceratops in Wyoming overall, but five were found together in the bonebed that became the museum’s herd.

The five Triceratops were found by a Naturalis Biodiversity Center expedition team on a ranch near Newcastle, Wyoming, in 2013. The team was searching for Tyrannosaurus fossils when it encountered Triceratops bones. Further excavation revealed remains of at least five individuals together; the work continued over several years under research leader Anne Schulp. 

Anne Schulp is a vertebrate palaeontologist at Naturalis and a professor at Utrecht University. Trained in Earth Sciences, with a doctorate focused on mosasaurs, Schulp studies dinosaurs, ancient marine reptiles and fossil footprints, and continues to lead the research group investigating Naturalis’s Triceratops herd.

Years of excavation and study led them to conclude that these animals lived and died as a group. In 2024, Naturalis brought all five together for the first public display of this extraordinary herd.

That is the thrill of palaeontology: even the dinosaurs we think we know can surprise us. One fossil tells us about an animal. Five found together may tell us something about how they lived.

The herd’s Leiden exhibition ended in August 2025, and the fossils are now travelling internationally. This photo captures a special chapter in their story.

Image ID: 2559349211

BEAUTIFUL PATHOLOGY: QUENSTEDTOCERAS

What you are seeing here is a protuberance extruding from the venter of Quenstedtoceras cf. leachi (Sowerby). It is a pathology in the shell from hosting immature bivalves that shared the seas with these Middle Jurassic, Upper Callovian, Lamberti zone fauna from the Volga River basin. 

The collecting site is the now inactive Dubki commercial clay quarry and brickyard near Saratov, Russia. 

The site has produced thousands of ammonite specimens. A good 1,100 of those ended up at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota. 

Roughly 1,000 of those are Quenstedtoceras (Lamberticeras) lamberti and the other 100 are a mix of other species found in the same zone. These included Eboraciceras, Peltoceras, Kosmoceras, Grossouvria, Proriceras, Cadoceras and Rursiceras. 

What is especially interesting is the volume of specimens — 167 Quenstedtoceras (Lamberticeras) lamberti and 89 other species in the Black Hills collection — with healed predation injuries. It seems Quenstedtoceras (Lamberticeras) lamberti are the most common specimens found here and so not surprisingly the most common species found injured. 

Of the 1,000, 655 of the Quenstedtoceras (Lamberticeras) lamberti displayed some sort of deformation or growth on the shell or had grown in a tilted manner. 

Again, some of the Q. lamberti had small depressions in the centre likely due to a healed bite and hosting infestations of the immature bivalve Placunopsis and some Ostrea. 

The bivalves thrived on their accommodating hosts and the ammonites carried on, growing their shells right up and over their bivalve guests. 

This relationship led to some weird and deformities of their shells. They grow in, around, up and over nearly every surface of the shell and seem to have lived out their lives there. It must have gotten a bit unworkable for the ammonites, their shells becoming warped and unevenly weighted. 

Over time, both the flourishing bivalves and the ammonite shells growing up and over them produced some of the most interesting pathology specimens I have ever seen.    

In the photo here from Emil Black, you can see some of the distorted shapes of Quenstedtoceras sp. 

Look closely and you see a trochospiral or flattened appearance on one side while they are rounded on the other. 

All of these beauties hail from the Dubki Quarry near Saratov, Russia. The ammonites were collected in marl or clay used in brick making. The clay particles suggest a calm, deep marine environment. 

One of the lovely features of the preservation here is the amount of pyrite filling and replacement. It looks like these ammonites were buried in an oxygen-deficient environment. 

The ammonites were likely living higher in the water column, well above the oxygen-poor bottom. An isotopic study would be interesting to prove this hypothesis. 

There's certainly enough of these ammonites that have been recovered to make that possible. It's estimated that over a thousand specimens have been recovered from the site but that number is likely much higher. But these are not complete specimens. We mostly find the phragmocones and partial body chambers. Given the numbers, this may be a site documenting a mass spawning death over several years or generations.

If you fancy a read on all things cephie, consider picking up a copy of Cephalopods Present and Past: New Insights and Fresh Perspectives edited by Neil Landman and Richard Davis. Figure 16.2 is from page 348 of that publication and shows the hosting predation quite well. 

Photos: Courtesy of the deeply awesome Emil Black. These are in his personal collection that I hope to see in person one day. 

It was his sharing of the top photo and the strange anomaly that had me explore more about the fossils from Dubki and the weird and wonderful hosting relationship between ammonites and bivalves. Thank you, my friend!

SIAMOSAURUS: THE DINOSAUR KNOWN FROM A HANDFUL OF TEETH

Siamosaurus suteethorni

Some dinosaurs leave us a skeleton. Siamosaurus suteethorni left us teeth and an invitation to argue about them for decades.

Found in Thailand and named in 1986, Siamosaurus was the first dinosaur named from the country. 

Its long, conical teeth have lengthwise ridges and look much more like the fish-grabbing equipment of a spinosaurid than the steak knives of a T. rex. 

We can get a sneak peek that this magnificent fellow's skeleton on display at Thailand’s THAINOSAUR exhibition. The long jaws, sweeping tail, and dramatic pose make it look ready to lunge at you.

There’s just one catch: palaeontologists have never found a complete Siamosaurus skeleton.

Scientists named the dinosaur in 1986 after teeth were discovered in Thailand’s Sao Khua Formation. 

Those teeth are long and conical, with ridges running down their sides. They resemble the teeth of spinosaurs, a group of predators often associated with catching fish. 

Think less “slice through dinner like a steak knife” and more “grab a slippery meal before it escapes.” Fish is a plausible part of the menu, though the teeth alone cannot tell us everything this particular dinosaur ate.

Siamosaurus has an important place in Thai palaeontology: it was the first dinosaur named from Thailand. But being first does not mean being well known. Without a skull and skeleton securely identified as Siamosaurus, its exact proportions and appearance remain uncertain. 

The spectacular mount in this photograph is a reconstruction, showing visitors a scientifically informed possibility rather than a set of excavated bones. 

THAINOSAUR describes its dinosaur displays as recreations and also exhibits genuine fossils. They are working with what they've got, and I respect that. It is a wonderful display!

And the tooth story has grown more interesting. In a 2025 study, Thai researchers Kridsanupong Puntanon, Suravech Suteethorn and Adun Samathi examined spinosaurid teeth from Hin Lat Yao on Phu Wiang Mountain, along with evidence from other remains found there, including tail vertebrae. 

They compared the fossils’ features and used statistical and evolutionary analyses to investigate where the teeth fit among spinosaurs.

Their conclusion was careful: the Hin Lat Yao spinosaurid may be distinct from Siamosaurus. In other words, Thailand’s spinosaur fossils should not automatically be placed in one dinosaur’s mouth. 

The researchers also suggested that Southeast Asia may have played a significant role in the evolution and spread of this remarkable group. That is a proposal for further investigation, not a solved family tree.

So what are we seeing in the photograph? A wonderful way to meet a Thai dinosaur—and the skill of a museum team that turned incomplete evidence into something we can stand beside and wonder at. 

The real Siamosaurus has given us its teeth. The rest of its portrait is still waiting underground. Perhaps it knew a good mystery would keep us coming back.

Oh, Thailand... you're officially added to my bucket list! I'd be pretty chuffed to find the skeleton!

That’s part of the fun of fossils. A handful of teeth can reveal a predator in an ancient ecosystem, while leaving just enough unanswered to keep us digging.

Lead Image ID: 2679304243. Reconstructed Siamosaurus suteethorni skeleton at the THAINOSAUR exhibition in Bangkok. 

ANKYLOSAURUS: THE DINOSAUR WITH BUILT-IN SECURITY

Ankylosaurus

Ankylosaurus took “don’t mess with me” to a whole new level: body armour, a giant tail club, and absolutely no interest in becoming someone else’s lunch.

This heavily armoured dinosaur lived in North America near the end of the Cretaceous. 

Bony plates protected its broad back, while a low-slung body kept its softer belly close to the ground. It spent its days eating vegetation and, presumably, being an absolute nuisance to anything hoping for an easy lunch.

Then there was the tail. The “handle” was made of stiffened, interlocking bones, with a hefty bony knob at the end. 

Ankylosaur tail clubs could deliver a powerful sideways blow. Bam! Was that club used against predators, rival ankylosaurs, or both? 

Fossils from another club-tailed ankylosaur, Zuul, show injuries consistent with blows from other tail clubs. That gives us a fascinating clue, though it doesn’t tell us every way Ankylosaurus used its own.

My favourite thing about Ankylosaurus is the contrast: a plant eater dressed for battle. No sharp teeth, no dramatic chase scene—just armour, a formidable tail, and a strong suggestion to give it some personal space.

PETALS FROZEN IN TIME: THE PRINCETON CHERT

It began with a bloom, Florissantia quilchenensis, its petals splayed across a creamy, beige-brown matrix like a fossilized whisper from a warmer world. 

This precious bloom was hard-earned. Covered in dust and sweat, I grinned and held this elusive beauty to the light to take in its exceptional preservation and dusty beauty!

It was day three of my travels. I was hiking the hills around the town of Princeton in the Similkameen region of southern British Columbia, Canada. 

The former mining and railway hub lies at the confluence of the Tulameen into the Similkameen River, just east of the Cascade Mountains. It is dry, arid country covered by native grasslands and low scrub. 

Princeton, BC is located in the traditional territories of the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx (Okanagan) peoples. 

The region has historical significance for the Syilx, particularly the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands, and has been an important area for gathering red ochre for thousands of years. I had first explored the region looking for red ochre deposits to photograph, always with an eye to the local fossils.

On this particular trip, I was searching for fossils and the iconic flower, Florissantia, in the slopes known locally as Hospital Hill.

A lucky split brought a eureka moment. Is it? Could it be? Yes! Peeling back the layers, I had uncovered a near perfect flower and the treasure I had long been seeking. Searching for Florissantia had brought me to the Princeton area on many occasions but my first was found on this trip. 

Under a hand lens, its details unfurl: each vein etched in silica, each contour revealed with startling fidelity. 

I had uncovered a perfect flower, a time capsule telling us about the landscape as it once was, lush, tropical, and steaming with life.

This singular fossil, preserved in almost impossibly fine detail, is one of the jewels of the Princeton Chert, a fossil treasure hidden in the hills of British Columbia. 

Here, an entire ancient ecosystem—plants, fungi, fish, and the delicate traces of vanished warmth—was captured in stone with such precision that cell walls, stomata, and even parasitic fungi remain visible 48 million years later.

The Princeton Chert lies tucked along the east bank of the Similkameen River, 8.5 km south of the town of Princeton, B.C. At first glance, the exposures of the Allenby Formation appear unassuming: thinly layered bands of shale, coal, and pale chert. 

But within these layers, we've discovered something extraordinary—an anatomically preserved flora, fossilized in three dimensions. Unlike typical compression fossils, these organisms were permeated by silica-rich waters so quickly and so thoroughly that even their internal structures survived.

Since the 1950s, collectors and researchers have pulled back the curtain on this Eocene world, but it was in the 1970s and onward that the Chert achieved global attention. Scientists recognized that the Princeton Chert wasn’t just another fossil site. 

It was a Lagerstätte of unparalleled richness—one of the few places on Earth where entire plant communities are preserved down to the microscopic level.

Thin-sectioned under a microscope, these fossils show xylem vessels, aerenchyma, reproductive organs, pollen, seeds, roots, and fungal pathogens—all exquisitely intact. Few fossil floras in the world rival this clarity.

The Princeton Chert formed in a landscape shaped by fire and water. Its 49 known chert layers, ranging from thin wafers to thick beds over half a metre, alternate with volcanic ash, coal, and shale. Each layer represents a momentary pause in time—a lake or pond basin repeatedly drowned in silica-rich waters after nearby volcanic eruptions.

Radiometric dating now places the site at 48.7 million years old, deep within the Early Eocene Ypresian Stage, a time when Earth’s climate simmered near its all-time warmest. Greenhouse gases were high, ice was nearly absent, and tropical warmth lapped into polar regions.

The Princeton Chert flora thrived in shallow lakes and quiet backwaters. Many species were fully aquatic or semi-aquatic, and the fossils show unmistakable features of plants adapted to waterlogged conditions:

• Reduced vascular tissue (because buoyant plants need little support)
• Aerenchyma—honeycombed air chambers for floatation
• Protoxylem lacunae, ringed by thick-walled cells

Many of these plants have close relatives today:

• Allenbya – a water lily
• Keratosperma – an arum with curling, sculptural leaves
• Alismataceae – water plantains
• Ethela – rush-like monocots and sedges

Seeds, fruits, and roots appear in beautiful profusion. Meanwhile, terrestrial plants—those carried in by floods or dropped by birds—are rare but present.

The chert also preserves snippets of the animals that lived alongside these aquatic gardens. In the overlying shale beds, paleontologists have recovered Amia (bowfins), Amyzon, Libotonius, and even a soft-shelled turtle—a small but telling cast of freshwater neighbours.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Princeton Chert is its preservation of fungi. Here, we have identified:

• Tar spot fungi parasitizing Uhlia palm leaves
• Cryptodidymosphaerites princetonensis, a mycoparasite attacking the tar spot fungus
• Ectomycorrhizae—the first ever documented fossil mycorrhizal symbiosis with Pinus

In Metasequoia milleri, the Eocene ancestor of modern dawn redwood, mycorrhizal relationships appear nearly identical to those in modern forests. It is as though 50 million years have passed with hardly a change.

The Princeton Chert has attracted generations of paleobotanists, sedimentologists, and fossil enthusiasts, each drawn to its exquisite three-dimensional preservation and its window into Eocene ecosystems. 

Charles William “Chuck” Basinger, a Canadian paleobotanist renowned for his work on anatomically preserved plants and early conifer evolution. His meticulous studies helped illuminate the internal structures of Princeton Chert flora at cellular resolution. 

Ruth A. Stockey, a leading paleobotanist specialising in fossil conifers, seed plants, and reproductive biology, has published (along with her many grad students) extensively on the chert’s gymnosperms and angiosperms, reconstructing entire plants from roots to reproductive organs. 

Together with many collaborators over the decades, these scientists have pieced together a vivid portrait of ancient wetland forests—lush, diverse, and humming with microscopic and macroscopic life. 

The site is also beloved within the fossil-collecting community. The Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS) has organized field trips here for decades. 

Many members remember their first visit: crouched on a hot summer slope, poking about the roadcuts, collecting fossil insects and plants. One of the first large scale field trips to the region by the VanPS was part of the first BCPA Symposium held in 1998 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 

Smaller field trips became a regular occurrence, usually one every year or two, and that trend continues. The result of all that exploration is a greater understanding of the many fossil species to be found here.

Dan Bowden of the VanPS has done some wonderful work cataloguing the many fossils found here, with a particularly good eye in identifying the fossil insects. 

These excursions have helped train new generations of citizen scientists, fostering a deep respect for the site’s scientific importance.

If you plan to head to Princeton, be sure to include the Princeton & District Museum on your travels. The museum holds a good selection of the local fossils. It is located at 167 Vermillion Avenue, Princeton, BC, V0X 1W0. You can confirm their house on their website at princetonmuseum.org

Know Before You Go: Exploring the Fossil Lakes of British Columbia

Getting There from Vancouver

• Drive east on Highway 1 through Hope, then continue along Highway 3 (the Crowsnest Highway). The town of Hope offers a good place to stop for a meal and gas up your vehicle.
• Pass through Manning Park and descend into the Similkameen Valley toward Princeton.
• The Princeton Chert itself is on private and protected land; access requires permission and often participation in sanctioned society trips.
• Surface collecting yields a wonderful assortment of fossils. 

INDRICOTHERIUM: A GIANT WITH A STORY IN ITS TEETH

Lower Jaw Teeth of Indricotherium

Imagine a rhinoceros tall enough to browse among the trees, with no horn and an appetite that must have kept it chewing for much of the day. 

Meet Indricotherium, a name often used for the giant prehistoric rhino now generally placed in the genus Paraceratherium. 

It lived in Asia during the Oligocene, tens of millions of years ago, and was among the largest land mammals ever to walk the Earth. Communications Biology

Despite its enormous size, this was no dinosaur. It belonged to the broader rhino family tree: an extinct relative of today’s rhinoceroses, rather than their direct ancestor. And while its towering body tends to steal the show, its teeth offer some of the best clues to how it lived.

First, the menu. Paraceratherium had relatively low-crowned cheek teeth. Tooth crowns are the parts above the gum line, and their height matters because food wears them down. Animals that spend their lives grinding abrasive grasses often have taller crowns to spare. 

Indricotherium

The giant rhino’s teeth fit better with browsing on leaves and other vegetation than with grazing on gritty grass close to the ground. 

That tells us the likely kind of food it ate, though a tooth cannot hand us an exact list of plants. Communications Biology

Then there are the front teeth. Its enlarged incisors were remarkably tusk-like. 

Fossil teeth can tell us more than what happened after a mouthful of food was taken: their shape also helps us work out how an animal might have gathered it. 

Exactly how this giant used those incisors remains an interpretation, but they are a useful reminder that “prehistoric rhino” did not mean “modern rhino, only bigger.”

We can also study wear on fossil teeth. Tiny marks and broader patterns of wear give clues about chewing and the abrasiveness of food, especially when compared with teeth from other mammals. 

Each method has limits: dust, grit and the foods eaten shortly before death can complicate the picture. The strongest reconstruction comes from putting dental evidence alongside the skull, the rest of the skeleton and the environment where the fossils were found.

So what do Indricotherium’s teeth tell us? This immense animal was likely a browser, equipped with a mouth quite unlike that of the horned rhinos we picture today. Its fossils preserve more than a record of size. They give us a glimpse of an Oligocene giant reaching for its next meal—and proof that, in palaeontology, a good set of teeth can be wonderfully revealing.

If you could examine one fossil to learn about an extinct animal’s daily life, would you choose a tooth, a footprint or a skull?

THE MAGISTY OF IRISH ELK

Irish Elk, Megaloceros giganteus

Imagine cresting a windswept hillside in the fading amber of a Pleistocene sunset. 

The tall grass parts in slow ripples, stirred by a warm evening breeze—then by something far larger. 

An Irish Elk steps into view, a towering ghost from deep time, its silhouette edged with gold. It is a view some of our ancestors were lucky to behold!

This magnificent deer—Megaloceros giganteus—was not, in fact, strictly Irish, nor truly an elk. 

It was a giant among cervids, a member of a lineage that roamed from Ireland to Siberia across vast Ice Age steppes. But Ireland’s bogs preserved their remains so exquisitely that the name stuck, and so did the awe.

Irish Elk fossils appear in abundance in the peatlands of Ireland, the loess plains of Eastern Europe, and far into Central Asia. 

Their lineage traces back to the genus Megaloceros, a group of large deer that emerged around two million years ago. 

What made M. giganteus the superstar of its clan? Two words: monumental antlers.

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Spanning up to 3.7 metres (twelve feet) from tip to tip, the antlers were not simply oversized decoration—they were evolutionary billboards, broadcasting strength, health, and genetic prowess. 

They also had a hand in their fossil fame. 

When these massive antlers were unearthed centuries ago, early naturalists were convinced they belonged to mythical beasts or antediluvian monsters. 

The truth turned out to be even better: a deer so grand it nearly defied imagination.

Despite their size and majesty, Irish Elk were true deer, closely related to fallow deer and part of an ancient and diverse cervid family. Their bodies were robust, their legs strong and built for open ground, where visibility mattered and where their spectacular antlers could be displayed in their full glory.

But evolution is a dance with the environment, and as the Pleistocene climate fluctuated, the lush grasslands they depended on began to shrink. Their decline wasn’t sudden but drawn out, a slow waltz toward extinction.

The last of these giants fell only a short time ago. We do not know the exact date but the fossils share their stories as more and more are found. The youngest known fossils come from Siberia and date to about 7,700 years ago—well after most Ice Age megafauna had disappeared. 

Irish Elk, Natural History Museum London

By then, humans were spreading across Eurasia, climates were shifting, and dense forests were overtaking open plains. 

A giant deer with enormous antlers was increasingly out of place in a world thick with trees and rife with hunters.

Climate change, habitat loss, and possibly selective hunting all nudged the Irish Elk toward its final chapter. 

They are one of these species that have been talked about as contenders for using DNA to bring them back. 

Today the Irish Elk lives on in museum halls, in bog-darkened bones, and in our imaginations—a giant stepping through grass, pausing on a Pleistocene hillside as if it might turn its head toward us at any moment. There are several Irish Elk in collections and on display at museums around the world where you can view them at your leisure. 

A particularly impressive specimen is on view at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The museum is a personal favourite of mine and worthy of a visit for its rich history and marvelous fossils, including the Irish Elk you see in the photo above. There are also wonderful examples in the British Museum in London, also worthy of a visit. 

The sheer grandeur of their size is sure to impress you! These beauties are a reminder that the world once held creatures both familiar and impossibly grand.

Illustration Credit: The lead image above was created by the supremely talented Daniel Eskridge, Paleo Illustrator from Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I share it here with permission as I have licensed the use of many of his images over the years, including this one. 

To enjoy his works (and purchase them!) to adorn your walls, visit his website at www.danieleskridge.com

DEINONYCHUS: THE REAL DINOSAUR BEHIND JURASSIC PARK'S RAPTORS

Deinonychus antirrhopus

If you met Deinonychus in the Early Cretaceous, your first thought might be, “What a splendid bird.” 

Your second thought, if you were a small animal, would probably be, “Oh dear.”

Deinonychus antirrhopus was a two-legged, meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now North America roughly 115 to 108 million years ago. 

Its name means “terrible claw”, which is charmingly direct for palaeontology. There is no need to work through three layers of Latin to discover that this animal had a rather alarming feature attached to each foot.

On the second toe of each hind foot sat a large, curved claw. Deinonychus could hold that toe off the ground as it moved, keeping the claw ready for action. 

It also had sharp teeth and a long, stiffened tail that helped it balance. Imagine a feathered predator built for agility, with excellent equipment and absolutely no interest in your personal space.

Deinonychus skull

In the 1960s, palaeontologist John Ostrom found Deinonychus fossils in Montana. 

When he described the animal in 1969, its light build and active-looking anatomy challenged the popular image of dinosaurs as slow, lumbering creatures. 

Deinonychus helped set off the “dinosaur renaissance”: a fresh look at how dinosaurs moved, behaved and, eventually, how closely some were related to birds.

That makes it a scientific celebrity, even if Hollywood gave most of its screen time to someone else. 

The famous “Velociraptors” of Jurassic Park drew heavily on Deinonychus. Actual Velociraptor was smaller. Deinonychus, meanwhile, has spent decades watching another dinosaur accept the applause. 

Fossils of Deinonychus have been found alongside the plant-eating dinosaur Tenontosaurus. Researchers have also identified marks on Tenontosaurus bones that they interpret as Deinonychus bites. It seems clear that Tenontosaurus could end up as food. 

Whether Deinonychus hunted it alone, hunted in groups, scavenged it, or did some combination of these remains harder to pin down.

That is the joy and occasional frustration of palaeontology: a fossil can tell us who came to dinner without providing the seating chart.

We also do not have direct fossil feathers from Deinonychus itself. Its close relatives and its place on the dinosaur family tree make a feathered appearance a strong scientific interpretation, though. The scaly movie raptor may have had good lighting, but a fluffy Deinonychus is much closer to how many picture the real animal.

So give Deinonychus its due. It was a formidable Cretaceous predator, a surprise star of dinosaur science and quite possibly the owner of the most consequential toenail in palaeontology. Cute, deadly and a lovely fossil to behold!

KU'MIS: WARRIOR CRAB

Look how epic this little guy is! 

He is a crab — and if you asked him, the fiercest warrior that ever lived. 

While that may not be strictly true, crabs do have the heart of a warrior and will raise their claws, sometimes only millimetres into the air, to assert dominance over their world. 

Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the Phylum Arthropoda. 

In Kwak'wala, the language of the Kwakwaka'wakw of the Pacific Northwest, this brave fellow is ḵ̓u'mis — both a tasty snack and familiar to the supernatural deity Tuxw'id, a female warrior spirit. Given their natural armour and clear bravery, it is a fitting role.

They inhabit all the world's oceans, sandy beaches, many of our freshwater lakes and streams. Some few prefer to live in forests.

Crabs build their shells from highly mineralized chitin — and chitin gets around. It is the main structural component of the exoskeletons of many of our crustacean and insect friends. Shrimp, crab, and lobster all use it to build their exoskeletons.

Chitin is a polysaccharide — a large molecule made of many smaller monosaccharides or simple sugars, like glucose. 

It is handy stuff, forming crystalline nanofibrils or whiskers. Chitin is actually the second most abundant polysaccharide after cellulose. It is interesting as we usually think of these molecules in the context of their sugary context but they build many other very useful things in nature — not the least of these are the hard shells or exoskeletons of our crustacean friends.

Crabs in the Fossil Record

The earliest unambiguous crab fossils date from the Early Jurassic, with the oldest being Eocarcinus from the early Pliensbachian of Britain, which likely represents a stem-group lineage, as it lacks several key morphological features that define modern crabs. 

Most Jurassic crabs are only known from dorsal — or top half of the body — carapaces, making it difficult to determine their relationships. Crabs radiated in the Late Jurassic, corresponding with an increase in reef habitats, though they would decline at the end of the Jurassic as the result of the decline of reef ecosystems. Crabs increased in diversity through the Cretaceous and represented the dominant group of decapods by the end.

We find wonderful fossil crab specimens on Vancouver Island. The first I ever collected was at Shelter Point, then again on Hornby Island, down on the Olympic Peninsula and along Vancouver Island's west coast near Nootka Sound. 

They are, of course, found globally and are one of the most pleasing fossils to find and aggravating to prep of all the specimens you will ever have in your collection. Bless them.

STELLER’S SEA COW: A GENTLE GIANT LOST TO HISTORY

Steller’s sea cow, Hydrodamalis gigas

The Steller’s sea cow, Hydrodamalis gigas, was an enormous marine mammal that once grazed the kelp forests of the North Pacific. 

Closely related to the modern dugong—and more distantly to manatees—it belonged to the order Sirenia, an ancient group of plant-eating mammals whose evolutionary history reaches back more than 50 million years.

Growing to approximately 7.5–9 metres long and weighing several tonnes, Steller’s sea cow was considerably larger than any living sirenian. It possessed a small head, paddle-like forelimbs and a broad, forked tail. Unlike dugongs and manatees, it had no functional teeth. Instead, thick, ridged pads inside its mouth helped it crush and grind kelp.

Its dark, deeply wrinkled hide was reportedly so thick that naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller compared it to the bark of an old oak tree. This was a sensible bit of armour for an animal feeding among sharp rocks, ice and pounding northern surf—but sadly, it offered no protection from hungry sailors carrying harpoons.

The ancestors of Steller’s sea cow evolved in warmer waters. Fossils belonging to its wider hydrodamaline lineage appear in North Pacific rocks dating back to the Miocene Epoch. Over millions of years, these sea cows became increasingly adapted to cooler environments, larger bodies and a diet dominated by kelp.

Fossils of Hydrodamalis and closely related forms have been discovered along the Pacific coasts of Japan, Russia, Alaska, California and Baja California. 

One of its better-known relatives, Hydrodamalis cuestae, lived along the western coast of North America during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. These giant sea cows once occupied a much broader area than the tiny refuge in which Europeans eventually encountered them.

Late Pleistocene remains of Hydrodamalis gigas have been recovered from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The species survived into the Holocene, but its geographic range contracted as sea levels, ocean temperatures and coastal kelp habitats changed following the last Ice Age. 

Fossil remains suggest that scattered populations may have persisted around parts of the Bering Sea long after they disappeared farther south.

Genomic research tells us that the species had experienced a long decline in population size before its final encounter with European hunters. 

By the eighteenth century, its surviving population was already small, isolated and genetically vulnerable. Natural environmental changes may therefore have placed Steller’s sea cow on increasingly thin ecological ice—but humans delivered the final blow.

Western science first learned of the animal in 1741, when Georg Wilhelm Steller observed it around Bering Island in the Commander Islands. Steller was stranded there with survivors of the ill-fated expedition led by Vitus Bering. He carefully documented the enormous animals as they floated close to shore, feeding on kelp in shallow water.

Unfortunately, the sea cows were large, slow, approachable and apparently unable to dive deeply. They also yielded tremendous quantities of meat and fat. Their hides could be fashioned into boats or coverings, while their fat was valued for food and lamp oil. Once Russian fur-hunting crews began visiting the Commander Islands, the animals became convenient floating supply depots.

Hunters harpooned them from small boats and attempted to drag the wounded animals ashore. Many struck sea cows escaped carrying embedded weapons, only to die later. The slaughter was therefore even more wasteful than the number of recovered carcasses suggests.

Their biology offered little chance of recovery. Steller’s sea cows probably matured slowly, produced one calf at a time and depended upon shallow coastal kelp beds. Extinction models indicate that hunters were killing them at many times the population’s sustainable rate. 

Only 27 years after Steller described them, the last reliably recorded individual was killed in 1768.

The commercial hunting of sea otters may also have hastened their disappearance. With fewer otters eating sea urchins, urchin populations could expand and consume more kelp—the very food upon which the sea cows depended. Researchers have modelled this proposed ecological chain reaction, although direct hunting remains the clearest and most immediate cause of extinction.

Steller’s sea cow survived millions of years of climatic change, shifting coastlines and evolving marine ecosystems. It survived the Ice Ages—but it could not survive three decades of industrial-scale human appetite.

GOLDEN TREASURES OF THE FOREST: HUNTING CHANTERELLES ON VANCOUVER ISLAND

Chanterelles: Golden Gems of the Cowichan Forest

Autumn rains drench the mossy forests around Duncan, Cowichan Lake, and Mount Prevost, and suddenly, the forest floor glows with tiny flashes of gold. 

These are the Chanterelle mushrooms—Cantharellus cibarius and its Pacific cousin, C. formosus—fragrant jewels of the woods, with a delicate apricot aroma and buttery, nutty flavor that makes any forager’s heart skip a beat.

Chanterelles thrive in symbiosis with the island’s towering Douglas fir, western red cedar, and hemlock, often tucked beneath sword ferns and huckleberry bushes. 

Their forked gills and wavy, golden caps make them stand out against the deep green and brown of the forest floor—but it takes a sharp eye and a love of wandering to spot them. One sniff of their sweet, fruity scent and you know you’ve found treasure.

These mushrooms are a modern delicacy and ancient residents of the forest. Fossils of their broader group, the Basidiomycota, date back at least 90 million years to the Cretaceous Period, when dinosaurs still roamed. 

While soft-bodied fungi like Chanterelles rarely fossilize, amber-preserved spores and mycorrhizal traces reveal that their underground partnerships with trees were already thriving. Every Chanterelle patch you find today is the living legacy of a lineage that has been nourishing forests for tens of millions of years.

Foraging responsibly is key. Always cut stems rather than pulling mushrooms to protect the underground mycelium. Only take what you can use, and watch out for the False Chanterelle, Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca, its deeper orange hue and true gills are the giveaways. With care, you can savor the golden bounty while keeping the forest alive and thriving.

So lace up your boots, grab a basket, and wander the damp woods around Duncan. When the golden caps peek through moss and leaf litter, you’re not just finding mushrooms—you’re stepping into an ancient forest story, written in gold on the forest floor.

ECHOES OF THE EOCENE: A WHALE BETWEEN WORLDS

Chrysocetus foudasil 

The impressive skull you see here belongs to Chrysocetus foudasil a member of the Basilosauridae, an ancient family of fully aquatic early whales known as archaeocetes. Though it still bore vestigial hind limbs, it no longer depended on land—a critical evolutionary step from its semi-aquatic ancestors such as Ambulocetus and Protocetus.

Basilosaurids like Chrysocetus, Dorudon, and Basilosaurus ruled the seas of the late Eocene, occupying ecological roles much like today’s dolphins and orcas. 

Basilosaurus grew into a serpent-like giant over 15 meters long, while Dorudon was smaller, sleeker, and likely faster. Chrysocetus was somewhere in between—mid-sized, streamlined, and adapted for powerful undulating swimming.

These early whales represent a pivotal stage in cetacean evolution. They bridge the gap between the land-dwelling artiodactyl ancestors (even-toed ungulates like deer and hippos) and the fully marine mysticetes (baleen whales) and odontocetes (toothed whales) that would later diversify in the Oligocene.

Looking at their remains, we are seeing a window into our world when whales were still learning to be whales—a fleeting evolutionary moment preserved in Moroccan stone, where golden bones tell the story of an ocean in transition.

RED PANDAS: AN ANCIENT FAMILY IN THE TREETOPS

Red pandas may look like a charming mixture of fox, raccoon and teddy bear, but they are none of the above. 

The red panda, Ailurus fulgens, is the only living representative of the family Ailuridae—an ancient branch of the carnivore family tree with a fossil history stretching back millions of years.

Fossil ailurids first appeared during the Miocene Epoch. 

Their remains have been found across Europe, Asia and North America, showing that the family once enjoyed a much wider distribution than it does today. 

One spectacular relative was Simocyon batalleri, a puma-sized ailurid that lived in Spain during the Late Miocene. 

Fossils show that it possessed an enlarged wrist bone forming a “false thumb,” much like the one living red pandas use to grasp bamboo. 

Because Simocyon was not a dedicated bamboo eater, researchers think this useful bit of anatomy may have evolved for climbing before being repurposed as a dining utensil. Evolution is wonderfully thrifty that way.

Another extinct relative, Pristinailurus bristoli, lived roughly five million years ago in the forested landscape preserved at Tennessee’s Gray Fossil Site. 

Discoveries like this reveal that ancient red panda relatives once scampered through North American forests—not merely the misty mountains of Asia. Research on fossil ailurids and the false thumb

Today, wild red pandas inhabit cool temperate forests along the Himalayas and adjoining mountain ranges in Nepal, Bhutan, India, northern Myanmar and southwestern China. 

They depend on forests with dense bamboo growing beneath the canopy and spend much of their time climbing, feeding or sleeping draped comfortably across a branch. 

Despite belonging to the mammalian order Carnivora and possessing the digestive system of a meat eater, red pandas survive primarily on bamboo. They must eat a great deal of it because their bodies are not particularly efficient at extracting energy from such fibrous food.

Their long, ringed tails help them balance among the branches and can be wrapped around the body like a warm scarf in chilly mountain weather. Their reddish coats may also provide surprisingly effective camouflage among red mosses, lichens and shadowy tree trunks.

Red pandas are generally solitary, excellent climbers and capable of descending trees headfirst by rotating their ankles—an uncommon and very useful trick when your dining room is several metres above the ground. When alarmed, they may rear onto their hind legs to appear larger. 

It is a bold display from an animal weighing only about as much as a well-fed house cat.

Sadly, these remarkable survivors are endangered. Forest loss, habitat fragmentation, livestock pressure and poaching continue to threaten the remaining wild populations. 

The red panda is all that remains of a once widespread evolutionary dynasty—and a very good reason to protect the mountain forests it still calls home.

FOSSILS AND FIRST NATIONS HISTORY: NOOTKA

Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam

The rugged west coast of Vancouver Island offers spectacular views of a wild British Columbia. Here the seas heave along the shores slowly eroding the magnificent deposits that often contain fossils. 

Just off the shores of Vancouver Island, east of Gold River and south of Tahsis is the picturesque and remote Nootka Island.

This is the land of the proud and thriving Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have lived here always. 

Always is a long time, but we know from oral history and archaeological evidence that the Mowachaht and Muchalaht peoples lived here, along with many others, for many thousands of years — a time span much like always. 

While we know this area as Nootka Sound and the land we explore for fossils as Nootka Island, these names stem from a wee misunderstanding. 

Just four years after the 1774 visit by Spanish explorer Juan Pérez — and only a year before the Spanish established a military and fur trading post on the site of Yuquot — the Nuu-chah-nulth met the Englishman, James Cook.  

Captain Cook sailed to the village of Yuquot just west of Vancouver Island to a very warm welcome. He and his crew stayed on for a month of storytelling, trading and ship repairs. Friendly, but not familiar with the local language, he misunderstood the name for both the people and land to be Nootka. In actual fact, Nootka means, go around, go around. 

Two hundred years later, in 1978, the Nuu-chah-nulth chose the collective term Nuu-chah-nulth — nuučaan̓uł, meaning all along the mountains and sea or along the outside (of Vancouver Island) — to describe themselves. 

It is a term now used to describe several First Nations people living along western Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 

It is similar in a way to the use of the United Kingdom to refer to the lands of England, Scotland and Wales — though using United Kingdom-ers would be odd. Bless the Nuu-chah-nulth for their grace in choosing this collective name.  

An older term for this group of peoples was Aht, which means people in their language and is a component in all the names of their subgroups, and of some locations — Yuquot, Mowachaht, Kyuquot, Opitsaht. While collectively, they are the Nuu-chah-nulth, be interested in their more regional name should you meet them. 

But why does it matter? If you have ever mistakenly referred to someone from New Zealand as an Aussie or someone from Scotland as English, you have likely been schooled by an immediate — sometimes forceful, sometimes gracious — correction of your ways. The best answer to why it matters is because it matters.

Each of the subgroups of the Nuu-chah-nulth viewed their lands and seasonal migration within them (though not outside of them) from a viewpoint of inside and outside. Kla'a or outside is the term for their coastal environment and hilstis for their inside or inland environment.

It is to their kla'a that I was most keen to explore. Here, the lovely Late Eocene and Early Miocene exposures offer up fossil crab, mostly the species Raninid, along with fossil gastropods, bivalves, pine cones and spectacularly — a singular seed pod. These wonderfully preserved specimens are found in concretion along the foreshore where time and tide erode them out each year.

Five years after Spanish explorer Juan Pérez's first visit, the Spanish built and maintained a military post at Yuquot where they tore down the local houses to build their own structures and set up what would become a significant fur trade port for the Northwest Coast — with the local Chief Maquinna's blessing and his warriors acting as middlemen to other First Nations. 

Following reports of Cook's exploration British traders began to use the harbour of Nootka (Friendly Cove) as a base for a promising trade with China in sea-otter pelts but became embroiled with the Spanish who claimed (albeit erroneously) sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean. 

Dan Bowen searching an outcrop. Photo: John Fam

The ensuing Nootka Incident of 1790 nearly led to war between Britain and Spain (over lands neither could actually claim) but talk of war settled and the dispute was settled diplomatically. 

George Vancouver on his subsequent exploration in 1792 circumnavigated the island and charted much of the coastline. His meeting with the Spanish captain Bodega y Quadra at Nootka was friendly but did not accomplish the expected formal ceding of land by the Spanish to the British. 

It resulted however in his vain naming the island "Vancouver and Quadra." The Spanish captain's name was later dropped and given to the island on the east side of Discovery Strait. Again, another vain and unearned title that persists to this day.

Early settlement of the island was carried out mainly under the sponsorship of the Hudson's Bay Company whose lease from the Crown amounted to 7 shillings per year — that's roughly equal to £100.00 or $174 CDN today. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, was founded in 1843 as Fort Victoria on the southern end of Vancouver Island by the Hudson's Bay Company's Chief Factor, Sir James Douglas. 

With Douglas's help, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Rupert on the north end of Vancouver Island in 1849. Both became centres of fur trade and trade between First Nations and solidified the Hudson's Bay Company's trading monopoly in the Pacific Northwest.

The settlement of Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island — handily south of the 49th parallel — greatly aided British negotiators to retain all of the islands when a line was finally set to mark the northern boundary of the United States with the signing of the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1846. Vancouver Island became a separate British colony in 1858. British Columbia, exclusive of the island, was made a colony in 1858 and in 1866 the two colonies were joined into one — becoming a province of Canada in 1871 with Victoria as the capital.

Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS) did a truly splendid talk on the Fossils of Nootka Sound. With his permission, I have uploaded the talk to the ARCHEA YouTube Channel for all to enjoy. Do take a boo, he is a great presenter. Dan also graciously provided the photos you see here. The last of the photos you see here is from the August 2021 Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam, Vice-Chair, Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS).

Know Before You Go — Nootka Trail

The Nootka Trail passes through the traditional lands of the Mowachaht/Muchalat First Nations who have lived here since always. They share this area with humpback and Gray whales, orcas, seals, sea lions, black bears, wolves, cougars, eagles, ravens, sea birds, river otters, insects and the many colourful intertidal creatures that you'll want to photograph.

This is a remote West Coast wilderness experience. Getting to Nootka Island requires some planning as you'll need to take a seaplane or water taxi to reach the trailhead. The trail takes 4-8 days to cover the 37 km year-round hike. The peak season is July to September. Permits are not required for the hike. 

Access via: Air Nootka floatplane, water taxi, or MV Uchuck III

• Dan Bowen, VIPS on the Fossils of Nootka: https://youtu.be/rsewBFztxSY
• https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-james-douglas
• file:///C:/Users/tosca/Downloads/186162-Article%20Text-199217-1-10-20151106.pdf
• Nootka Trip Planning: https://mbguiding.ca/nootka-trail-nootka-island/#overview.

CLALLAM BAY FOSSIL HEIST

Vertipecten fucanus (Dall, 1900)

Some water-worn samples of the bivalve Verdipectin fucanus, Clallam Formation, Clallam Bay, Washington State. Miocene.

It all began one gloriously sunny summer weekend when the planets aligned, the calendar gods smiled, and my mother and I were simultaneously free. 

Naturally, this meant one thing: we were going fossil hunting. I still get out collecting regularly but back in the day it was every weekend of the year with the bigger trips planned a few years in advance. 

Many of those were "reckie trips" scouting out new localities. The Olympic Peninsula was duly scouted and now it was back to the regular haunts. 

We rattled down through Port Angeles and set up camp at the Lyre River—mosquitoes, campfire smoke, and all the rustic feels. 

I took Mom on a grand tour of my favourite haunts: Majestic Beach (where we found some amazing fossil whale verts), a private-land site with ghost shrimp claws and urchins (with permission), and finally down to Clallam Bay and its dreamy beach exposures.

The Clallam Formation stretches along the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula, tracing the rugged edge of the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Slip Point at the eastern end of Clallam Bay to the headland of Pillar Point. Here, sandstone beds push the coastline outward in a subtle bulge, their weathered flanks dropping abruptly to a broad, wave-washed bedrock platform.

Pillar Point, Clallam Bay

Imagine standing on that foreshore: waves crash rhythmically against the stone, sending up bursts of cool spray. The surf’s deep, steady thunder pulses underfoot, while the sharper cries of gulls wheel above, carried on the wind. 

The air is rich with the briny scent of kelp and cold saltwater, a sharp, clean smell that settles in the back of the throat. Each retreating wave leaves a gleaming sheen on the rock, swirling with foam before sliding back to the sea.

Its cliffs and tidal benches have long drawn geologists—and especially paleontologists—who were captivated by the formation’s abundance of beautifully preserved fossils. 

William Healey Dall, a pioneering American geologist and paleontologist whose career spanned more than six decades. Dall loved to explore this rugged bit of coastline, studying and describing many of the mollusks now known from the Clallam Formation, adding his work to the early scientific tapestry woven from these windswept rocks.

He became one of the most prolific describers of North Pacific mollusks, naming hundreds of new species—from marine snails and clams to chitons—many of which still bear the names he assigned or honour him through genera such as Dallina and Dallididae. His work laid much of the early scientific foundation for the paleontology of the Pacific Coast.

Retracing his footsteps and to catch the tides just right, we collected in the early afternoon, blissfully unaware that we were setting up the perfect comedy plot twist. 

After a full day of hauling home the ocean’s Miocene leftovers, we decided to stash some of our fossil booty under a log—just until morning. A little paleo treasure cache. Perfectly safe. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

The next morning, we strolled back down the beach, coffees in hand, ready to retrieve our hoard like triumphant pirates.

Enter: A very enthusiastic gaggle of high school students.

There they were, marching toward us, each clutching a fossil like they’d just won the geological lottery. “Look what we found!” they cried, beaming, displaying our carefully cached treasures.

Yes. Our stash. Our carefully curated, lovingly positioned, absolutely-not-meant-for-public-consumption stash.

But honestly? They were so thrilled, we couldn’t help but be charmed. Besides, most of what I collect ends up in museums or teaching collections anyway. These young fossil hunters had simply… expedited the process. Efficient, really.

We gathered the Verdipectin together for one glamorous group photo, wished the kids well, and sent them off with pockets full of deep time. 

And our grand prize for the weekend? Some very fetching water-worn whale vertebrae—one of which was briefly enscripted into service as the crown of the King of the Lemon People, while my mother created elaborate beach sculptures to our shared amusement.. All in all, a perfect weekend.

Image: Vertipecten fucanus (Dall, 1900) is the most characteristic mollusk in assemblages from the Clallam Formation.

CHARIOCRINUS: LA BELLE OF THE BALL

Chariocrinus andrae, Collection: David Appleton

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. 

This impressive block, chock full of lovely, well-preserved specimens of the crinoid, Chariocrinus andrae, hails from Bathonian outcrops in Beaune, Saône-et-Loire in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of central-eastern France. 

They are intertwined to cover most of the surface area of the citrus coloured matrix. 

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. That's him!

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

This beautiful 7" x 6" piece was photographed in natural sunlight to help show off the amazing detail. Photo and collection of the deeply awesome David Appleton.

RARE MARBLED POLECAT — VORMELA PEREGUSNA

Looking rather like a tiny carnivore dressed for a masquerade ball, the marbled polecat, Vormela peregusna, is a rare member of the weasel family, Mustelidae. 

Its extraordinary coat is patterned in cream, yellow, brown and black, complete with a dark facial mask and white-edged ears. 

Beneath all that finery is a fierce little predator equipped with long digging claws—and scent glands capable of producing a truly appalling smell when danger comes calling.

I had heard an expression once of someone fighting like a polecat and thought nothing of it at the time. It is only recently that I got to see the fossil remains of one of these cuties up close and put that expression and this adorable one together. 

The fossil history of Vormela reaches back to the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene of Eurasia. Fossils of the extinct Vormela petenyii, a probable ancestral relative of today’s marbled polecat, have been found in Bulgaria. The modern species appeared by around the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary, roughly 2.6 million years ago.

Marbled polecats are mustelids, making them relatives of weasels, ferrets, badgers and otters. Their closer kin include striped polecats and zorillas—small carnivores that share similarly impressive chemical defences.

Today, these elusive mammals inhabit steppes, dry grasslands and semi-deserts from southeastern Europe through the Middle East and Central Asia to western China. They hunt rodents, birds, reptiles and insects, often sheltering in burrows excavated by their prey. 

Sadly, the marbled polecat is listed as Vulnerable, threatened by habitat loss, agricultural development, rodent-control poisons and declining prey populations. 

Colourful, secretive and powerfully fragrant, this is one little predator you would be extraordinarily lucky to see—and perhaps slightly less lucky to startle.

WHEN DIPLODOCUS CROSSED THE ATLANTIC

Palaeontologists have just identified the first confirmed Diplodocus fossils found outside North America. 

Until this discovery, confirmed Diplodocus fossils were known only from the Morrison Formation of the western United States.

The remains—14 tail vertebrae and several chevron bones—were recovered near El Castellar in Teruel, Spain. 

They belonged to an animal roughly 25 metres long that lived about 150 million years ago.

This is a terrific story because the fossils do more than place a familiar dinosaur somewhere new. They suggest that dinosaurs travelled between North America and Europe while the young Atlantic Ocean was opening, possibly crossing temporary land bridges during periods of lower sea level. 

For more than a century, Diplodocus appeared to be a thoroughly North American dinosaur. 

Its fossils were known from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States, where these wonderfully long-necked herbivores wandered across ancient floodplains alongside Stegosaurus, Allosaurus and other familiar Jurassic giants.

Now, Diplodocus has turned up somewhere entirely unexpected: Spain.

Palaeontologists from the Fundación Dinópolis identified 14 exceptionally well-preserved tail vertebrae and several chevron bones from the La Tejería fossil site near El Castellar in Teruel. The bones are about 150 million years old and represent the first confirmed Diplodocus discovered outside North America.

The Spanish animal was no dainty traveller. Researchers estimate that it reached approximately 25 metres in length—about the length of two city buses parked end to end. Most of that impressive silhouette consisted of an extraordinarily long neck and an even longer, whip-like tail, balanced around a comparatively compact body and remarkably small head.

The fossil was identified through distinctive features in its tail bones. These included elongated vertebral centra, large air-filled cavities within the vertebrae, deep grooves along their undersides and forked chevrons. 

Chevrons are bones attached beneath the tail vertebrae that helped protect blood vessels while providing anchoring points for muscles. Together, these anatomical clues placed the Spanish specimen firmly within the genus Diplodocus and close to the North American species Diplodocus hallorum.

Its presence in Spain raises a delicious prehistoric question: how did a dinosaur associated with the American West reach Jurassic Europe?

It did not swim across the modern Atlantic—and frankly, a 25-metre sauropod doing the dog paddle would have been memorable. During the Late Jurassic, the Atlantic Ocean was only beginning to open as the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart. 

North America and Europe were much closer together, and changes in sea level may occasionally have exposed islands or temporary land connections. These routes could have allowed dinosaurs to move between the continents in stages.

The discovery supports growing evidence of faunal exchange between North America and the Iberian Peninsula. 

Dinosaurs with close North American connections, including stegosaurs and large theropods, have also been discovered in Portugal and Spain. Iberia may have acted as an important gateway between ancient continents while the young Atlantic widened around it.

The new specimen also adds to the remarkable collection of giant sauropods known from Teruel. These included Turiasaurus, a massive European sauropod belonging to a very different evolutionary branch, and Losillasaurus, another enormous long-necked herbivore. 

Late Jurassic Spain was evidently not short of giants—or of the vegetation required to keep them fed.

This discovery does not yet tell us whether the Spanish animal belonged to a known species of Diplodocus or represents one that is new to science. More fossils will be needed before researchers can answer that question. The bones nevertheless demonstrate something extraordinary: Diplodocus was not confined to North America after all.

Its enormous feet once touched European soil, and its tail stretched across more than a landscape. It reached across our assumptions about how Jurassic dinosaurs travelled, dispersed and responded to a planet whose continents were slowly becoming worlds apart.

The research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology on September 15, 2026. 

The original fossils are now displayed at the Museo Aragonés de Paleontología in Dinópolis, Teruel. 

If you're planning a visit, Teruel is about:

• 145 km northwest of Valencia
• 180 km south of Zaragoza
• 300 km east of Madrid

Valencia is the nearest major international city and the most convenient reference point for travelers. It is off the beaten track but worth the trip.

The research was published on September 15, 2026, making it wonderfully fresh. It gives us giant dinosaurs, continental drift, prehistoric migration and a splendid tail—all excellent ingredients for a tasty read.

Here's the paper for your enjoyment: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1143855?utm_source=chatgpt.com