FOSSIL HUNTRESS

Mist clings to the moss-draped cedars, and the river below churns with the silver flash of salmon fighting upstream.  Then, out of the shado...

Welcome to the world of bees. This fuzzy yellow and black striped fellow is a bumblebee in the genus  Bombus sp.,  family Apidae.  We know h...

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—bu...

Hallstatt Salt Mines, Austria / Permian Salt Diapir The Hallstatt Limestone is the world's richest Triassic ammonite unit, yielding ...

Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam The rugged west coast of Vancouver Island offers spectacular views of a wild British Columbia. Her...

At ungodly-o’clock in the morning, while the rest of us are still grumbling into our pillows, European flamingos are out there looking like ...

Mammoths are a personal favourite of mine and there is a particularly fetching specimen in the Natural History Museum, London.  Amongst its ...

Yorkshire Coast You may recall the eight-metre Type Specimen of the ichthyosaur, Temnodontosaurus crassimanus , found in an alum quarry in Y...

Mixosaurus sp . from Middle Triassic Seas If you ever wanted to meet an ichthyosaur halfway between “sleek dolphin missile” and “awkward cro...

Nessie the Opalized Marine Reptile At the Opal Museum in Queensland glitters one of the more improbable fossils ever pulled from the ancient...

Johann Hermann's Pterodactylus , 1800 In the grand annals of science, few discoveries have flapped into history with quite as much confu...

Hope Whale Stepping into the Natural History Museum, I was immediately greeted by Hope, the enormous blue whale skeleton gliding above Hintz...

Voay robustus Let’s begin in Madagascar—a place so rich in oddities that it makes Australia look like it’s playing it safe.  Here, until a f...

Banff National Park is breathtaking from any angle, but from the air it feels otherworldly—an alpine tapestry of turquoise lakes, braided ri...

Mister Mozart Cats—those purring enigmas who act like they invented gravity and disdain—have been perfecting their aloof charm for tens of m...