MEET ACICULOLENUS ASKEWI AFTER DON ASKEW

A new species of trilobite from the upper Cambrian McKay Group was introduced in March of 2020: Aciculolenus askewi.  The species is named after Don Askew, an avid fossil hunter of Upper Cambrian trilobites from Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, who has discovered several new species in the East Kootenays. 

Don was the first to brave the treacherous cliffs up the waterfall on the west side of the ravine below Tanglefoot mountain. 

That climb led to his discovery of one of the most prolific outcrops in the McKay Group with some of the most exciting and best-preserved trilobites from the region. 

The faunal set are similar to those found at site one — the first of the trilobite outcrops discovered by Chris New and Chris Jenkins — an hours hike through grizzly bear country.

The specimens found at the top of the waterfall are not in calcite wafers, as they are elsewhere, instead, these exceptionally preserved specimens are found complete with a thin coating of matrix that must be prepped down to the shell beneath. 

Askew was also the skill preparator called upon to tease out the details from the 'gut trilobite' recently published from the region. In all, this area has produced more than 60 new species — many found by Askew — and not all of which have been published yet.

I caught up with Don last summer on a trip to the region. He was gracious in openly sharing his knowledge and a complete mountain goat in the field — a good man that Askew. Not surprising then that Brian Chatterton would do him the honour of naming this new species after him. 

Chatterton, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta, is an invertebrate palaeontologist with a great sense of humour and a particular love of trilobites. Even so, his published works span a myriad of groups including conodonts, machaeridians, sponges, brachiopods, corals, cephalopods, bivalves, trace fossils — to fishes, birds and dinosaurs.

Brian Chatterton has been visiting the East Kootenay region for many years. In 1998, he and Rolf Ludvigsen published the pivotal work on the "calcified trilobites" we had begun hearing about in the late 1990s. There were tales of blue trilobites in calcified layers guarded by a resident Grizzly. This was years before logging roads had reached this pocket of paleontological goodness and hiking in — bear or no bear — was a daunting task. 

In his Cambridge University Press paper, Chatterton describes the well-preserved fauna of largely articulated trilobites from three new localities in the Bull River Valley. 

The Dream Team at Fossil Site #15, East Kootenays

All the trilobites from these localities are from the lower or middle part of the Wujiajiania lyndasmithae Subzone of the Elvinia Zone, lower Jiangshanian, in the McKay Group. 

Access is via a bumpy ride on logging roads 20 km northeast of Fort Steele that includes fording a river (for those blessed with large tires and a high wheelbase) and culminating in a hot, dusty hike and death-defying traipse down 35-degree slopes to the localities.

Two new species were proposed with types from these localities: Aciculolenus askewi and Cliffia nicoleae. The trilobite (and agnostid) fauna from these localities includes at least 20 species that read like a who's who of East Kootenay palaeontology: 

Aciculolenus askewi n. sp., Agnostotes orientalis (Kobayashi, 1935), Cernuolimbus ludvigseni Chatterton and Gibb, 2016, Cliffia nicoleae n. sp., Elvinia roemeri (Shumard, 1861), Grandagnostus? species 1 of Chatterton and Gibb, 2016, Eugonocare? phillipi Chatterton and Gibb, 2016, Eugonocare? sp. A, Housia vacuna (Walcott, 1912), Irvingella convexa (Kobayashi, 1935), Irvingella flohri Resser, 1942, Irvingella species B Chatterton and Gibb, 2016, Olenaspella chrisnewi Chatterton and Gibb, 2016, Proceratopyge canadensis (Chatterton and Ludvigsen, 1998), Proceratopyge rectispinata (Troedsson, 1937), Pseudagnostus cf. P. josepha (Hall, 1863), Pseudagnostus securiger (Lake, 1906), Pseudeugonocare bispinatum (Kobayashi, 1962), Pterocephalia sp., and Wujiajiania lyndasmithae Chatterton and Gibb, 2016.

Chris New, pleased as punch atop Upper Cambrian Exposures

It has been the collaborative efforts of Guy Santucci, Chris New, Chris Jenkins, Don Askew and Stacey Gibb that has helped open up the region — including finding and identifying many new species or firsts including Pseudagnostus securiger, a widespread early Jiangshanian species not been previously recorded from southeastern British Columbia. 

Other interesting invertebrate fossils from these localities include brachiopods, rare trace fossils, a complete silica sponge (Hyalospongea), and a dendroid graptolite. 

The species we find here are more diverse than those from other localities of the same age in the region — and enjoy much better preservation. 

The birth of new species into our scientific nomenclature takes time and the gathering of enough material to justify a new species name. Fortunately for Labiostria gibbae, specimens had been found of this rare species had been documented from the upper part of Wujiajiania lyndasmithae Subzone — slightly younger in age. 

Combined with an earlier discovery, they provided adequate type material to propose the new species — Labiostria gibbae — a species that honours Stacey Gibb and which will likely prove useful for biostratigraphy.

Reference: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/abs/midfurongian-trilobites-and-agnostids-from-the-wujiajiania-lyndasmithae-subzone-of-the-elvinia-zone-mckay-group-southeastern-british-columbia-canada/E8DBC8BD635863E840715122C05BB14A#

Photo One: Aciculolenus askewi by Chris Jenkins, Cranbrook, British Columbia

Photo Two: L to R: Dan Bowden, Guy Santucci, Chris Jenkins, Dan Askew and John Fam at Fossil Site #15, East Kootenay Region, British Columbia, Canada, August 2, 2020.

Photo Three: Chris New pleased as punch atop of Upper Cambrian Exposures in the East Kootenay Region, British Columbia, Canada

SCIENCE AND SHENANIGANS: PACIFIC NORTHWEST BEARS

If you spend enough time in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, you start to understand why Ursus americanus and Ursus arctos horribilis have held court in our stories for millennia. 

They’re curious, clever, deeply maternal, occasionally cranky, and—much like your favourite mischievous cousin at a family reunion—always two steps from either a cuddle or a wrestling match.

Bear play looks adorable from afar—soft paws swatting, roly-poly wrestling, mock charges that end in huffing and zoomies—but make no mistake: this is serious business. 

For young black bears and grizzlies, play is the curriculum of survival. 

Wrestling hones strength and coordination. Chase games build stamina and teach cubs how to gauge speed and momentum in uneven terrain. 

You will recognize the mouthing and pawing in bears if you have ever watched dogs playfighting. It has that same feel but with a much bigger smack.

Even the classic “stand up and paw slap” routine teaches social cues, dominance negotiation, and how to not get clobbered during adult interactions later on.

Adults play too—usually in the brief windows when food is plentiful, neighbours are tolerable, and no one is watching who might judge them for being goofballs. 

Scientists have documented adult grizzlies sliding down snow patches on their backs and black bears engaging in curious-object play, poking logs, tossing salmon carcasses, and investigating anything that smells even remotely like an adventure.

Interactions between bears are a delicate dance of dominance, tolerance, and opportunism. 

Adult females tend to keep to themselves, especially when raising cubs, while males roam wider territories and have higher tolerance thresholds—at least until another big male wanders too close to a prime feeding spot.

During salmon runs, though, everything changes. Suddenly you’ll see a whole cast of characters congregate along rivers: veteran matriarchs who fish with surgical precision, rowdy subadults who think stealth means “splash loudly until the fish give up,” and massive males who square off in dominance displays worthy of a heavyweight title card. 

Most conflicts end with bluff charges, raised hackles, and guttural woofs, but real fights—when they happen—are fast, violent, and rarely forgotten by the loser.

Maternal Tenderness: Mamma & Cub

If bears had résumés, every mother would list “24/7 security expert,” “milk bar proprietress,” and “professor of applied survival sciences.”

Cubs are born in winter dens, impossibly tiny—around 300 to 500 grams—and almost hairless, little squeaking marshmallows who depend entirely on their mother’s warmth and fat reserves. 

Over the next 18–30 months, a mother teaches her young everything: which plants won’t poison you, how to find grubs by the sound of a rotting stump, how to climb fast when trouble arrives, and how to read the moods of other bears.

Her tenderness is matched only by her ferocity. A mother bear defending cubs is one of the most formidable forces in the forest, and even adult males—three times her size—think twice before pushing their luck.

Where Bears Appear in the Fossil Record

Bears are relative newcomers in deep time, with the earliest ursoids emerging in the late Eocene, around 38 million years ago. True bears (family Ursidae) appear in the early Miocene, and by the Pliocene and Pleistocene, the Pacific Northwest was home to a rich lineup of ursids, including the mighty Arctodus simus, the short-faced bear—one of the largest terrestrial carnivores to ever live in North America.

Black bears show up in the fossil record around the mid-Pleistocene, with fossils found in caves and river-cut sediments from British Columbia down to California. Grizzly bears, originally a Eurasian species, crossed the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene, leaving their remains in Late Pleistocene deposits from Alaska through western Canada.

Today, the Pacific Northwest remains a stronghold for bears:

Black bears are the most numerous, with an estimated 25,000–35,000 individuals in British Columbia alone, and healthy populations throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. They’re adaptable, omnivorous, and just clever enough to defeat most human attempts at bear-proofing.

Grizzly bears (coastal and interior populations) are far fewer. British Columbia hosts an estimated 13,000–15,000, though distribution varies greatly. 

Coastal bears—brown bear or spirit bears—are more numerous and enjoy a salmon-rich in diet, while interior grizzlies face more fragmented landscapes and higher conflict pressures. In the Lower 48, grizzlies number around 2,000, clustered mainly in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems.

Conservation efforts, especially Indigenous-led stewardship across the Great Bear Rainforest and interior plateaus, continue to shape recovery, resilience, and coexistence strategies for both species.

FROM LAND TO SEA: SEALS

Seals—those sleek, playful creatures that glide through our oceans and lounge on rocky shores—are part of a remarkable evolutionary story stretching back millions of years. 

Though we often see them today basking on beaches or popping their heads above the waves, their journey through the fossil record reveals a dramatic tale of land-to-sea adaptation and ancient global wanderings.

Seals belong to a group of marine mammals called pinnipeds, which also includes sea lions and walruses. 

All pinnipeds share a common ancestry with terrestrial carnivores, and their closest living relatives today are bears and mustelids (like otters and weasels). 

While it may seem unlikely, their ancestors walked on land before evolving to thrive in marine environments. It takes many adaptations for life at sea and these lovelies have adapted well. 

The fossil record suggests that pinnipeds first emerged during the Oligocene, around 33 to 23 million years ago. 

These early proto-seals likely lived along coastal environments, where they gradually adapted to life in the water. Over time, their limbs transformed into flippers, their bodies streamlined, and their reliance on the sea for food and movement became complete.

In Kwak'wala, the language of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations of the Pacific Northwest, seals are known as migwat, and fur seals are referred to as xa'wa.

WHEN CROCODILES WENT ROGUE: VOAY ROBUSTUS

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 few thousand years ago, lived Voay robustus, the so-called “horned crocodile.” 

Imagine your average Nile crocodile, Crocodylus niloticus, then give it a set of knobby horns just above the eyes, a chunkier skull, and a personality that can best be described as “aggressively misunderstood.”

Voay robustus was no dainty island reptile. This was a serious piece of croc engineering—up to 5 metres long and built like it had something to prove. Its very name says it all: “Voay” (from the Malagasy word for crocodile) and “robustus,” because apparently scientists looked at it and thought, “yes, that’s the robust one.”

The first thing to know about Voay is that it was one of the last survivors of Madagascar’s lost megafauna. While lemurs were still the size of gorillas and elephant birds stomped through the underbrush like feathered tanks, Voay robustus lurked in rivers and swamps, waiting patiently for something—anything—to make a poor life choice near the water’s edge.

For decades, Voay was a bit of a taxonomic mystery. When first described in the 19th century, some thought it might be a close cousin of the Nile crocodile, others insisted it was something entirely different. Scientists bickered, skulls were compared, and Latin names were flung around like darts at a pub quiz.

Then, in 2021, the DNA finally weighed in. Using ancient genetic material from subfossil skulls, researchers revealed that Voay robustus wasn’t a Nile crocodile at all—it was actually the closest known relative of the modern Crocodylus lineage, having split off around 25 million years ago. That makes it something like the evolutionary cousin who shows up at family reunions wearing leather, talking about their motorcycle, and asking everyone if they’ve “still gone soft.”

The Horned Enigma — The most distinctive feature of Voay robustus was its skull—particularly those raised, bony “horns” above its eyes. They weren’t true horns, of course, but enlarged ridges of bone, possibly used for species recognition, intimidation, or just looking fabulous. If you’ve ever seen a crocodile and thought, “You know what that needs? More attitude,” Voay had you covered.

Palaeontologists still debate whether those horns meant Voay was more territorial, more aggressive, or simply had a flair for drama. In any case, it must have been a striking sight. 

Picture it: the sun setting over a Malagasy river, the water rippling slightly as a pair of horned eyes rise from below. Birds go silent. A lemur freezes. Somewhere, a herpetologist gets very, very excited.

Madagascar is known for being a biological experiment that got out of hand. Cut off from Africa for around 160 million years, the island evolved its own cast of peculiar creatures: giant lemurs, pygmy hippos, and flightless birds the size of small Volkswagens. Into this mix slithered and splashed Voay robustus, likely arriving during a period of low sea levels that made crossings from the mainland possible.

Once there, Voay probably established itself at the top of the food chain—and stayed there. Anything coming down to drink was fair game. Lemur, bird, hippo, or careless human ancestor—Voay didn’t discriminate. It’s hard to imagine anything else on the island telling a 5-metre crocodile what it could or couldn’t eat.

And yet, despite being a literal apex predator, Voay robustus didn’t make it to the present day. The species vanished roughly 1,200 years ago, right around the time humans arrived in Madagascar. Coincidence? Probably not.

When Humans Moved In — The timeline tells a familiar story. People reach the island about 2,000 years ago. Within a millennium, the megafauna are gone. The giant lemurs disappear, the elephant birds vanish, and the horned crocodile—perhaps hunted, perhaps losing habitat—slips into extinction.

You might imagine that Voay robustus was at least a little resentful about this turn of events. After all, it had survived millions of years of climate swings, sea-level changes, and evolutionary curveballs. And then along came humans, with their spears, boats, and general knack for ecological chaos.

It’s even been suggested that early Malagasy legends of giant crocodiles or river spirits might echo distant memories of encounters with Voay. Which, frankly, would make sense. If a horned, five-metre reptile lunged at your canoe one evening, you’d probably tell stories about it for generations, too.

Genetically, Voay robustus offers a fascinating window into crocodile evolution. While modern Crocodylus species are found across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia, Voay sat just outside that global radiation. In other words, it was part of the evolutionary stem group that gave rise to today’s true crocodiles—but it stayed put while its cousins spread out and diversified.

That makes Voay something of a living fossil that outstayed its welcome—Madagascar’s own reminder of an older, meaner age. Its extinction left the island without any native crocodiles, though Nile crocodiles have since colonised parts of the west coast, re-establishing the ancient reptilian grin on Malagasy soil.

Today, Voay robustus lives on in subfossil bones, DNA samples, and the collective imagination of herpetologists who still dream of rediscovering one lurking somewhere in a forgotten swamp. (They won’t, of course—but it’s nice to dream.)

If anything, Voay reminds us that evolution loves a good experiment, especially on islands. Give a crocodile a few million years in isolation, and it might just decide it wants horns.

And if there’s a moral here—besides “don’t go swimming in prehistoric Madagascar”—it’s that even the fiercest, most robust of creatures can vanish when the world around them changes. So here’s to Voay robustus: horned, hulking, and gone too soon.

Image credit: By LiterallyMiguel - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163874814

LINGULA ANATINA: PRIMATIVE BRACHIOPOD

Lingula anatina — Primitive Brachiopod 

One of the most primitive and enduring brachiopods alive today is the caramel-and-cream–coloured Lingula anatina. 

Though modest in appearance, this unassuming marine invertebrate tells a story that stretches back over half a billion years — a direct lineage to the dawn of complex animal life.

Brachiopods are marine, stalked (pedunculate) invertebrates with two shells — or valves — hinged at the rear. To the casual observer, they resemble clams or mussels, but this similarity is purely superficial. 

In bivalves such as clams, the two shells sit on either side of the animal, and their plane of symmetry runs along the hinge line. Brachiopods, on the other hand, have shells on the top and bottom, with the line of symmetry running perpendicular to the hinge. This fundamental difference reveals two entirely separate evolutionary paths that converged on a similar shell-bearing lifestyle.

Lingula anatina belongs to one of the oldest known animal groups, with unmistakable brachiopod fossils appearing in rocks dating back some 530 million years, during the early Cambrian. These forms represent the first certain evidence of brachiopods in the fossil record, appearing at a time when most major animal body plans were emerging during the so-called “Cambrian Explosion.”

Unlike most modern shell-bearing animals, Lingula’s shell lacks a locking mechanism. Instead, it relies on a complex system of muscles to open and close the valves with precision. Its shell is composed not of calcium carbonate like most other shelled marine creatures, but of calcium phosphate and collagen fibres — a combination it shares only with vertebrates, making it one of the earliest known examples of animal biomineralisation. 

This process, where organisms harden tissues with minerals, represents a major evolutionary innovation that would later shape the biology of countless marine and terrestrial forms.

Lingula anatina can be found buried in sandy or muddy sediments of shallow marine environments, where it uses its muscular stalk (or pedicle) to anchor itself and burrow down into the seafloor. There it filters plankton and organic particles from the water, much as its ancestors did hundreds of millions of years ago. 

Its remarkable persistence — both in form and ecological niche — has led paleontologists to call Lingula a “living fossil.” Charles Darwin himself used this very term when describing its extraordinary morphological conservatism. Indeed, specimens from the Silurian Period (443–419 million years ago) are nearly indistinguishable from those alive today.

While other brachiopod lineages flourished and faded through the great mass extinctions of Earth’s history, Lingula endured — a small, steadfast witness to 500 million years of changing seas. Its simple elegance hides a profound truth: sometimes survival is not about innovation, but about perfecting a design so well-suited to its environment that evolution has little left to improve.

Photo: Wilson44691 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8624418

FOSSIL HUNTRESS PALEONTOLOGY PODCAST

Step into deep time with the Fossil Huntress Podcast—your warm and wonder-filled gateway to dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, and the astonishing parade of life that has ever walked, swum, or crawled across our planet.

Close your eyes and travel with me through ancient oceans teeming with early life, lush primeval forests echoing with strange calls, and sunbaked badlands where the bones of giants rest beneath your feet. 

Each episode is a journey into Earth’s secret past, where every fossil tells a story and every stone remembers.

Together, we’ll wander across extraordinary fossil beds, sacred landscapes, and timeworn shores that have witnessed the rise and fall of worlds. 

From tiny single-celled pioneers to mighty dinosaurs, from cataclysms to new dawns, this is where science meets storytelling—and where the past comes vividly alive.

So wherever you are—on the trail, by the sea, or cozy at home—bring your curiosity and join me in the great adventure of discovery. Favourite the show and come fossil-hunting through time with me!

Listen now: Fossil Huntress Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1hH1wpDFFIlYC9ZW5uTYVL

LIVING FOSSILS: MASTERS OF MASS EXTINCTION EVENTS

Horseshoe crabs are marine and brackish water arthropods of the order Xiphosura — a slowly evolving, conservative taxa.

Much like (slow) Water Striders (Aquarius remigis), (relatively sluggish) Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and (the current winner on really slow evolution) Elephant Sharks (Callorhinchus milii), these fellows have a long history in the fossil record with very few anatomical changes. 

But slow change provides loads of great information. It makes our new friend, Yunnanolimulus luoingensis, an especially interesting and excellent reference point for how this group evolved. 

We can examine their genome today and make comparisons all the way back to the Middle Triassic (with this new find) and other specimens from further back in the Ordovician — 445 million years ago. 

These living fossils have survived all five mass extinction events. They are generalists who can live in shallow or deep water and will eat pretty much anything they can find on the seafloor.

The oldest horseshoe crab fossil, Lunataspis aurora, is found in outcrops in Manitoba, Canada. Charmingly, the name means crescent moon shield of the dawn. It was palaeontologist Dave Rudkin and team who chose that romantic name. Finding them as fossils is quite remarkable as their shells are made of protein which does not mineralized like typical fossils.

Even so, the evolution of their exoskeleton is well-documented by fossils, but appendage and soft-tissue preservation are extremely rare. 

A new study analyzes details of the appendage and soft-tissue preservation in Yunnanolimulus luoingensis, a Middle Triassic (ca. 244 million years old) horseshoe crab from Yunnan Province, SW China. The remarkable anatomical preservation includes the chelicerae, five pairs of walking appendages, opisthosomal appendages with book gills, muscles, and fine setae permits comparison with extant horseshoe crabs.

The close anatomical similarity between the Middle Triassic horseshoe crabs and their recent analogues documents anatomical conservatism for over 240 million years, suggesting persistence of lifestyle.

The occurrence of Carcinoscorpius-type claspers on the first and second walking legs in male individuals of Y. luoingensis tells us that simple chelate claspers in males are plesiomorphic for horseshoe crabs, and the bulbous claspers in Tachypleus and Limulus are derived.

As an aside, if you hadn't seen an elephant shark before and were shown a photo, you would likely say, "that's no freaking shark." You would be wrong, of course, but it would be a very clever observation.

Callorhinchus milii look nothing like our Great White friends and they are not true sharks at all. Rather, they are ghost sharks that belong to the subclass Holocephali (chimaera), a group lovingly known as ratfish. They diverged from the shark lineage about 400 million years ago.

If you have a moment, do a search for Callorhinchus milii. The odd-looking fellow with the ironic name, kallos, which means beautiful in Greek, sports black blotches on a pale silver elongate body. And their special feature? It is the fishy equivalent of business in the front, party in the back, with a dangling trunk-like projection at the tip of their snout and well-developed rectal glands near the tail.

As another small point of interest with regards to horseshoe crabs, John McAllister collected several of these while working on his MSc to see if they had microstructures similar to trilobites (they do) and whether their cuticles were likewise calcified. He found no real calcification in their cuticles, in fact, he had a rather frustrating time getting anything measurable to dissolve in acid in his hunt for trace elements. 

Likewise, when looking at oxygen isotopes (16/18) to get a handle on water salinity and temperature, his contacts at the University of Waterloo had tons of fun getting anything at all to analyze. It made for some interesting findings. Sadly, for a number of reasons, he abandoned the work, but you can read his very interesting thesis here: https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/1959

Ref: Hu, Shixue & Zhang, Qiyue & Feldmann, Rodney & Benton, Michael & Schweitzer, Carrie & Huang, Jinyuan & Wen, Wen & Zhou, Changyong & Xie, Tao & Lü, Tao & Hong, Shuigen. (2017). Exceptional appendage and soft-tissue preservation in a Middle Triassic horseshoe crab from SW China. Scientific Reports. 7. 10.1038/s41598-017-13319-x.

THE EUROPEAN FLAMINGO: STILT WALKERS OF ANTIQUITY

European Flamingo

At dawn along the salt lagoons of the Mediterranean, the European flamingo rises like a soft-feathered sunrise, a sweep of pale rose and ember pink drifting across mirror-still water. 

Their long, reed-thin legs stitch delicate ripples through the shallows, while their downcurved bills — precision tools of evolutionary engineering — sift brine shrimp and algae with gentle, rhythmic sweeps.

But Phoenicopterus roseus, the European flamingo, is more than a creature of luminous wetlands. 

It is the living remnant of a lineage forged in deep time, a story that stretches back more than 30 million years into a world utterly transformed.

For decades, flamingos stood as an evolutionary puzzle — strange in form, stranger still in habit. Their closest relatives were unclear. Then the fossil record began offering clues.

The earliest birds recognizable as flamingo ancestors appear in the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, a period when the world was cooling and vast salt lakes spread across what is now Europe and North America.

The star of this ancient cast is Palaelodus, a long-legged wader known from deposits in France, Germany, and even North America. Often described as an “unfinished flamingo,” Palaelodus stood tall on slender legs but lacked the extreme bill curvature of modern species.

Paleontologists see it as a sister lineage — a bird halfway between the ancestral stock and the unmistakable modern flamingo form.

Their environments tell the same tale: shallow, alkaline waters rich with diatoms, crustaceans, and blue-green algae. The perfect proving ground for a future flamingo.

By the Miocene, true flamingos had fully arrived. Fossil flamingos — many nearly indistinguishable from modern species — appear in the lakebeds of Spain, Italy, Hungary, and Greece.

Some highlights of Europe’s deep flamingo past include:

• Phoenicopterus minutus, an elegant early species known from the Late Miocene of Hungary
• Phoenicopterus gracilis, which stalked ancient Iberian wetlands

Abundant trackways in Miocene lakebeds of Spain, showing flocks wading and foraging as they do today

What’s striking is how little the flamingo body plan has changed. Once their ecological niche crystallized — the brackish shallows, the sieving bill, the social flocking behaviour — evolution held its breath. Flamingos became masters of a lifestyle so successful it needed no further remodeling.

Until recently, the flamingo’s closest living relatives were uncertain. For years, hypotheses bounced between storks, herons, waders, and even waterfowl. Then genetics reshaped the field.

Flamingos are now grouped with grebes in a clade called Mirandornithes.

It’s a pairing that initially seems improbable — one bird is a pink desert ballerina, the other a compact diver of northern lakes. Yet the fossil record supports it: early grebe-like birds and Palaelodus share key skeletal traits, hinting at a common aquatic ancestor before their lineages diverged.

Today the European flamingo thrives in the wetlands of:

• The Camargue, France
• Doñana, Spain
• Sardinia and Sicily
• The salt pans of Turkey
• Coastal lagoons of North Africa

Their pink colour, borrowed from carotenoid pigments in their prey, is a living reminder of their deep bond with saline waters. Their massive colonial nests, sculpted from mud into miniature towers, echo the behaviour of flamingos preserved in Miocene fossil beds.

Each bird, elegant and improbable, embodies a lineage honed by climate shifts, vanished lakes, and ancient ancestors who once stepped cautiously through Europe’s long-lost wetlands.

From the lithified sediments of the Oligocene to the shimmering pink flocks drifting across the Mediterranean today, flamingos stand as one of the great evolutionary constants: birds whose story is etched into stone, water, and sunlight.

FOSSIL FELINES: MOZART

Mister Mozart

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

Long before domestic life on the couch, they prowled prehistoric forests and savannas, already masters of stealth.

The feline family tree begins about 25 million years ago with the Proailurus, whose name literally means “first cat.” 

This Miocene-era predator lived in Europe and Asia and probably looked like your housecat—if your housecat could take down small deer. 

Proailurus gave rise to the Pseudaelurus, the cat that would eventually split into two great evolutionary lineages: the big cats (Pantherinae, including lions, tigers, and leopards) and the small cats (Felinae, which include your couch companion, Felis catus), and snuggle bunnies like Mister Mozart you see here.

By the Pleistocene, cats had diversified spectacularly—from the legendary Smilodon, the sabre-toothed showstopper of Ice Age fame, to the lithe wildcats that would one day move into our granaries, charm our ancestors, and domesticate us. 

Yes, evidence suggests that around 10,000 years ago, humans didn’t so much tame cats as cats decided that humans were helpful enough to tolerate. A trend that continues to this day. 

Their fossils—sleek jaws, retractable claws, and the occasional pawprint—tell a story of evolutionary precision. Cats didn’t just evolve; they optimised. Every leap, pounce, and inscrutable stare has been honed by millions of years of predatory perfection.

So when your cat knocks your favourite mug off the counter and looks smug about it, remember: you’re gazing into the eyes of a finely tuned Miocene hunter. Evolution, it seems, has a sense of humour—and a soft spot for whiskers.

Kane & Mozart divving up the best bed spots

Despite centuries of cartoon propaganda suggesting otherwise, cats and dogs can form some of the most endearing interspecies friendships in the animal kingdom. 

While their social codes differ—dogs being pack-oriented and demonstrative, cats favouring solitary stealth and subtlety—mutual respect (and occasionally a shared sunny spot or prime position on your bed) often bridges the divide. 

Studies in animal behaviour show that early socialisation, body language recognition, and individual temperament play key roles in fostering harmony between felines and canines. 

A confident cat and a calm, well-socialised dog are a recipe for peaceful coexistence—and sometimes, genuine affection. Watching a cat gently groom a dog’s ears or a Ridgeback stoically endure a kitten’s playful ambush brings a smile to us all. Evolution may have set them on different paths, but friendship, it seems, is a universal instinct.

CAMBRIAN FAUNA FROM THE EAST KOOTENAY REGION

Upper Cambrian Trilobite Outcrops

When most people imagine British Columbia, they picture sky-scraping mountains, temperate rainforests dripping with moss, and coastlines sculpted by Pacific storms. 

But beneath these landscapes lies a vastly older, stranger world—one that thrived more than half a billion years before humans set foot on this continent.

This was the Cambrian, the era of Earth’s first great biological flowering. And ruling those early seas were the trilobites.

Trilobites were among the earliest complex animals to populate Earth’s oceans—marine arthropods with armor-like exoskeletons, jointed legs, compound eyes, and astonishing evolutionary variety. 

Over 270 million years, they adapted to almost every marine habitat imaginable and diversified into more than 20,000 species.

Today, their fossilized forms—ribbed, spined, streamlined, or elaborately ornamented—are found on every continent. But few places on Earth preserve their story with the richness and fidelity of southeastern British Columbia.

A Fossil Time Machine in the Rockies

The province’s Cambrian-aged formations offer a rare window into early marine ecosystems. The world-famous Burgess Shale preserves soft-bodied creatures with near-photographic clarity. But nearby, just outside the city of Cranbrook, another treasure trove reveals the rise of the trilobites in even earlier seas.

This is the Eager Formation—a Burgess Shale–type Lagerstätte from Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4, roughly 515 million years old. Long considered a low-diversity deposit, new research has transformed its scientific importance.

New Species from an Ancient Sea

A sweeping study by Mark Webster, Jean-Bernard Caron and colleagues, published in the Journal of Paleontology in March 2025, combined with new trilobite taxonomy uncover a thriving community of early trilobites—including several species new to science or newly named favourites from some earlier known colloquially from Lisa Bohach's unpublished thesis.

Among them:

• Olenellus santuccii Webster n. sp.
• Wanneria cranbrookense Webster n. sp.
• Olenellus? schofieldi
• Mesonacis eagerensis

These four olenelloids dominate the fauna, forming the backbone of a “typical” benthic trilobite community from the middle Dyeran Stage in Laurentia (ancient North America).

Alongside them are rare representatives from the enigmatic dorypygid and “ptychoparioid” lineages—groups whose fragmentary preservation leaves some species unnamed but no less scientifically important.

This diversity places the Cranbrook trilobite assemblage on par with other remarkable Cambrian deposits across Laurentia, filling a major stratigraphic gap between earlier and later Burgess Shale–type localities.

Even more remarkable: sedimentologic and preservational clues indicate these creatures died close to where they lived, their bodies settling gently into Cambrian muds with minimal transport. This is time travel at its most precise.

Lower Cambrian – The Eager Formation

Wanneria cranbrookense Webster n. sp.

The site outcrops at a few locations as you head east out of Cranbrook towards Fort Steele. 

The first trilobites were discovered with the building of the Kootenay Highway connecting Cranbrook to Fort Steele and beyond. 

Several other localities, including the outcrops at the Silhouette Rife Range — which is literally on a Rifle Range where folks go to shoot at things — is a shade older than the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale but the fauna here is much less varied. 

The site has been known and collected since the 1920s. Back in the day, fossil collecting was a family affair with folks heading out in their lightly coloured finery to picnic and surface collect the eroding exposures. 

Cranbrook local, Clement Hungerford Pollen was an engineer and avocational palaeontologist. He promoted collecting the exposures of the Eager Formation around 1921. As a pedigreed Englishman of considerable means, he had invested in the Kootenay Central Railway, revitalizing the town by opening up railway access within the region. Locals have been actively collecting at this site ever since. 

Recent work by Mark Webster et al. highlighted other Lower Cambrian species from this area, including:

• Fritzaspis – a small, early olenellid.
• Elliptocephala – known for its elongated head shield.
• Repinaella – a primitive form key to understanding trilobite origins.

Together, these fossils help correlate the Eager Formation with Lower Cambrian deposits across western Laurentia, refining the timeline of trilobite evolution.

Upper Cambrian – The McKay Group

A short drive from the Eager outcrops lies the McKay Group, a sequence of shales and limestones preserving spectacular Upper Cambrian trilobites.

Here, paleontologists such as Brian Chatterton have documented a flourishing array of species, including:

• Pterocephalia norfordi
• Elvinia roemeri
• Calyptaulax
• Prosaukia
• Orygmaspis contracta

Recent fieldwork by dedicated scientists and citizen collectors—Chris New, Chris Jenkins, Guy Santucci, Don Askew, and Stacey Gibb—continues to expand this list, even turning up Pseudagnostus securiger, a Jiangshanian-age species not previously known from southeastern BC.

Names That Tell a Story of Some Very Awesome Folk...

Paleontology is not just about fossils—it’s also about the people who dedicate their lives (and weekends) to uncovering them. In British Columbia, several trilobite species honour those contributions:

• Pterocephalia santuccii – named for geologist Guy Santucci, whose mapping and fieldwork brought attention to the Cranbrook area.
• Orygmaspis newi – recognizing Chris New, a tireless and deeply awesome citizen scientist.
• Calyptaulax jenkinsi – honouring Chris Jenkins, whose meticulous collecting enriched scientific collections.

These names are more than labels—they’re tributes to the collaboration between professionals, institutions, and passionate community members.

A Cast of Characters Spanning Millions of Years

Across the Cambrian rocks of BC, several trilobites stand out as icons of their time:

• Olenoides serratus – the Burgess Shale classic, often preserved with legs and antennae intact.
• Wanneria walcottana – an Early Cambrian form.
• Mesonacis eagerensis – the signature trilobite of the Eager Formation.
• Pterocephalia santuccii, Orygmaspis newi, Calyptaulax jenkinsi – Upper Cambrian forms marking the twilight of trilobite diversity in the region.

Together, these species chart an evolutionary journey from the earliest trilobites to the sophisticated, ornamented forms of the late Cambrian.

Collecting fossils is restricted in national parks like Yoho, but other formations around Cranbrook allow regulated scientific access. Here, fossil hunters navigate weathered shale slopes and scree-covered ridges, scanning for the ribbed arcs and crescent-shaped cephalons of long-dead arthropods.

Trilobites are as beautiful as they are informative. Their perfect bilateral symmetry, paired spines, and geometric patterns have inspired artists and scientists alike for centuries.

Tuzoia, Lower Cambrian, Eager Formation

For those eager to explore this deep past without a rock hammer, the Cranbrook History Centre, located on the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa First Nation, offers superb displays of Cambrian trilobites, including Tuzoia and other arthropods—plus a delightful collection of Devonian fish.

Trilobites may have vanished 250 million years ago, but their legacy endures.

They help us understand:

• How ecosystems rebounded after ancient climate disruptions
• How early animals diversified and competed
• How continents moved and reshaped marine habitats
• How life evolved complex sensory systems and behaviours

Every fossil is a data point from a vanished ocean, a chapter in Earth’s deep-time biography.

Next time you find yourself walking the rocky outcrops of southeastern British Columbia, pause for a moment. Beneath your feet lies the fossilized remains of vibrant, bustling seas—worlds where trilobites crawled, hunted, burrowed, and thrived long before mountains rose or forests took root.

These ancient mariners whisper stories from half a billion years ago. And thanks to ongoing research—from Caron’s foundational work to the newest species described by Webster and dedicated field collectors—we are finally learning to hear them.

Mark Webster and Jean-Bernard Caron "Trilobites of the Cranbrook Lagerstätte (Eager Formation, Cambrian Stage 4), British Columbia," Journal of Paleontology 98(4), 460-503, (6 March 2025). https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2023.89

IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME: KISMIS'TSANX

Happy Holidays to You!

As the year winds down and winter settles in with her quiet magic, I am sending you all a snowstorm of love, warmth, and fossil-rich joy. It's Christmas time — Kismis'tsanx!

Thank you for walking this ancient, wonder-filled path with me through 2025 — from ammonites to elasmosaurs to the deep stories held in stone. 

As I snuggle in for the winter, I am thinking of all of you around the world. Each of you celebrating this season in your own way. 

Some gathering for Christmas lights and carols, some honouring the birth of the Prophet Muhammad with reflection and generosity, while others of you kindle candles for Hanukkah, share feasts for Yule, observe Dhanu Sankranti, Dongzhi, Bodhi Day, or simply welcome the return of longer days with quiet gratitude. 

Whether your traditions are rooted in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Indigenous teachings, Buddhism, Pagan customs, or any of the many rich spiritual paths that shape our global community, this time of year carries a shared thread: connection, kindness, and hope for the year ahead. 

Wherever you are in the world, I wish you the very best of the season — and a 2026 filled with adventure, connection, and delight. May your days be bright, your field gear dry, and your pockets full of unexpected treasures.

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Frohe Weihnachten, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale, Kala Christougenna, 圣诞快乐, メリークリスマス, 메리 크리스마스, Feliz Natal, Veselé Vánoce, Hyvää Joulua, God Jul, С Рождеством, عيد ميلاد مجيد‎, Nadolig Llawen, Meri Kirihimete, Kilisimasi Fiefia, Mele Kalikimaka — from my heart and hearth to yours. 

Wherever your journey takes you, may 2026 bring new horizons, bold discoveries, and soft moments of joy. Here’s to another year of stories written in stone — and shared with the beautiful community that makes this journey worthwhile. I appreciate each and every one of you so much!

With love & ancient wonder,

The Fossil Huntress

MAMMOTHS, MYSTERY AND TEXAS-SIZED TIME TRAVEL: WAKO

Waco Mammoth National Moment Fossil Site

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a herd of Columbian mammoths, a flash flood, and 21st-century paleontologists all meet in Waco, Texas… well, Waco Mammoth National Monument has your answer: deep time drama with a fossilized cast of 24 large, hairy, and extremely unlucky Pleistocene mammals.

But before we get to the scientists in khakis, let’s rewind 67,000 years and meet the star of the show.

Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco, Texas, stands today as one of the most significant Pleistocene paleontological sites in North America. 

It preserves the remains of 24 Columbian mammoths, Mammuthus columbi, and several other large mammals—including camelids, a juvenile saber-toothed cat, and smaller fauna—offering an unparalleled window into Late Pleistocene ecosystems and catastrophic mortality events.

Among the individuals identified at the site, Adult Male Mammoth Q. is one of the most impressive. In life, he would have been:

• Over 8 feet tall at the shoulder
• Approximately 10 tons in mass
• Equipped with tusks stretching up to 14 feet

As a mature bull Columbian mammoth, he likely lived a largely solitary life except during seasonal breeding periods. Columbian mammoths occupied open grasslands and savannas across the southern United States and Mexico, and Mammoth Q. would have spent his days feeding on grasses, sedges, and woody vegetation that thrived in the warm, dry climate of Pleistocene central Texas.

Sedimentology and taphonomic evidence suggest that Mammoth Q. met his end during a severe flooding event. 

The Bosque River and its tributaries were prone to flash flooding during the Pleistocene, and a sudden high-energy flow likely trapped and buried this large adult along with other isolated individuals. 

The result is an exceptionally preserved skeleton that provides key data on Columbian mammoth anatomy and population structure.

Most of the mammoths found at Waco belong not to solitary adults but to a nursery herd—an assemblage of females and juveniles that perished together in an earlier catastrophic flood event approximately 65,000–67,000 years ago. Their position within the sediments, the lack of significant post-mortem disturbance, and the articulation of many skeletons indicate rapid burial and minimal scavenging.

This makes the Waco site the only known fossil locality in North America containing a probable mammoth nursery herd, offering rare insight into social behavior, herd structure, and mortality patterns.

The site remained unknown until 1978, when local teenagers Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin discovered a large bone eroding from a ravine near the Bosque River. Their discovery prompted the involvement of Calvin Smith, then director of Baylor University’s Strecker Museum, who recognized the bone as part of a mammoth femur.

Systematic excavation began in the 1980s and continued for decades under the leadership of:

• Dr. Calvin Smith
• Dr. David Lintz, who played a major role in interpreting the site’s multi-event deposition history
• Dr. Brenda Scott, contributing to specimen documentation
• Numerous Baylor University staff, students, and community volunteers

As excavations continued, researchers identified successive burial layers, additional individuals, and evidence for multiple flood events responsible for the mass mortality.

The importance of the site grew steadily, both for scientific research and for public education. A climate-controlled dig shelter was constructed to allow visitors to view fossils in situ, preserving the contextual integrity of the specimens.

In 2015, the site received national recognition when President Barack Obama designated it Waco Mammoth National Monument, protecting the locality and enabling continued collaboration among the National Park Service, Baylor University, and the City of Waco.

Waco Mammoth National Monument is unique in offering direct, above-surface access to an active fossil locality. Visitors can observe:

• Articulated mammoth skeletons still embedded in the original Pleistocene sediments
• The remains of a camel (Camelops sp.)
• Evidence of multiple burial events and stratigraphic layers representing different moments in site history
• Interpretive exhibits detailing paleoecology, taphonomy, and excavation history

The dig shelter provides a controlled environment that stabilizes the fossils and allows ongoing scientific research without removing specimens from their original context.

Waco Mammoth National Monument stands today as one of the premier paleontological localities in the United States, preserving the story of a herd lost to sudden environmental change and of solitary individuals like Mammoth Q. who represent the broader ecology of the Pleistocene South.

Whether for scientific research, educational interest, or a firsthand view of ancient life preserved precisely where it fell, the site offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with deep time and the processes that shape the fossil record.

DARWIN AND THE GREAT DEBATE: MEGALOSAURUS

Oxford University Museum of Natural History was established in 1860 to draw together scientific studies from across the University of Oxford.

On 30 June 1860, the Museum hosted a clash of ideologies that has become known as the Great Debate.

Even before the collections were fully installed, or the architectural decorations completed, the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its 30th annual meeting to mark the opening of the building, then known as the University Museum. 

It was at this event that Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Thomas Huxley, a biologist from London, went head-to-head in a debate about one of the most controversial ideas of the 19th century – Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Notable collections include the world's first described dinosaur,  Megalosaurus bucklandii, and the world-famous Oxford Dodo, the only soft tissue remains of the extinct dodo. Although fossils from other areas have been assigned to the genus, the only certain remains of Megalosaurus come from Oxfordshire and date to the late Middle Jurassic. 

Megalosaurus

In 1824, Megalosaurus was the first genus of non-avian dinosaur to be validly named. The type species is Megalosaurus bucklandii, named in 1827.

In 1842, Megalosaurus was one of three genera on which Richard Owen based his Dinosauria. On Owen's direction, a model was made as one of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, which greatly increased the public interest for prehistoric reptiles. 

Subsequently, over fifty other species would be classified under the genus, originally because dinosaurs were not well known, but even during the 20th century after many dinosaurs had been discovered. 

Today it is understood these additional species were not directly related to M. bucklandii, which is the only true Megalosaurus species. Because a complete skeleton of it has never been found, much is still unclear about its build.

The Museum is as spectacular today as when it opened in 1860. As a striking example of Victorian neo-Gothic architecture, the building's style was strongly influenced by the ideas of 19th-century art critic John Ruskin. Ruskin believed that architecture should be shaped by the energies of the natural world, and thanks to his connections with a number of eminent Pre-Raphaelite artists, the Museum's design and decoration now stand as a prime example of the Pre-Raphaelite vision of science and art.

MISTER KANE AND THE ORIGINS OF CANINES

Mister Kane

The good-looking boy you see here is my dog Kane, a loveable Rhodesian Ridgeback who brought many years of happiness to my life. Fiercely loyal, funny, stubborn and oh, so charming. 

Dogs—those noble, tail-wagging companions who’ve perfected the art of begging for snacks and unconditional love—have a fossil record that’s as fascinating as their modern-day personalities.

The story of Canis familiaris begins long before tennis balls and belly rubs. Their lineage traces back over 40 million years to the Miacids, small, tree-dwelling carnivores that lived during the Eocene epoch. 

These early proto-dogs looked more like a ferret that hadn’t quite made up its mind about whether it wanted to be a cat or a weasel. From there, evolution took the scenic route—through genera like Hesperocyon (meaning “western dog”) and Leptocyon—as paws became better for running and teeth evolved for tearing meat.

Snuggle Bunnies — Mister Kane & Mozart

By about 6 million years ago, we see true members of the genus Canis: ancestors of wolves, coyotes, and eventually our best friends. Fossils of Canis lepophagus from North America show the first recognisable wolf-like snout. 

Fast forward to around 15,000–30,000 years ago, and humans and wolves began their historic friendship—one that likely started when hungry wolves realised hanging out with people meant easy leftovers. 

Humans realised wolves made excellent alarm systems (and very fluffy foot warmers).

Since then, dogs have spread across the globe, adapting faster than you can say “good boy.” From fossilized bones in Siberian caves to paw prints preserved in ancient mud, their story is one of partnership, adaptability, and the evolution of pure charisma.

FOSSIL FISHAPODS FROM THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

Qikiqtania wakei, a fishapod & relative to tetrapods

You will likely recall the amazing tetrapodomorpha fossil found on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic in 2004, Tiktaalik roseae. 

These were advanced forms transitional between fish and the early labyrinthodonts playfully referred to as fishapods — half-fish, half-tetrapod in appearance and limb morphology. 

Up to that point, the relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) was well known, but the origin of significant tetrapod features remained obscure for the lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes — until Tiktaalik. 

While Tiktaalik is technically a fish, this fellow is as far from fish-like as you can be and still be a card-carrying member of the group. 

Interestingly, while Neil Shubin and crew were combing the icy tundra for Tiktaalik, another group was trying their luck just a few kilometres away. 

A week before the eureka moment of Tiktaalik's discovery, Tom Stewart and Justin Lemberg unearthed material that we now know to be a relative of Tiktaalik's. 

Meet Qikiqtania wakei, a fishapod and close relative to our dear tetrapods — and cousin to Tiktaalik — who shares features in the flattened triangular skull, shoulders and elbows in the fin. 

Qikiqtania (pronounced kick-kick-TAN-ee-ya)

But, and here’s the amazing part, its upper arm bone (humerus) is specialised for open water swimming, not walking. 

The story gets wilder when we look at Qikiqtania’s position on the evolutionary tree— all the features for this type of swimming are newly evolved, not primitive. 

This means that Qikiqtania secondarily reentered open water habitats from ancestors that had already had some aspect of walking behaviour. 

And, this whole story was playing out 365 million years ago — the transition from water to land was going both ways in the Devonian.

Why is this exciting? You and I descend from those early tetrapods. We share the legacy of their water-to-land transition and the wee bony bits in their wrists and paddles that evolved to become our hands. I know, mindblowing!

Thomas Stewart and Justin Lemberg put in thousands of hours bringing Qikiqtania to life. 

The analysis consisted of a long path of wild events— from a haphazard moment when it was first spotted, a random collection of a block that ended up containing an articulated fin, to a serendipitous discovery three days before Covid lockdowns in March 2020.

Both teams acknowledge the profound debt owed to the individuals, organizations and indigenous communities where they had the privilege to work — Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay— Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. 

Part of that debt is honoured in the name chosen for this new miraculous species. 

Aerial View of Ellesmere Island

The generic name, Qikiqtania (pronounced kick-kick-TAN-ee-ya), is derived from the Inuktitut words Qikiqtaaluk and Qikiqtani which are the traditional place name of the region where the fossil was discovered. 

The specific name, wakei, is in memory of the evolutionary biologist David Wake — colleague, mentor and friend. 

He was a professor of integrative biology and Director and curator of herpetology at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley who passed away in April 2021. 

Wake is known for his work on the biology and evolution of salamanders and vertebrate evolutionary biology. 

If you look at the photo on the left you can imagine visiting these fossil localities in Canada's far north.

Qikiqtania was found on Inuit land and belongs to the community. Thomas Stewart and his colleagues were able to conduct this research because of the generosity and support of individuals in the hamlets of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, the Iviq Hunters and Trappers of Grise Fiord, and the Department of Heritage and Culture, Nunavut.

To them, on behalf of the larger scientific community — Nakurmiik. Thank you! 

Here is the link to Tom Stewart's article in The Conversation & paper in Nature:

• Stewart, Thomas A.; Lemberg, Justin B.; Daly, Ailis; Daeschler, Edward B.; Shubin, Neil H. (2022-07-20). "A new elpistostegalian from the Late Devonian of the Canadian Arctic". Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-022-04990-w. ISSN 0028-0836.
• Stewart, Thomas. "Meet Qikiqtania, a fossil fish with the good sense to stay in the water while others ventured onto land" The Conversation. Retrieved 2022-07-20.

Image One: An artist’s vision of Qikiqtania enjoying its fully aquatic, free-swimming lifestyle. Alex Boersma, CC BY-ND

Image Two: A new elpistostegalian from the Late Devonian of the Canadian Arctic, T. A. Stewart, J. B. Lemberg, A. Daly, E. B. Daeschler, & N. H. Shubin.

A huge shout out to the deeply awesome Neil Shubin who shared that the paper had been published and offered his insights on what played out behind the scenes!

TUSKED TITANS OF THE ARCTIC: WALRUS ᐊᐃᕕᖅ

A lazy walrus lounges on an ice floe, its massive, blubbery body shimmering under the low Arctic sun. 

With a deep, rumbling sigh, it shifts its weight and scratches an itch on its side—more out of habit than necessity. Life, for this marine titan, moves at the pace of the tides.

Odobenus rosmarus, the walrus is the only surviving member of the family Odobenidae, a once-diverse group of pinnipeds that includes extinct relatives such as Dusignathus and Pontolis. 

Fossil remains place their lineage back to the late Miocene, around 10–11 million years ago. Early odobenids first appeared in the North Pacific and were more varied than the tusked, bottom-feeding walrus we know today—some had shorter tusks or none at all, and many hunted fish rather than clams.

These ancient walruses belonged to a broader superfamily, the Pinnipedia, which also includes seals and sea lions. Genetic and fossil evidence suggests pinnipeds split from terrestrial carnivores roughly 25–30 million years ago, likely from bear-like ancestors that took to the water during the Oligocene. Odobenids evolved later, perfecting their specialization as suction feeders. 

Their powerful tongues can vacuum soft-bodied mollusks straight from their shells—a skill that defines modern walrus diets.

Today, walruses inhabit the icy Arctic and subarctic waters of the Northern Hemisphere, with two recognized subspecies: the Atlantic walrus, O. r. rosmarus, found in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, and the Pacific walrus, O. r. divergens, ranging from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea. They prefer shallow continental shelf regions where bivalves abound and haul out on sea ice or rocky shores in vast, noisy colonies.

Despite their ponderous appearance, walruses are powerful swimmers and social creatures with intricate communication and hierarchy systems. Their tusks—elongated canines present in both males and females—serve for dominance displays, hauling out, and defense. 

To Arctic peoples, walruses have long been vital for food, hides, and ivory, woven into traditional lifeways and mythology.

In Inuktitut, the word for walrus is “aiviq” (ᐊᐃᕕᖅ). It’s pronounced roughly eye-vik or ay-vik, depending on the dialect. The plural form is “aiviat” (ᐊᐃᕕᐊᑦ). The walrus, aiviq, holds deep cultural and spiritual importance in Inuit communities, long valued for its meat, ivory, and hide—vital resources for survival in the Arctic.

From Miocene shores to the modern polar ice, the walrus story is one of adaptation and endurance—a lineage that has survived shifting seas and ice ages, still scratching its ancient itch beneath the northern sun.

ANCIENT ELEGANCE: UINTACRINUS SOCIALIS

There is a particular kind of quiet magic in the world, the sort that sends a small shiver of awe through you when all the elements of deep time align. 

Every so often, nature grants us a perfect moment: minerals seep gently into ancient flesh, sediments cradle a creature’s delicate form, and the slow choreography of preservation captures a life in astonishing detail. 

For me, nothing embodies that magic quite like crinoids. These elegant echinoderms—equal parts flower and animal—feel like whispers from an ancient sea, caught forever in stone.

The specimen before us is no exception. If you lean in close and let your eyes wander across its intricate geometry, you will find yourself face to face with a stunning representative of Uintacrinus socialis. 

This Upper Cretaceous beauty, hailing from the Santonian roughly 85 million years ago, was first named nearly a century and a half ago by O.C. Marsh in honour of the Uinta Mountains of Utah. 

This specimen hail from the soft chalky layers of the Smoky Hills Niobrara Formation in central Kansas—a region that once lay beneath the warm, shallow waters of the Western Interior Seaway. Here, entire colonies of Uintacrinus drifted like living chandeliers, their feathery arms extended into the sun-dappled currents.

Crinoids are the quiet dancers of the animal kingdom. Although they appear plant-like—an underwater blossom swaying gracefully in the tide—they are very much animals, part of the illustrious echinoderm clan that includes sea stars, brittle stars, and urchins. 

Imagine a lily turned sentient: a cup-shaped central body holding a mouth on its upper surface, surrounded by delicate, branching arms that sweep food particles from the water. 

And, in true echinoderm fashion, add an anus inconveniently positioned right beside the mouth. Evolution, it seems, has a sense of humour.

The anchored species, traditionally called sea lilies, rise from the seafloor on slender stalks composed of stacked calcite rings—columnals—that resemble beads fallen from some ancient necklace. In shallower waters, the stalks can be short and sturdy, but in deeper seas they may stretch a metre or more, holding the crinoid aloft like the mast of a living ship, swaying gently with each passing current.

Yet most crinoids in today’s oceans are not anchored at all. The feather stars, or comatulids, break free from their juvenile stalks and spend their adulthood drifting, crawling, or even swimming with slow, balletic strokes of their arms. 

They cling to rocks and coral with tiny curved structures called cirri—delicate as eyelashes yet strong enough to grip firmly in swirling water. These cirri also allowed many fossil crinoids to hold fast to the Cretaceous seafloor, weathering tides and storms in the vast expanse of the Western Interior Seaway.

Like all echinoderms, crinoids exhibit pentaradial symmetry: a five-fold architecture expressed in their plates, arms, and feeding grooves. The aboral, or underside, of the calyx is encased in a mosaic of calcium carbonate plates that form their internal skeleton—robust enough to fossilize beautifully. 

The top surface, the oral area, is mostly soft tissue in life, opening into five deep ambulacral grooves where tube feet once reached outward like tiny graceful fingers. Between these lie the interambulacral zones, together forming the elegant star-like pattern that both living and fossil crinoids display.

Their fossil record is ancient and abundant. Crinoids first appear in the Ordovician over 450 million years ago—unless one counts Echmatocrinus, that strange and controversial form from the Burgess Shale whose affinities still spark debate among paleontologists. 

Through the Paleozoic, crinoids flourished in such numbers that their disarticulated columnals often blanket limestone beds. In some places, these columnals form the very fabric of the rock itself, creating entire cliffs built from the remnants of ancient underwater meadows. To run your fingers along such a rock is to touch a community that lived hundreds of millions of years before humans ever drew breath.

And yet, crinoids endure. They survive today in tropical reefs, deep ocean slopes, and soft-bottomed basins, their lineage stretching unbroken from those early Paleozoic seas to the modern oceans. 

Some cling to the seafloor in twilight depths; others drift like feathered ghosts, arms unfurling in silent, rhythmic pulses. 

When a fossil like Uintacrinus socialis emerges from the chalk of Kansas or the limestone of Utah, we are granted a rare window into that vanished age. 

And for those of us who spend our days searching riverbeds, quarries, and sea cliffs for such wonders, as I am sure you do, it is for the thrill of having a satisfying split and letting the past shine through.

That, to me, is pure magic.