BLADES OF THE ICE AGE: SMILODON

Beneath the elegant halls of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris is the fossil skeleton of one of the Pleistocene’s most formidable predators: Smilodon, the celebrated—and slightly misleadingly named—sabre-toothed cat.

With its enormous blade-like upper canines, immensely powerful shoulders and muscular forelimbs, Smilodon looks like evolution became temporarily carried away while designing a cat.

Although often called a sabre-toothed tiger, Smilodon was not a tiger and was only distantly related to the lions, leopards and domestic cats living today. 

It belonged to an extinct branch of the cat family known as the Machairodontinae, whose members evolved elongated canine teeth shaped for very specialised hunting.

Smilodon lived across the Americas during the Pleistocene, sharing its world with mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, ancient bison, horses, camels and many other large mammals. Three species are currently recognized: Smilodon gracilis, Smilodon fatalis and the particularly enormous South American species, Smilodon populator.

Unlike the long-legged cats that pursue prey across open ground today, Smilodon was built for close combat. Its body was compact and tremendously muscular, with massive forelimbs capable of seizing and restraining struggling animals. Its relatively short tail suggests that speed and extended pursuit were not its strengths. 

This was an ambush hunter—an Ice Age bruiser waiting in cover for an opportunity to strike.

Smilodon Skull versus modern-day Leopard Skull

Those celebrated canine teeth could reach more than 20 centimetres in the largest individuals, but they were not indestructible daggers. 

Long, flattened and finely serrated, they were effective slicing weapons but vulnerable to sideways stress. 

Smilodon likely used its forelimbs to overpower its prey before delivering a carefully controlled bite to the throat or other soft tissue. Evolution had provided magnificent cutlery, but it still needed to be handled with care.

To use those teeth effectively, Smilodon could open its jaws extraordinarily wide—perhaps approaching 120 degrees, compared with roughly 65 degrees in a modern lion. 

A yawn from one of these cats would have been less “sleepy house pet” and considerably more “please reconsider every decision that brought you here.”

Despite its fearsome appearance, Smilodon was not invincible. Its survival depended upon landscapes rich in large prey and suitable ambush cover. 

As the last Ice Age ended, climates shifted, habitats changed and many of the great herbivores upon which large predators depended disappeared. Human hunting and competition may also have contributed to these ecological pressures.

The final sabre-toothed cats vanished around 10,000 years ago, leaving behind bones, broken teeth and tantalizing clues to their lives. Exceptionally rich fossil deposits—most famously the Rancho La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles—have preserved thousands of Smilodon specimens, allowing us to study their injuries, growth, behaviour and possible social relationships.

In Paris, stripped of muscle, fur and movement, the skeleton carries the unmistakable architecture of power. The deep chest, reinforced forelimbs and extraordinary canines belong to an animal exquisitely adapted to its vanished world.

Image: Two skulls on black background. The relative size difference between the extinct Smilodon and a modern-day leopard. Two cats evolved in entirely different ways, one highly specialised and the other a superb generalist. Nick Greaves. License #1929090716

FOSSIL HUNTING AT HARRISON LAKE

Located three hours east of Vancouver, most folks head to Harrison Lake to enjoy its crisp waters, soak in the hot springs, camp or four-wheel-drive immersed in rugged scenery, or look for the elusive Sasquatch reported to live in the area. 

But there are some who come to Harrison Lake and miss the town entirely. Instead, they favour the upper west side of the lake and the fossiliferous bounty found here.

Indeed, this is the perfect location for local citizen scientists to strut their stuff. Harrison is a perfect family day trip, where you can discover wonderful marine fossil specimens as complete or partially crushed fossilized shells embedded in rock. 

It is truly amazing that we can find them at all. These beauties range in age from Jurassic to Cretaceous, with most being Lower Callovian, meaning the ammonites here swam our ancient oceans more than 160 million years ago. 

The area around Harrison Lake has been home to the Sts’ailes, a sovereign Coast Salish First Nation for thousands of years. Sts’ailes’ means, “the beating heart,” and it sums up this glorious wilderness perfectly. They describe their ancient home as Xa’xa Temexw or Sacred Earth. 

With the settling of Canada, Geologists began exploring the area in the 1880s, calling upon the Sts’ailes to help them look for coal and a route for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Coal was the aim, but happily, they also found fossils. Sacred Earth, indeed.  

Belemnite Fossils

In my favourite outcrops, you can find large, smooth inflated Jurassic ammonites along with their small grey and brown cousins. 

Further up the road, you will see Cretaceous cigar-shaped squid-like cephalopods called Belemnites, and the bivalve (clam) Buchia — gifts deposited by glaciers. Here are the most common.

Ammonites

Almost all of the ammonite specimens found near Harrison Lake are the toonie sized Cadoceras (Paracadoceras) tonniense with well-preserved outer whorls but flattened inner whorls. We find semi-squished elliptical specimens here, too. If you see a large, smooth, inflated grapefruit-sized ammonite, you are holding a rare prize — a Cadoceras comma ammonite, the macroconch or female of the species.  

Ammonites were predatory, squid-like creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells. Like other cephalopods, ammonites had sharp, beak-like jaws inside a ring of squid-like tentacles that extended from their shells. They used these tentacles to snare prey — plankton, vegetation, fish and crustaceans — similar to the way a squid or octopus hunts today.

Within their shells, ammonites had a number of chambers called septa filled with gas or fluid, and they were interconnected through a wee air tube. By pushing air in or out, they were able to control their buoyancy. 

These small but mighty marine predators lived in the last chamber of their shell and continuously built new shell material as they grew. As they added each new chamber, they would move their squid-like body down to occupy the final outside chamber.

Interestingly, ammonites from Harrison Lake are quite similar to the ones found within the lower part of the Chinitna Formation near Cook Inlet, Alaska, and Jurassic Point, Kyuquot, on the west coast of Vancouver Island — some of the most beautiful places on Earth. 

Buchia (bivalve) Clams

The bivalve or clam Buchia are commonly found at Harrison Lake. You will see them cemented together en masse. . They populated Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous waters like a team sport. When they thrived, they really thrived, building up large coquinas of material. Large boulders of Buchia cemented together en masse hitched a ride with the glaciers and were deposited around Harrison Lake. Some kept going and we find similar erratics or glacier-deposited boulders as far south as Washington state. 

Buchia is used as Index Fossils. Index fossils help us to figure out the age of the rock we are looking at because they are abundant, populate an area en masse, and then die out quickly. In other words, they make it easy to identify a geologic time span.

So what does this mean to you? Now, when you are out and about with friends and discover rocks with Buchia, or made entirely of Buchia, you can say, “Oh, this looks to be Upper Jurassic or Lower Cretaceous. Come take a look! We're likely the first to lay eyes on this little clam since dinosaurs roamed the Earth.” 

Fossil Collecting at Harrison Lake Fossil Field Trip — Getting there

This Harrison Lake site is a great day trip from Vancouver or the Fraser Valley. You will need a vehicle with good tires for travel on gravel roads. Search out the route ahead of time and share your trip plan with someone you trust. If you can pre-load the Google Earth map of the area, you will thank yourself. 

Heading east on from Vancouver, it will take you 1.5-2 hours to reach Harrison Mills. 

Access Forestry Road #17 at the northeast end of the parking lot from the Sasquatch Inn at 46001 Lougheed Hwy, Harrison Mills. From there, it will take about an hour to get to the site. Look for signs for the Chehalis River Fish Hatchery to get you started. 

Drive 30 km up Forestry Road #1, and stop just past Hale Creek at 49.5° N, 121.9° W (paleo-coordinates 42.5° N, 63.4° W) on the west side of Harrison Lake. You will see Long Island to your right. 

The first of the yummy fossil exposures are just north of Hale Creek on the west side of the road. Keep in mind that this is an active logging road, so watch your kids and pets carefully. Everyone should be wearing something bright so they can be easily spotted.

How to Spot the Fossils

The fossils here are easily collected—look in the bedrock and in the loose material that gathers in the ditches. Specimens will show up as either dark grey, grey-brown or black. Look for the large, dark-grey boulders the size of smart cars packed with Buchia. 

And while you are at it, be on the lookout for anything that looks like bone. This site is also ripe for marine reptiles—think plesiosaur, mosasaur and elasmosaur. As a citizen scientist and budding palaeontologist, you might just find something new!

What to Know Before You Go

Fill your gas tank and pack a tasty lunch. As with all trips into British Columbia's wild places, dress for the weather. You will need hiking boots, rain gear, gloves, eye protection, and a good geologic hammer and rock (cold) chisel. 

Wear bright clothing and keep your head covered. Slides are common, and you may start a few if you hike the cliffs. If you are with a group, those collecting below may want to consider hardhats in case of rockfall — chunks of rock the size of your fist up to the size of a grapefruit. They pack a punch. 

Bring a colourful towel or something to put your keepers on. Once you set rock down, it can be hard to find again given the terrain. I take the extra precaution of spraying the ends of my hammers and chisels with yellow fluorescent paint, as I have lost too many in the field. You will also want to bring a camera for the blocks of Buchia that are too big to carry home. 

Identifying Your Treasures

When you have finished for the day, compare your treasures to see which ones you would like to keep. In British Columbia, you are a steward of the fossil, which means they belong to the province, but you can keep them safe. You are not allowed to sell or ship them outside British Columbia without a permit. 

Once you get home, wash and identify your finds. Harrison Lake does not have a large variety of fossil fauna, so this should not be difficult. If your find is coiled and round, it is an ammonite. If it is long and straight, it is a belemnite. And if it looks like a wee fat baby oyster, it is Buchia. This is not always true, but mostly true.

What about collecting fossils in all seasons?. Everyone has a preference. I prefer not to collect in the snow, but I have done it. While sunny days are lovely, it can also be easier to see the specimens when the rock is wet. So, do we do this in the rain? Heck, yeah! 

In torrential rain? 

Yes — once you are hooked, but for your casual friends or the kiddos, the answer is likely no. Choose your battles. They may come with you, but a cold day getting soaked is no fun. 

In time, you will find your inner fossil geek — probably with your first find. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. First, it will be you, then your kids, your friends and then your neighbour. Once you start, it is easy to get hooked. Fossil addiction is real, and the only cure is to get out there and do it some more. You've got this!

References and further information:

A. J. Arthur, P. L. Smith, J. W. H. Monger and H. W. Tipper. 1993. Mesozoic stratigraphy and Jurassic palaeontology west of Harrison Lake, southwestern British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 441:1-62

R. W. Imlay. 1953. Callovian (Jurassic) ammonites from the United States and Alaska Part 2. The Alaska Peninsula and Cook Inlet regions. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 249-B:41-108

An overview of the tectonic history of the southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia; Monger, J W H; in, Field trips to Harrison Lake and Vancouver Island, British Columbia; Haggart, J W (ed.); Smith, P L (ed.). Canadian Paleontology Conference, Field Trip Guidebook 16, 2011 p. 1-11 (ESS Cont.# 20110248).

CTENOPHORES: CANNIBALISTIC COMB JELLIES

Cannibalistic Comb Jellies

This festive lantern looking lovely belongs to a group of invertebrates known as comb jellies.

Comb jellies are named for their unique plates of giant fused cilia, or combs, which run in eight rows up and down the length of their bodies. 

They are armed with sticky cells or colloblasts, that do not sting but display wonderful bioluminescent colouring as they move through the sea.

Ctenophores or comb jellies are one of the phylogenetically most important and controversial metazoan groups. 

Looks can be deceiving. At first glance you might think you are looking at a jellyfish but this is not the case. Surprisingly, they are not jellyfish and are not closely related, though they do share some characteristics with the gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa. 

Comb jellies are not picky eaters. Their tastes range to what is at hand, including cannibalizing other comb jellies. They will feast on their kin along with tasty plankton, zooplankton, crustaceans and wee fish.

Interest in their fossil record has been catalysed by spectacularly preserved soft-bodied specimens from Cambrian Lagerstätten of the 518-million-years-old Chengjiang Biota, the 505-million-years-old Burgess Shale and other Burgess Shale-like deposits. 

We find them in the Late Devonian Escuminac Formation at Miguasha National Park, Quebec, Canada — a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its abundance of well-preserved vertebrate fossils including most major evolutionary groups of Devonian lower vertebrates from jawless fish to stem-tetrapods.

Based on morphological similarities of this Canadian fossil with stem-ctenophore fossils from the Cambrian Lagerstätte of the Chinese locality Chengjiang, they have been assessed for their affinity to stem-group ctenophores (dinomischids, Siphusauctum, scleroctenophorans) and early crown-group ctenophores. Modern ctenophores and many fossil forms lack mineralized hard parts, which renders the rare fossils that have been extracted from several Lagerstätten quite remarkable. 

Like the soft bodies of jellyfish and the polyps of hydrozoans and anthozoans, the probability for such soft bodies (or body regions) to become fossilized is extremely low. In spite of this low preservation potential, remains of stem-ctenophores have become known from several Cambrian and younger conservation deposits, and with even older candidate ctenophores in the Ediacaran. 

While Cambrian Lagerstätten have yielded several genera, ctenophore remains are much rarer in the Devonian; in particular, two studies, describing material from the German Hunsrück Slate. 

Bioluminescent Comb Jellies

This Early Devonian material, however, appears to belong to crown ctenophores morphologically similar to living forms such as Pleurobrachia, unlike the stem Cambrian taxa and the new Devonian stem taxon described here.

The most basal stem ctenophores are the dinomischids: sessile benthic petaloid invertebrates, many of which are equipped with a stalk. This group first was described from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. Based on the genus Dinomischus, these early stalked forms were commonly called ‘dinomischids’. 

Zhao et al. shared that dinomischids "form a grade in the lower part of the ctenophore stem group” and include taxa such as Xianguangia, Daihua, and Dinomischus that have hexaradiate-based symmetry (e.g., sixfold, 18-fold). 

Some later, skeletonised stem-ctenophores were termed ‘Scleroctenophora’; ‘scleroctenophorans’ have a shorter stalk, lack the ‘petals’ and have no bracts and might be monophyletic. 

To date, all known dinomischids and scleroctenophorans are Cambrian. Remarkably, analysis of the material described here suggests it is a very late-surviving member of this part of the ctenophore tree, occurring in strata over a hundred million years younger with no intervening known record, thus making it a Lazarus taxon with an extensive ghost lineage. 

Palaeozoic sediments yield a growing number of fossil invertebrates with radial symmetries, some being quite enigmatic with body plans differing radically from those of extant organisms.

The morphological similarities to Cambrian forms and the mix of characters regarding overall shape and symmetries render this discovery important. The aims of this study are to describe the only known specimen of this Devonian ctenophore, discuss its phylogenetic and systematic position, and the impact of fossil data for ctenophore affinities, and assess its palaeoecological role.

A CITY WITHIN A CITY: FOSSIL CORAL

Fossil Coral — A City within a City

Here are some beauties for you — lovely fossil coral, frozen in stone yet once very much alive. 

At first glance it looks like a single organism, but that's the clever bit. 

Corals are really bustling little cities, built by thousands of tiny marine animals called polyps. Think of them as the world's oldest condominium developers... only with much better architecture and absolutely no strata council meetings.

Corals belong to the class Anthozoa within the phylum Cnidaria, making them close cousins of sea anemones and jellyfish. 

Together, these tiny builders have spent hundreds of millions of years constructing vast reefs that became home to an astonishing diversity of marine life.

Some corals even keep diaries. Deep-sea bamboo corals (Isididae), for example, lay down annual growth bands much like the rings of a tree. 

Those delicate layers preserve year-by-year records of changing ocean conditions, allowing us to reconstruct ancient climates with remarkable precision. Today, those same growth bands are also helping us understand one of the greatest challenges facing our oceans: ocean acidification.

Another remarkable form is the microatoll. These coral colonies have living edges that remain submerged while their tops die once they reach the average low-tide level. Their flattened shape quietly records changing sea levels through time. 

By studying their growth patterns and using radiocarbon dating to measure the decay of Carbon-14, we can piece together detailed histories of Holocene sea-level change spanning thousands of years.

Modern corals are facing some formidable challenges. Tropical sea temperatures have risen by roughly 1°C over the past century, triggering widespread coral bleaching events. 

When ocean waters become too warm, corals expel the tiny symbiotic algae—zooxanthellae—that provide much of their food and their brilliant colours. Left without their microscopic partners, reefs turn ghostly white and, if stressful conditions persist, many colonies die.

The story isn't entirely one of doom, though. Corals have shown an impressive capacity for adaptation, even if they don't make it look particularly dramatic. Being firmly cemented to the seafloor means they aren't exactly packing their bags and moving to cooler neighbourhoods. 

Instead, many are changing partners. Different strains of zooxanthellae vary in their tolerance to heat, and we are seeing more heat-resistant varieties becoming established in warmer waters. There is a trade-off, however. These hardy algae tend to photosynthesize more slowly, meaning the corals often grow more slowly as well.

In places like the Gulf of Mexico, warming seas have already shifted the distribution of iconic staghorn and elkhorn corals. Across many reefs, slower-growing but more heat-tolerant colonies are becoming increasingly common. 

Some reefs tucked into cooler ocean currents may even serve as refuges, buying precious time as the climate continues to change.

Corals reproduce both sexually and asexually. While cloning allows successful colonies to spread efficiently, it also limits the genetic diversity that fuels rapid evolution. 

Their long lifespans and remarkably stationary lifestyle mean adaptation can be slower than the pace of environmental change. Even so, these ancient architects have survived countless upheavals over hundreds of millions of years.

Holding a fossil coral is a reminder that reefs have witnessed worlds come and go. Long before whales, seabirds, or even the dinosaurs, coral colonies were quietly building underwater kingdoms, one tiny polyp at a time. The fossil before us is not simply stone—it is the preserved foundation of an ancient ecosystem, a snapshot of oceans that disappeared long before our own began.

SACRED CEPHALOPODS: OCTOPUS TAK'WA

This lovely with her colourful body is an octopus. Like ninety-seven percent of the world's animals, she lacks a backbone. 

To support their bodies, these spineless animals — invertebrates — have skeletons made of protein fibres. 

This flexibility can be a real advantage when slipping into nooks and crannies for protection and making a home in seemingly impossible places.

On the east side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, there is an area called Madrona Point where beneath the surface of the sea many octopus have done just that. This is the home of the Giant Pacific Octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini, the largest known octopus species.

The land above is the home of the Snuneymuxw First Nation of the Coast Salish who live here, on the Gulf Islands, and along the Fraser River. In Hul'q'umin'um' — the lingua franca of the Snuneymuxw First Nation and the many First Nations of Cowichan Tribes , a living language that expresses their worldview and way of life — the word for octopus is sqi'mukw'. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, further north on Vancouver Island, octopus or devil fish are known as ta̱k̕wa.

I have gone scuba diving at Madrona Point many times and visited the octopus who squeeze into the eroded sections of a sandstone ledge about 18 metres or 60 feet below the surface. 

On one of those trips, my friend Suzanne Groulx ran into one of the larger males swimming just offshore. I was surfacing as I heard her shriek clear as a bell. Sound moves through water about four times faster than it does through the air — faster than a jet plane. 

On that day, I suspect Suzanne was neck and neck both in sound and motion. Seconds later, she popped up a good three feet above the surf, still screaming. I have never seen anyone surface quite so quickly — dangerous and impressive in equal measure. Her coming up that fast meant her lungs were expanding rapidly as the air inside doubled every 30 ft as it was released from the pressure of the sea... very dangerous!

It was on another of those trips that I met Philip Torrens, with whom I would later co-author, In Search of Ancient BC.     

While the entire coastline is beautiful to explore, it was visiting the octopus that drew me back time and time again. I have seen wee octopus the size of the palm of your hand, large males swimming and feeding and the lovely females tucked into their nursery homes.

After forty days of mating, the female Giant Pacific Octopus attach strings of small fertilized eggs to the rocks within these crevices and call it home for a time — generally five months or 160 days. When I visit, I sometimes bring crab or sea urchin for her to snack on as the mothers guarding these eggs do not leave to hunt, staying ever vigilante protecting their brood from predators. All the while she is here, she gently blows fresh water over the eggs.

And sadly, this will be her only brood. Octopus breed once in their too-short lives. Males die directly after mating and females die once their young have hatched. They live in all the world's oceans and no matter the species, their lifespans are a brief one to five years. I rather hope they evolve to live longer and one day outcompete the humans who like to snack on them.

Octopus are soft-bodied, eight-limbed molluscs of the order Octopoda. They have one hard part, their beaks, which they use to crack open clams, crab and crustaceans. They are ninja-level skilled at squeezing through very tight holes, particularly if it means accessing a tasty snack. The size of their beaks determines exactly how small a hole they can fit through. Looking, you would likely guess it could not be done, but they are amazing — and mesmerizing!

At the Vancouver Aquarium, they have been known to unscrew lids, sneak out of one tank to feed in another then slip back so you do not notice, open simple hooks and latches — burglars of the sea. They can also change the colour and texture of their skin to blend perfectly into their surroundings. You can look for them around reefs and rocky shores. 

There are 300 species of octopus grouped within the class Cephalopoda, along with squid, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. 

The oldest fossil octopus at 300 million years old is Pohlsepia mazonensis from Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds in Illinois. The only known specimen resembles modern octopuses with the exception of possessing eight arms and two tentacles (Kluessendorf and Doyle 2000).

My favourite fossil octopus is the darling Keuppia levante (Fuchs, Bracchi & Weis, 2009), an extinct genus of octopus that swam our ancient seas back in the Cretaceous.

EPIC FOSSIL HUNTING: TYAUGHTON & CASTLE PEAK

Some places stay with you long after you've left them.

Tyaughton, north of Gold Bridge beneath the rugged skyline of Castle Peak, is one of those places for me. 

It is wild, breathtaking country where glaciers cling to the mountains, marmots whistle from rocky slopes, golden eagles drift effortlessly overhead, and every winding trail feels like it leads into another chapter of Earth's history.

It is also one of British Columbia's most remarkable places to hunt Triassic and Jurassic fossils.

Standing among these peaks, it is almost impossible to picture that some 200 to 220 million years ago this entire landscape lay beneath a warm tropical sea. Instead of alpine meadows and mountain goats, graceful ammonites cruised the water column while crinoids swayed gently on the seafloor. 

Brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods and countless other marine creatures flourished in an ocean that has long since disappeared.

Those ancient seabeds would one day be lifted thousands of metres skyward as the Coast Mountains rose around them, preserving their story within layers of limestone and shale.

Badouxia ammonites

There is nothing quite like splitting open a weathered slab and finding a beautifully preserved ammonite waiting inside. 

One careful tap with the rock hammer and suddenly you are sharing a moment with an animal that last saw daylight before the first dinosaurs truly came into their own. 

Those discoveries never lose their magic.

The nearby Taseko Lakes region has yielded one of the finest collections of Late Hettangian ammonites ever discovered in British Columbia. 

Over many remarkable field seasons, we documented thirty-five ammonite taxa and described three entirely new species, greatly expanding our understanding of Early Jurassic life along the ancient western margin of North America.

That work holds a particularly special place in my heart.

I had the enormous honour of having one of those new species named after me by Dr. Louise Longridge of the University of British Columbia. Fergusonites hendersonae is a beautiful little nektonic carnivorous ammonite that now carries my family name through the scientific literature. It remains one of the greatest honours of my life.

I first met Louise as an undergraduate, and later had the privilege of joining expeditions into the Taseko backcountry alongside wonderful friends from the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society, the Vancouver Paleontological Society, and researchers from UBC. 

We followed in the footsteps of the legendary Dr. Howard Tipper, whose meticulous geological mapping and extraordinary knowledge of Jurassic ammonites transformed our understanding of this part of British Columbia. His maps remain the foundation for much of the work we continue today.

Those expeditions were unforgettable.

Over several field seasons we endured altitude sickness, rain, snow, grizzly bears, and more than a few freezing nights camped beside glaciers. Helicopters spared us days of hiking into some of the most inaccessible fossil localities in the province, where every outcrop held the possibility of something extraordinary. 

Along with the three new ammonite species, we recovered beautifully preserved gastropods, crustaceans, and countless specimens that continue to help us piece together the history of these ancient seas.

What makes these fossils so important is not simply their beauty.

Ammonites evolved rapidly, making them some of our finest index fossils. By comparing species found here with those from Nevada, Alaska, South America, New Zealand, and Europe, we can correlate rock layers across continents and refine the geological timescale for the Early Jurassic. 

These tiny coiled shells have become some of our most powerful tools for understanding how life recovered following the greatest mass extinction our planet has ever known.

Collecting in this country also comes with responsibility. Many of these fossil localities lie within sensitive alpine environments or protected areas where collecting requires permits or is prohibited altogether. We tread lightly, respect the land, follow regulations, and remember that we are visitors in landscapes that have preserved these stories for hundreds of millions of years.

That is perhaps what I love most. You stand surrounded by towering peaks, yet beneath your boots lies the floor of an ancient tropical ocean. The mountains themselves are built from forgotten seas, and every fossil reminds us that Earth is never still. 

Continents wander. Oceans open and close. Mountains rise. Species flourish, disappear, and give way to those yet to come.

VANCOUVER ISLAND'S ICE AGE CAVES: WHERE GIANT GROUND SLOTHS STILL SLEEP

There is a version of Vancouver Island that few ever see.

Not the emerald forests draped in moss, the crashing Pacific surf or the towering Douglas firs reaching skyward, but another world hidden beneath our feet. 

A world of silent limestone chambers where time slows to a crawl and the Ice Age still lingers in the darkness.

Deep within the island's karst cave systems lie the remains of an extraordinary lost ecosystem. 

Long before people paddled these shores, before cedar canoes skimmed the inlets and long before the glaciers finally loosened their grip, these caves became natural vaults, preserving the stories of some of the largest animals ever to call Vancouver Island home.

Among the most remarkable are the giant ground sloths. The thought almost seems impossible. Sloths? On Vancouver Island? Yet it is wonderfully true.

The giant ground sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii, Jefferson's Ground Sloth, wandered British Columbia during the closing chapters of the Pleistocene. 

Unlike the tiny tree sloths that spend their days hanging upside down in the tropical forests of Central and South America, these impressive herbivores stood nearly three metres (10 feet) tall when rearing up on their hind legs. 

Giant Ground Sloth

Built like shaggy tanks, they browsed shrubs and young trees using long, powerful forelimbs tipped with formidable claws that were better suited to pulling branches toward them than defending against predators.

As the last glaciers retreated some 14,000 to 12,000 years ago, Vancouver Island was transforming. 

Vast ice sheets gave way to open parklands, willow thickets and patches of spruce, creating a landscape rich enough to support these gentle giants.

They were not alone.

The caves have yielded an astonishing collection of Ice Age fauna, each discovery adding another piece to the puzzle of a vanished world. 

Ancient bison once grazed these emerging landscapes. Caribou and deer moved across newly exposed valleys. 

Wolves and foxes hunted among the tundra-like plains. Black bears sought shelter in the caves, while the colossal short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, one of North America's largest terrestrial predators, also roamed these lands. 

Arctodus simus, La Brea Tar Pits

There is a wonderful fossil specimen of Arctodus simus on display at the La Brea Tar Pits in California, if you ever have the chance to visit. 

Smaller creatures, from marmots to birds, left their own subtle traces within the cave sediments, creating an extraordinary record of an ecosystem rebuilding itself after the glaciers.

Unlike many fossil localities exposed on cliffs or riverbanks, these treasures survived because they were tucked safely away underground. 

Animals occasionally wandered into cave entrances, became trapped in vertical shafts or sought temporary shelter, their remains gradually buried beneath sediments that remained cool, dry and remarkably undisturbed for thousands of years.

Recovering these fossils has never been the work of a lone adventurer. Their discovery is the story of collaboration. 

Many of Vancouver Island's fossil-bearing caves were first explored by dedicated local cavers and members of the BC Speleological Federation. Crawling through tight passages, descending deep shafts, and carefully mapping these hidden worlds, they occasionally encountered ancient bones resting undisturbed on cave floors. 

Knowing their importance, they did exactly what every responsible caver hopes they would do—they left the remains where they were and contacted researchers, museums and universities so the discoveries could be properly studied.

That decision preserved an irreplaceable scientific record.

My good friend Mike Trask (Oh, how I miss that man!) also contributed greatly to our knowledge of these caves and the wonders held within. 

Port Eliza Cave, Vancouver Island

Over the years, archaeologists Dr. Quentin Mackie and Dr. Duncan McLaren of the University of Victoria have led investigations of several of Vancouver Island's remarkable cave sites, including the famous Port Eliza Cave, located on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island near the Holberg Quatsino Sound region.

Their research has revealed rich fossil assemblages that help us understand how animals—and eventually people—lived as the Ice Age drew to a close.

Quaternary geologist and geoarchaeologist Dr. Michael C. Wilson has also played a pivotal role in documenting these cave deposits. 

His comprehensive analyses of the faunal remains have helped establish the presence of giant ground sloths, bison, short-faced bears and many other species, painting an increasingly detailed picture of Vancouver Island's ancient ecosystems during a period of profound environmental change.

Together, scientists, archaeologists, geologists and volunteer cavers have opened a remarkable window into British Columbia's deep past. 

Vancouver Island has worn many faces. It has been buried beneath kilometres of ice, transformed into open tundra, crossed by giant sloths, stalked by immense bears and slowly reclaimed by the forests we know today.

A special thank you to Shirley Renaud for rekindling this wonder for all of us with her thoughtful questions around these cave systems and the Ice Age assemblages they hold. 

Image: A skeleton of M. jeffersonii on display in the Orton Geological Museum. This skeleton was mounted in 1896. Photo by Fuzheado. 

Image: Arctodus simus, La Brea Tar Pits. Photo by Jonathan Chen

Port Eliza Cave: North American West Coast interstadial environment and implications for human migrations, ScienceDirect: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379103000921

Late Wisconsinan Port Eliza Cave deposits and their implications for human coastal migration, Vancouver Island, Canada. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Location-of-Port-Eliza-Cave-along-the-hypothesized-coastal-migration-route_fig1_229940158

TENDER GIANTS: MAMENCHISAURUS SINOCANADORUM

For those who know me—and many of you know me rather well—you'll know I carry around a very long bucket list.

Some of it is wonderfully practical. There are places I ache to visit, museums I long to wander, fossils I dream of collecting with muddy boots and sunburned shoulders, and so many of you I'd love to spend a day in the field with, swapping stories while splitting shale or scanning a cliff face for the tiniest hint of ancient life.

Those dreams are mostly a matter of time, opportunity, and perhaps convincing my bank account to cooperate.

But there are other wishes that no amount of planning can ever make possible.

If I could choose one impossible gift, it would be to step back into deep time. Not to change anything. Just to watch.

To stand unnoticed beneath the towering trees of the Jurassic and witness moments forever lost to us. The fierce ones, certainly. The great hunts and desperate escapes. But even more than those, I'd love to see the quiet moments. A parent watching over its young. Animals greeting one another. The ordinary lives hidden between the fossils we find millions of years later.

One of the scenes I return to again and again is this.

The air is warm and heavy with the rich scent of damp earth, resin, and fresh conifer needles. Giant tree ferns crowd the shoreline, while dragonflies the size of small birds skim across still water that mirrors the fading sky. 

Somewhere beyond the trees, insects sing, and the calls of unseen dinosaurs drift through the evening air.

A family of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum moves silently into the shallows.

The immense adults wade with astonishing grace, each careful step sending gentle ripples across the lake. Between them, two youngsters splash through the water, still awkward in bodies that will one day become truly colossal. 

Their impossibly long necks sway with effortless elegance as they browse from branches leaning over the water's edge, occasionally pausing as if simply enjoying the coolness of the evening. 

There is no urgency. No violence. Only the quiet rhythm of another day drawing to a close in the Jurassic.

Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum lived about 160 million years ago in what is now China and is celebrated for possessing one of the longest necks ever to evolve. At an astonishing 15 metres (50 feet), its neck alone was longer than many entire dinosaurs.

Despite their immense size, these remarkable sauropods were peaceful browsers, sweeping those extraordinary necks through the forest canopy to feed on conifers, cycads, ferns, and other lush Jurassic vegetation. Their anatomy allowed them to forage across a huge area without constantly moving their massive bodies—an elegant solution for an animal that could exceed 25 metres (82 feet) in length.

Whenever I look at these magnificent giants, I'm reminded that not every giant in Earth's history was built for conflict. Some were architects of quiet landscapes, moving through ancient forests with remarkable gentleness. 

They left no roar echoing across the valley, only soft footfalls, the rustle of leaves high in the canopy, and widening circles on the surface of a Jurassic lake as twilight settled over a world we know today only through stone.

BAA-D TO THE BONE: SHEEP IN THE FOSSIL RECORD

The story of sheep begins long before shepherds, wool sweaters, and stone fences. 

It starts in the rugged mountains and open grasslands of Eurasia, where their wild ancestors evolved into some of the most sure-footed herbivores on the planet.

Modern sheep belong to the genus Ovis, part of the Bovidae family—a wonderfully successful group that includes goats, musk oxen, antelope, cattle, bison, and buffalo. 

While the family itself first appears in the fossil record around 18–20 million years ago during the Early Miocene, true sheep arrived considerably later.

The oldest fossils confidently assigned to the genus Ovis are roughly 3 to 4 million years old, dating to the Late Pliocene of Central Asia. 

These early sheep already possessed many of the features we recognize today: sturdy limbs built for climbing steep terrain, high-crowned teeth adapted for grazing abrasive grasses, and, in many species, impressive horns that played an important role in establishing dominance and attracting mates.

Unlike antlers, which are shed each year by deer, sheep horns are permanent structures. They consist of a bony core covered by a keratin sheath that continues to grow throughout life. Fossil skulls preserve the bony core, allowing us to study the size, curvature, and growth patterns of ancient animals in remarkable detail.

One of the best-known fossil sheep is Ovis ammon, the ancestral argali. While living argali still roam the mountains of Central Asia today, fossil representatives reveal a lineage that has endured repeated cycles of glaciation, warming climates, and shifting landscapes throughout the Pleistocene.

During the Ice Age, wild sheep expanded across much of Eurasia and into North America. Their arrival on this continent came by way of Beringia—the broad land bridge that periodically connected Siberia and Alaska when sea levels dropped during glacial periods.

One particularly impressive Ice Age species is Ovis canadensis, the ancestor of today's bighorn sheep. Fossils dating back several hundred thousand years have been recovered from caves, river terraces, and ancient packrat middens throughout western North America. Some populations developed truly spectacular horns, reflecting both healthy nutrition and generations of competition between powerful rams.

Another fascinating relative is Ovis dalli, the ancestor of modern Dall sheep found today in Alaska and northwestern Canada. Fossils show that these hardy mountain specialists persisted through dramatic climatic swings, retreating to suitable alpine habitats as glaciers advanced and expanded again when conditions improved.

We learn an extraordinary amount from fossil sheep. Their teeth record changing diets as grasslands spread across continents. Horns reveal patterns of sexual selection and social behaviour. Limb bones speak of life on precipitous slopes where balance, agility, and endurance meant survival.

Even their dung has stories to tell.

Ancient sheep droppings recovered from caves and rock shelters sometimes preserve pollen, seeds, and plant fragments, offering tiny snapshots of Ice Age vegetation. Together with isotope analysis of fossil bones and teeth, these discoveries help us reconstruct entire ecosystems—revealing not only what sheep were eating, but also the climate, rainfall, and seasonal changes that shaped their world.

Around 10,500 to 11,000 years ago, humans began domesticating wild mouflon (Ovis orientalis) in the Fertile Crescent. This marked one of the great turning points in human history. Sheep became among the earliest domesticated livestock, providing meat, milk, hides, bone, and eventually the wool that transformed clothing, textiles, and trade across civilizations.

Domestic sheep also left a fossil record of sorts. Archaeological sites preserve bones showing changes brought about by selective breeding. Horn size often became reduced, body proportions shifted, and age profiles within herds reveal increasingly sophisticated management by early farming communities.

Today, more than a billion domestic sheep live around the world, descendants of animals that once navigated rugged mountain landscapes long before humans ever imagined weaving wool into cloth.

There is something rather poetic about that continuity.

From windswept Pliocene ridges to Ice Age cliffs, from Neolithic villages to modern farms, sheep have quietly accompanied the changing face of our planet. Their fossils tell us stories of climate, migration, adaptation, and survival over millions of years.

And yes... every one of those magnificent spiral horns began with an ancestor who simply kept putting one hoof in front of the other. Sometimes, steady really does win the evolutionary race.

CANADA'S FIRST SMILODON

This fierce predator with the luxurious coat is Smilodon fatalis — a compact but robust killer that weighed in around 160 to 280 kg and was 1.5 - 2.2 metres long.

Smilodon is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats.

Up until a few years ago, all the great fossil specimens of this apex predator were found south of us in the United States. That was until some interesting bones from Medicine Hat, Alberta got a second look.

A few years ago, a fossil specimen caught the eye of researcher Ashley Reynolds as she was rummaging through the collections at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. 

Back in the 1960s,  University of Toronto palaeontologist C.S. Churcher and his team had collected and donated more than 1,200 specimens from their many field seasons scouring the bluffs of the South Saskatchewan River near Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Churcher is a delightful storyteller and a palaeontologist with a keen eye. I had the very great pleasure of listening to many of his talks out at the University of British Columbia and a few Vancouver Paleontological Society meetings in the mid-2000s. 

"Rufus" was a thoroughly charming storyteller and shared many of his adventures from the field. 

He moved out to the West Coast for his retirement, first to Gabriola Island then to Victoria, but his keen love of the science kept him giving talks to enthralled listeners keen to hear about his survey of the Dakhleh Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, geomorphology, stratigraphy, recent biology, Pleistocene and Holocene lithic cultures, insights learned from Neolithic Islamic pottery to Roman settlements.

The specimens he had collected had been roughly sorted but never examined in detail. Reynolds, who was researching the growth patterns and life histories of extinct cats saw a familiar-looking bone from an ancient cat's right front paw. That tiny paw bone had reached through time and was positively identified as Canada's first Smilodon.

These Apex Predators used their exceptionally long upper canine teeth to hunt large mammals. 

Isotopes preserved in the bones of S. fatalis in the La Brea Tar Pits in California tell us that they liked to dine on bison (Bison antiquus) and camels (Camelops) along with deer and tapirs. Smilodon is thought to have killed its prey by holding it still with its forelimbs and biting it. And that was quite the bite!

Their razor-sharp incisors were arranged in an arch. Once they bit down, the teeth would hold their prey still and stabilize it while the canine bite was delivered — and what a bite that was. They could open their mouths a full 120 degrees.

Smilodon died out at the same time that most North and South American megafauna disappeared, about 10,000 years ago. Its reliance on large animals has been proposed as the cause of its extinction, along with climate change and competition with other species. 

THE CURIOUS TALE OF THE FOSSIL RHINO

The Miocene pillow basalts from the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area of central Washington hold an unlikely fossil. 

What looks to be a rather unremarkable ballooning at the top of a cave is actually the mould of a small rhinoceros, preserved by sheer chance as its bloated carcass sunk to the bottom of a shallow lake just prior to a volcanic explosion.

We have known about this gem for a long while now. The fossil was discovered by hikers back in 1935 and later cast by the University of California palaeontologists in 1948. 

The Dirty Thirties & The Great Depression

These were the Dirty Thirties and those living in Washington state were experiencing the Great Depression along with the rest of the country and the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, navigating the States away from laissez-faire economics. 

Charmingly, Roosevelt would have his good name honoured by this same park in April of 1946, a few years before researchers at Berkeley would rekindle interest in the site.

Both hiking and fossil collecting was a fine answer to these hard economic times and came with all the delights of discovery with no cost for natural entertainment. And so it was that two fossil enthusiast couples were out looking for petrified wood just south of Dry Falls on Blue Lake in Washington State. 

While searching the pillow basalt, the Frieles and Peabodys came across a large hole high up in a cave that had the distinctive shape of an upside-down rhinoceros.

This fossil is interesting in all sorts of ways. First, we so rarely see fossils in igneous rocks. As you might suspect, both magma and lava are very hot. Magma, or molten rock, glows a bright red/orange as it simmers at a toasty 700 °C to 1300 °C (or 1300 °F to 2400 °F) beneath the Earth's surface.

A Rhinoceros Frozen in Lava

During the late Miocene and early Pliocene, repeated basaltic lava floods engulfed about 63,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest over a period of ten to fifteen million years. After these repeated bathings the residual lava accumulated to more than 6,000 feet.

As magma pushes up to the surface becoming lava, it cools to a nice deep black. In the case of our rhino friend, this is how this unlikely fellow became a fossil. Instead of vaporizing his remains, the lava cooled relatively quickly preserving his outline as a trace fossil and remarkably, a few of his teeth, jaw and bones. The lava was eventually buried then waters from the Spokane Floods eroded enough of the overburden to reveal the remains once more.

Diceratherium tridactylum (Marsh, 1875)

Diceratherium (Marsh, 1875) is known from over a hundred paleontological occurrences from eighty-seven collections.

While there are likely many more, we have found fossil remains of Diceratherium, an extinct genus of rhinoceros, in the Miocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, China, France, Portugal, Switzerland, and multiple sites in the United States.

He has also been found in the Oligocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, and twenty-five localities in the United States — in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.  

Diceratherium was a scansorial insectivore with two horns and a fair bit of girth. He was a chunky fellow, weighing in at about one tonne (or 2,200 lbs). That is about the size of a baby Humpback Whale or a walrus.

Back in the Day: Washington State 15 Million-Years Ago

He roamed a much cooler Washington state some 15 million years ago. Ice dams blocked large waterways in the northern half of the state, creating reservoirs. Floodwaters scoured the eastern side of the state, leaving scablands we still see today. In what would become Idaho, volcanic eruptions pushed through the Snake River, the lava cooling instantly as it burst to the surface in a cloud of steam. 

By then, the Cascades had arrived and we had yet to see the volcanic eruptions that would entomb whole forests up near Vantage in the Takama Canyon of Washington state. 

Know Before You Go

You are welcome to go see his final resting site beside the lake but it is difficult to reach and comes with its own risks. Head to the north end of Blue Lake in Washington. Take a boat and search for openings in the cliff face. You will know you are in the right place if you see a white "R" a couple hundred feet up inside the cliff. Inside the cave, look for a cache left by those who've explored here before you. Once you find the cache, look straight up. That hole above you is the outline of the rhino.

If you don't relish the thought of basalt caving, you can visit a cast of the rhino at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington. They have a great museum and are pretty sporting as they have built the cast sturdy enough for folk to climb inside. 

The Burke Museum 

The Burke Museum recently underwent a rather massive facelift and has re-opened its doors to the public. You can now explore their collections in the New Burke, a 113,000 sq. ft. building at 4300 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105, United States. Or visit them virtually, at https://www.burkemuseum.org/

Photo: Robert Bruce Horsfall - https://archive.org/details/ahistorylandmam00scotgoog, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12805514

Reference: Prothero, Donald R. (2005). The Evolution of North American Rhinoceroses. Cambridge University Press. p. 228. ISBN 9780521832403.

Reference: O. C. Marsh. 1875. Notice of new Tertiary mammals, IV. American Journal of Science 9(51):239-250

Lincoln, Roosevelt and Recovery from The Great Depression

Rural Tennessee has electricity for the same reason Southeast Alaska has totem parks. In order to help the nation recover from The Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, created a number of federal agencies to put people to work. From 1938-1942 more than 200 Tlingit and Haida men carved totem poles and cleared land for the Civilian Conservation Corps in an effort to create “totem parks” the federal government hoped would draw travelers to Alaska.

This odd intersection of federal relief, Alaska Native art and marketing is the subject of Emily L. Moore’s book “Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks.”

This effort to bring poles out of abandoned villages includes the Lincoln Pole being moved to Saxman Totem Park by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who established the Saxman Totem Park in 1938.  

The top carving on the Lincoln Pole bears a great likeness of Abraham Lincoln. According to the teachings of many Tlingit elders, this carving was meant to represent the first white man seen in Tlingit territory in the 18th century.  

A century later, in the 1880s, one of my ancestors from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Tongass Tlingit commissioned the pole to commemorate our ancestor's pride to have seen this first white man—which has become a Gaanax.ádi crest—using a photograph of Abraham Lincoln as the model. 

It is important not only for these various readings of the crests but also because it claims Gaanax.ádi clan territory before the first Europeans and budding Americans came to these shores—territory that Tlingit carvers who were re-carving the pole in the 1940s were trying to assert to the U.S. government as sovereign land.

Interestingly, another pole in that same park is the Dogfish Pole, carved for Chief Ebbits Andáa, Teikweidi, Valley House. The Chief Ebbits Memorial Pole—the Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole—was raised in 1892 in Old Tongass Village in honour of a great man, Head Chief of the Tongass and my ancestor. It was then moved, re-carved and re-painted at Saxman Totem Park in 1938 as part of Roosevelt's program—and it due to be re-carved again this year. 

It tells the story of his life and the curious way he became Ebbits as he was born Neokoots. He met and traded with some early American fur traders. One of those traders was a Mister Ebbits. The two became friends and sealed that friendship with the exchanging of names.  

If you would like to read more about that pole and others, I recommend, The Wolf and the Raven, by anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest (my talented cousin), published in 1961 and still in print as I ordered a copy for a friend just this year.

ARMOUR, ESTUARIES AND ATTITUDE: MEET BOTHRIOLEPSIS, DEVONIAN BOTTOM-DWELLER EXTRAORDINAIRE

This handsome armoured fellow is Bothriolepis canadensis—one of the greats of the Late Devonian seas, here in replica form but no less marvellous for it. 

He hails from the Frasnian-aged Escuminac Formation at Parc national de Miguasha, tucked along the shores of Baie des Chaleurs in Québec—a place where deep time feels almost within reach.

Bothriolepis was a placoderm, one of the earliest groups of jawed vertebrates, clad head to tail in bony armour like a medieval knight who took a wrong turn into a river delta some 380 million years ago. 

Its boxy head shield and jointed, limb-like pectoral fins hint at a life spent nosing along the bottom—likely sifting through sediment for organic morsels, a sort of Devonian vacuum cleaner with attitude.

And what a world it lived in.

The Miguasha biota is one of Canada’s most celebrated fossil Lagerstätten—and rightly so. For over 170 years, this site has yielded an extraordinary snapshot of life near the close of the “Age of Fishes.” 

More than 18,000 specimens have been collected here, representing at least 20 species of early vertebrates—everything from jawless anaspids to lobe-finned fishes that would one day give rise to tetrapods (yes, that includes us).

By Hectonichus - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

You’ll also find early ray-finned fishes, spiny acanthodians, and other placoderms sharing the waters, alongside a supporting cast of invertebrates and the first tentative steps of life onto land—plants, scorpions, and millipedes creeping along the margins of this ancient ecosystem.

For years, scientists pictured Miguasha as a quiet freshwater lake.

But the rocks had more to say. 

A growing body of sedimentological and geochemical evidence now points to a brackish estuarine setting—where rivers met the sea in a dynamic, shifting environment rich in nutrients and, apparently, excellent at preserving the dead.

And preserve them it did.

Many of the fossils here are found fully articulated—bones still in life position, as though the animal simply paused mid-swim and slipped gently into the sediment. 

Some even retain traces of soft tissues, which is about as close as we get to time travel in palaeontology. Even more remarkable, we have identified larval and juvenile stages for the majority of species, giving us rare insight into growth and development in these early vertebrates.

Multiple layers within the Escuminac Formation are now recognized as both Konservat-Lagerstätten—sites of exceptional preservation—and Konzentrat-Lagerstätten, where fossils occur in abundance. In other words, it’s a double jackpot.

This particular replica was picked up at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Miguasha and now lives in the collection of the wonderfully well-travelled John Fam—proof that sometimes the best souvenirs are 380 million years in the making.

If you ever find yourself in Québec with a bit of time and a love of fossils, Miguasha is well worth the pilgrimage. Few places on Earth offer such a vivid window into the early story of vertebrate life—where armoured fishes ruled, and the blueprint for our own bodies was just beginning to take shape.

The lead photo you see here is from the deeply awesome John Fam, Chair now of both the Vancouver Paleontological Society and the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance.

STUPENDEMYS GEOGRAPHICUS: TITAN OF THE ANCIENT AMAZON

Freshwater turtles come in all shapes and sizes, but few inspire quite as much awe as Stupendemys geographicus — an aptly named giant whose very existence seems borrowed from myth. 

This now-extinct lovely inhabited the waterways of northern South America during the Miocene and grew to truly staggering proportions. 

Its shell stretched nearly three metres in length — up to 9.5 feet — making it roughly one hundred times larger than some of its closest living relatives.

To put that into perspective, Stupendemys dwarfed modern South American river turtles such as the Giant South American River Turtle (Podocnemis expansa), the Yellow-Spotted Amazon River Turtle (Podocnemis unifilis), and the Amazon River Turtle (Peltocephalus dumerilianus). 

It was even larger than the mighty leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), the largest marine turtle alive today. And while the famous Late Cretaceous sea turtle Archelon reached impressive lengths of around 4.5 metres (15 feet), Stupendemys remains among the largest turtles ever to have paddled through ancient waters.

South America, as any Fossil Huntress worth her muddy boots will tell you, is a treasure chest of extraordinary fossil life. Through deep time, the continent hosted giant rodents, an astonishing variety of crocodylians, and waterways ruled by creatures that seem almost impossible by today's standards. 

Yet for decades, Stupendemys geographicus remained frustratingly elusive. 

Most fossil discoveries consisted of scattered shell fragments and isolated bones — tantalising clues, but never enough to reveal the full story.

Rodolfo Sánchez with Stupendemys geographicus

Then came a breakthrough.

In 1994, several new shells and the first lower jaws of Stupendemys were uncovered in the fossil-rich Urumaco region near Falcón State, Venezuela. 

The area had already earned a reputation among palaeontologists as a remarkable source of exquisitely preserved fossils. 

Researchers from Harvard University had first discovered Stupendemys remains there in the 1970s, but in the decades that followed, complete carapaces remained frustratingly rare.

That scarcity only heightened the excitement for Edwin Cadena, a palaeontologist at Universidad del Rosario in Colombia, along with colleagues from the University of Zurich and institutions across Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. They suspected that more complete specimens were waiting patiently beneath the desert sediments.

Urumaco is a palaeontologist's dream. Unlike forested localities where vegetation obscures exposures and seasonal rains wash fossils away, this arid landscape leaves ancient bones and shells weathering gently into view beneath endless blue skies. Here, persistence is often rewarded.

Rewarded they were.

Rodolfo Sánchez with Stupendemys geographicus

Among the spectacular discoveries were enormous carapaces, including those of males bearing extraordinary horn-like projections on the front edges of their shells. 

One striking image shows Venezuelan palaeontologist Rodolfo Sánchez standing beside a male Stupendemys shell from eight-million-year-old deposits in Venezuela. 

The comparison is enough to stop even seasoned fossil enthusiasts in their tracks. This was not merely a large turtle. This was a freshwater leviathan.

The team combined these Venezuelan specimens with fossils recovered from Colombia's La Tatacoa Desert. 

Together, they offered a far more complete understanding of the anatomy, lifestyle, and evolutionary relationships of these gigantic turtles. Cadena and colleagues published their findings in Science Advances in February 2020.

Their research described the largest turtle carapace ever recovered and supported the idea that all of these giant specimens belonged to a single widespread species: Stupendemys geographicus. 

During the middle to late Miocene, this enormous turtle inhabited the Pebas and Acre systems — vast wetland networks that once spread across what is now northern South America in a pan-Amazonian landscape.

And what a creature it was.

Some males sported two impressive, lance-like horns projecting from the shell, giving them the appearance of armoured river tanks with attitude. The researchers proposed that these horns represent evidence of sexual dimorphism, with males possessing the elaborate adornments while females remained hornless. Similar differences between males and females occur in many living animals, although few can claim to involve built-in jousting equipment.

Based on a shell length of approximately 2.4 metres, the team estimated body masses exceeding a metric tonne. Even among giant fossil turtles, Stupendemys stood apart.

Life in the Miocene waterways was not without its hazards. Bite marks and puncture wounds preserved on fossil shells tell a dramatic tale of conflict between these enormous turtles and equally formidable predators. 

These bad boys didn't have it easy. Sharing these rivers were gigantic caimans — powerful alligatorid crocodilians reaching lengths of more than nine metres (30 feet). To such predators, even a turtle the size of a compact car might have looked appetizing. 

Yet the scars etched into the shells of Stupendemys suggest that these encounters often ended with the turtle surviving and walking or limping away. Without the healed bite marks, my money would have been firmly on the caimans. 

The emerging picture here is one of resilience and grandeur: a single giant turtle species ranging across the northern Neotropics, exhibiting remarkable sexual dimorphism and thriving within some of the richest freshwater ecosystems the world has ever known.

Image Two: Venezuelan Palaeontologist Rodolfo Sánchez and a male carapace of Stupendemys geographicus, from Venezuela, found in 8 million years old deposits. Photo credit: Jorge Carrillo

Image Three: Venezuelan Palaeontologist Rodolfo Sánchez and a male carapace of Stupendemys geographicus, from Venezuela, found in 8 million years old deposits. Photo credit: Edwin Cadena

Reference: E-A. Cadena, T. M. Scheyer, J. D. Carrillo-Briceño, R. Sánchez, O. A Aguilera-Socorro, A. Vanegas, M. Pardo, D. M. Hansen, M. R. Sánchez-Villagra. The anatomy, paleobiology and evolutionary relationships of the largest side-necked extinct turtle. Science Advances. 12 February 2020. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay4593

FOSSIL BEES AND FIRST NATION HISTORY

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 him from our gardens where we see them busily lapping up nectar and pollen from flowers with their long hairy tongues.

My Norwegian cousins on my mother's side call them humle. Norway is a wonderful place to be something wild as the wild places have not been disturbed by our hands. 

Head out for a walk in the wild flowers and the sounds you will hear are the wind and the bees en masse amongst the flowers.   

There are an impressive thirty-five species of bumblebee species that call Norway hjem (home), and one, Bombus consobrinus, boasts the longest tongue that they use to feast solely on Monkshood, genus Aconitum, you may know by the name Wolf's-bane.

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, and my family on my father's side in the Pacific Northwest, bumblebees are known as ha̱mdzalat̕si — though I wonder if this is actually the word for a honey bee, Apis mellifera, as ha̱mdzat̕si is the word for a beehive.

I have a special fondness for all bees and look for them both in the garden and in First Nation art.

Bumblebees' habit of rolling around in flowers gives us a sense that these industrious insects are also playful. In First Nation art they provide levity — comic relief along with their cousins the mosquitoes and wasps — as First Nation dancers wear masks made to mimic their round faces, big round eyes and pointy stingers. 

A bit of artistic license is taken with their forms as each mask may have up to six stingers. The dancers weave amongst the watchful audience and swoop down to playfully give many of the guests a good, albeit gentle, poke. 

Honey bees actually do a little dance when they get back to the nest with news of an exciting new place to forage — truly they do. Bumblebees do not do a wee bee dance when they come home pleased with themselves from a successful foraging mission, but they do rush around excitedly, running to and fro to share their excitement. They are social learners, so this behaviour can signal those heading out to join them as they return to the perfect patch of wildflowers. 

Bumblebees are quite passive and usually sting in defense of their nest or if they feel threatened. Female bumblebees can sting several times and live on afterwards — unlike honeybees who hold back on their single sting as its barbs hook in once used and their exit shears it off, marking their demise.

They are important buzz pollinators both for our food crops and our wildflowers. Their wings beat at 130 times or more per second, literally shaking the pollen off the flowers with their vibration. 

And they truly are busy bees, spending their days fully focused on their work. Bumblebees collect and carry pollen and nectar back to the nest which may be as much as 25% to 75% of their body weight. 

And they are courteous — as they harvest each flower, they mark them with a particular scent to help others in their group know that the nectar is gone. 

The food they bring back to the nest is eaten to keep the hive healthy but is not used to make honey as each new season's queen bees hibernate over the winter and emerge reinvigorated to seek a new hive each Spring. She will choose a new site, primarily underground depending on the bumblebee species, and then set to work building wax cells for each of her fertilized eggs. 

Bumblebees are quite hardy. The plentiful hairs on their bodies are coated in oils that provide them with natural waterproofing. They can also generate more heat than their smaller, slender honey bee cousins, so they remain productive workers in cooler weather.    

We see the first bumblebees arise in the fossil record 100 million years ago and diversify alongside the earliest flowering plants. 

Their evolution is an entangled dance with the pollen and varied array of flowers that colour our world. 

We have found many wonderful examples within the fossil record, including a rather famous Eocene fossil bee found by a dear friend and naturalist who has left this Earth, Rene Savenye.

His namesake, H. Savenyei, is a lovely fossil halictine bee from Early Eocene deposits near Quilchena, British Columbia — and the first bee body-fossil known from the Okanagan Highlands — and indeed from Canada. 

It is a fitting homage, as bees symbolize honesty, playfulness and willingness to serve the community in our local First Nation lore and around the world — something Rene did his whole life.