MOVE OVER, T. REX: THERE IS A NEW KING IN TOWN

Eighty million years ago, long before Texas acquired highways, cattle ranches or the unshakeable belief that everything should be larger there, much of the region lay beneath a warm inland sea.

And cruising through those waters was an animal that appears to have taken the entire “bigger in Texas” philosophy rather seriously.

Meet Tylosaurus rex, a newly recognized species of giant mosasaur described in 2026.

It measured as much as 13.2 metres long, carried a mouthful of finely serrated teeth and possessed adaptations for unusually powerful jaw and neck muscles.

In short, it was an enormous marine lizard with steak knives for teeth and the disposition of something that had never once been asked to use its indoor voice.

The name Tylosaurus rex means “king of the tylosaurs.”

Yes, that makes it another T. rex. No, it was not a dinosaur.

Mosasaurs were enormous marine reptiles belonging to the squamate lineage that includes modern snakes and lizards. Their ancestors began as land-dwelling animals, but by the Late Cretaceous their descendants had become thoroughly committed to ocean life.

They developed streamlined bodies, paddle-like limbs and long, powerful tails. Some grew to extraordinary sizes and occupied the upper reaches of Cretaceous marine food webs.

While Tyrannosaurus rex would not appear until millions of years later, Tylosaurus rex was already patrolling the Western Interior Seaway—the vast body of water that once divided North America into eastern and western landmasses.

The resemblance between the two kings is largely one of reputation. Both were enormous apex predators, both possessed formidable skulls, and both appear to have occasionally settled disagreements by biting one another in the face.

Ah, royalty.

A FOSSIL HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

The story of Tylosaurus rex is a lovely little tale. It is one that sparks a gleeful, "oh, what do we have here?" The story begins inside a museum drawer.

Lead author Amelia Zietlow was studying a mosasaur fossil in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History when she noticed that it did not fit comfortably with Tylosaurus proriger, the species to which it had been assigned.

It was larger. Its anatomy was different. Its teeth carried fine serrations—an unusual feature among mosasaurs.

That suspicious specimen led researchers back through fossils held in several museum collections. More than a dozen specimens, most collected from northern Texas decades earlier, began to reveal a consistent pattern.

These were not simply especially large or slightly peculiar examples of T. proriger. They represented another species.

In May 2026, Zietlow, Michael Polcyn and Ronald Tykoski formally described Tylosaurus rex in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. The fossils came from rocks of Campanian age, approximately 80 million years old. Read the original scientific paper through the American Museum of Natural History.

This is one of my favourite kinds of palaeontological revelation: not a fossil newly pulled from the earth, but an animal newly seen.

The bones had been found. They had been collected, prepared, catalogued and cared for. What changed was the question being asked of them.

Museum collections are not mausoleums for finished ideas. They are scientific libraries, and occasionally one of the books turns out to have been shelved under the wrong name.

THE SIZE OF A SCHOOL BUS

The specimens assigned to Tylosaurus rex produced estimated body lengths ranging from about 7.7 to 13.2 metres. The largest was approximately the length of a school bus.

Imagine, if you will, a school bus with flippers, a long muscular tail and a skull designed to make the other residents of the seaway reconsider their afternoon plans.

The species was consistently larger than Tylosaurus proriger in the researchers’ comparisons, although the authors appropriately caution that preservation and sampling can influence apparent size differences in the fossil record.

The skull is where matters become especially interesting.

Tylosaurus rex possessed structural features associated with enlarged jaw and neck muscles. Its teeth were also finely serrated, providing cutting edges that would have helped it process large prey.

This was a long animal powerfully built at the business end.

The precise menu is not preserved as a tidy Cretaceous restaurant bill, but the Western Interior Seaway contained abundant fish, sharks, turtles, seabirds and other marine reptiles. A predator of this size and construction may have been capable of attacking a considerable variety of animals.

It was, in scientific terms, a very large problem with flippers.

THE BLACK KNIGHT (NO, NOT BATMAN... HE'S THE DARK KNIGHT...NON-AQUATIC)

One of the most memorable specimens is held by the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

Nicknamed the “Black Knight,” it is missing the tip of its snout and has a fractured lower jaw. Researchers believe the injuries were inflicted by another similarly sized tylosaur.

That means at least some members of this species survived spectacularly violent encounters with their own kind.

Whether these battles involved territory, mates, food or the Cretaceous equivalent of someone cutting ahead in the ammonite queue is impossible to know. Yet the injuries provide a rare glimpse into behaviour.

Bones do more than reveal anatomy. They can preserve the consequences of a life actually lived: disease, healing, predation, combat and survival.

The Black Knight was not simply a representative diagram of a species. It was an individual animal that experienced an exceptionally bad day and lived long enough for its damaged bones to record the event.

A FAMILY TREE IN NEED OF PRUNING

The 2026 study named a spectacular predator, and also revised the anatomical character list used to reconstruct relationships among mosasaurs. 

Some earlier analyses relied upon datasets assembled from limited specimens and repeated through successive studies. Returning to the fossils allowed the team to reassess which features were genuinely useful for distinguishing species and tracing evolutionary relationships.

Mosasaur evolution was remarkably rapid.

Their terrestrial ancestors entered aquatic environments during the Cretaceous, and within a relatively short geological interval, mosasaurs diversified into an impressive variety of marine predators. Some developed crushing teeth suited to hard-shelled prey. Others possessed slender jaws for catching fish. 

The tylosaurs became long-snouted, powerful hunters and were among the first mosasaur lineages to achieve truly gigantic body sizes.

Tylosaurus rex appears to represent an especially robust expression of that experiment: larger, heavily muscled and equipped with unusually sharp-edged teeth.

Evolution did not simply produce a big mosasaur. It produced a big mosasaur and then apparently gave it upgrades.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LOOKING AGAIN

There is something deeply satisfying about a fossil that refuses to remain what its label says it is.

For decades, these Texas specimens were known, preserved and studied under another name. Their discovery as a distinct species required someone to pause, notice the inconsistencies and ask whether the established identification was actually correct.

That is science at its finest.

Science is not weakened when an old interpretation changes. It is doing precisely what it is meant to do: responding to evidence, refining its explanations and occasionally admitting that the giant, serrated-toothed marine lizard in the cupboard has been misidentified.

The description of Tylosaurus rex also honours Texas palaeontologist John Thurmond, who had suspected decades earlier that the region’s unusual tylosaur fossils might represent a separate species. 

John had solid instincts. He was bang on.

LONG LIVE THE KING

Around 80 million years ago, Tylosaurus rex moved through a sea that no longer exists.

Above it flew pterosaurs and ancient birds. Beneath it swam fish, sharks, turtles and other marine reptiles. Ammonites drifted through the water carrying their beautifully coiled shells, presumably hoping not to draw attention to themselves.

Then the seaway vanished. Sediments became stone. Bones were buried, uncovered and placed in museums beneath names that seemed reasonable at the time.

It took a fresh pair of eyes to recognize the king.

Museum collections are a wonderful place to poke about and time and time again that looking with fresh eyes pays gold. It is true for Canada's first Sabre-toothed cat fossil and Vancouver Island's first dinosaur, too. They were both sitting pretty, woefully mislabeled then serendipity along with fresh eyes revealed the truth.

New species may already be resting in cabinets and storerooms, patiently waiting for someone to notice that their teeth are a little too serrated, their jaws a little too muscular and their identity altogether more magnificent than the label suggests.

And somewhere in Texas, the other T. rex is finally enjoying its coronation.

Lead Image: Amelia Zietlow, lead author of the new study, examines the Tylosaurus rex holotype skeleton (PMNS 8029) in February 2023 at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

Courtesy of Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Charming end note:

As well as these lovelies, there is also an ancient marsupial lion (Thylacoleo rex), a blind, cave-dwelling salamander (Typhlomolge rex), and a parasitic leech (Tyrannobdella rex), who are proudly in the T. rex club.

ROCK TO MUSEUM: JOURNEY OF A FOSSIL

Finding a fossil is like time-traveling with your hands. 

One moment you’re walking along a riverbank or quarry, scanning the ground, and the next—a fragment of bone, a whorl of an ammonite, or the outline of a fern leaf catches your eye. 

That thrill? It never gets old.

But the real magic happens after discovery. Fossils are often locked away in hard rock, fragile as porcelain and millions of years old. 

Paleontologists and citizen scientists use delicate tools—dental picks, air scribes, and fine brushes—to slowly free them, grain by grain. In some cases, a fossil is encased in plaster field jackets to keep it safe during transport, like a mummy wrapped for a journey through time.

Fossil Prep Lab

Once back in the lab, preparation becomes part science, part art. 

Stabilizing cracks, cleaning away stone, and sometimes even using microscopes to reveal the smallest details—all of this ensures the fossil tells its story clearly. 

For research, every surface and feature matters: teeth reveal diets, bone growth shows age, and even microscopic scratches whisper about ancient ecosystems.

When the work is done, fossils can either stay in collections for study or move into museum galleries. There, preparators mount them with custom armatures or create casts so the originals remain protected. Under lights and glass, these specimens connect us to their history—turning silent stone into storytellers. 

Prepping with an Air Scribe

Sometimes we see the specimen in isolation and other times we see who that creature was living amongst, how it made a living and what the environmental conditions were like. 

We might look at the pollen in the rock next to the fossil or bits of debris that help share these clues. 

Every fossil in a museum has taken this long journey: discovered in the field, carefully freed in the lab, then shared with the world. 

As you walk through the paleo exhibits at museums, you will begin to see the amount of time and patience that goes into preparing those specimens, both for study and display. 

A MOST PERSONAL FOSSIL: WHAT ANCIENT POO TELLS US ABOUT PREHISTORIC LIFE

Coprolites: Fossil Poop

Not every fossil enters the scientific record wrapped in dignity.

Some emerge from the rock with elegant ribs, formidable teeth or shells spiralled like mathematical poetry. Others are, quite unmistakably, ancient poo.

These geological indiscretions are known as coprolites—fossilized droppings left behind by animals that lived thousands or even millions of years ago. They may lack the grandeur of a dinosaur skull, but they are among the most intimate messages ever delivered from the prehistoric world.

A bone tells us that an animal lived. A coprolite tells us what it had for lunch. Sometimes, it also tells us whether lunch fought back.

The word coprolite comes from the Greek words kopros, meaning dung, and lithos, meaning stone. The term was introduced in the nineteenth century by the English geologist and fossil hunter William Buckland, a man who was famously fascinated by the less glamorous evidence left behind by ancient animals.

Despite the name, coprolites are not simply old droppings that have dried out and somehow survived. Like other fossils, their original material has usually been altered or replaced by minerals over time. Under the right conditions, an animal’s waste may be buried rapidly in sediment, protected from scavengers and decay, and gradually transformed into stone.

The result is a remarkably personal time capsule.

Inside a coprolite, we may discover fragments of bone, fish scales, shells, plant fibres, pollen, seeds and other traces of an ancient meal. Some even preserve the remains of parasites—proof that intestinal freeloaders have been making themselves unwelcome for a very long time.

Nature, it seems, invented digestive inconvenience well before humanity invented antacids.

WHO LEFT IT?

Determining that something is fossilized dung is only the beginning. Identifying the creature responsible can be considerably more difficult.

Unlike a tooth or skull, a coprolite rarely comes with the name of its producer conveniently attached. Its size, shape and contents can offer clues, but several animals living in the same environment may have produced similar droppings.

Researchers therefore study where the specimen was found, which animals are known from the surrounding rocks and what the coprolite contains. Spiralled coprolites, for example, may have been produced by animals with spiral-shaped intestinal valves, including certain ancient fishes and sharks. Large coprolites packed with shattered bone could point toward a sizeable carnivore with powerful jaws and an enthusiastic approach to dinner.

Even then, assigning a coprolite to a particular species may remain uncertain. Fossil poo is informative, but it is not always cooperative.

THE ORIGINAL DINNER RECEIPT

Coprolites provide evidence that skeletons alone cannot.

A collection of sharp teeth may suggest that an animal was a predator, but a coprolite containing chewed bone offers direct evidence of what at least one animal actually consumed. Plant-filled specimens can reveal the vegetation available in an ancient ecosystem. Fish scales, shell fragments and tiny bones may expose relationships between predator and prey.

Occasionally, tooth marks or partially digested remains reveal how food was processed. The condition of the material may even provide clues about digestive chemistry and how efficiently an animal broke down its meals.

Coprolites can also help reconstruct entire food webs. By combining their contents with fossil plants, pollen, footprints, bones and environmental evidence preserved in the surrounding rock, scientists can begin to understand who lived in an ecosystem, who ate whom and what happened after everyone had finished eating.

It is prehistoric ecology reconstructed from the least glamorous evidence imaginable.

THE PROBLEM WITH PREHISTORIC POO

Of course, not every suspiciously shaped lump is a coprolite.

Rocks are perfectly capable of impersonating biological objects. Mineral concretions, mud structures and strangely weathered stones may all resemble fossilized droppings—sometimes with alarming conviction.

Shape alone is rarely enough to confirm an identification. Researchers may examine a suspected coprolite under a microscope, study thin sections, analyze its chemical composition or use imaging technology to look inside without destroying it.

Phosphates associated with digested material can support an identification, as can recognizable food remains embedded within the specimen. Context matters enormously. A poo-shaped stone found in sediment containing abundant animal fossils is more promising than an identical lump discovered somewhere with no evidence of ancient life.

Sometimes a strangely shaped rock is a trace of prehistoric behaviour.

Sometimes it is simply a rock with an unfortunate silhouette.

Coprolites inevitably inspire laughter—and rightly so. Palaeontology does not become less serious when we admit that some fossils are funny.

But beneath the humour lies an extraordinary scientific resource. Coprolites preserve moments that bones often cannot: an animal feeding, digesting and moving through its environment. They capture behaviour rather than merely anatomy.

They remind us that prehistoric animals were not static museum displays. They hunted, grazed, scavenged, swallowed, digested, hosted parasites and occasionally consumed things they may later have regretted.

Millions of years later, we examine the mineralized remains of those meals and try to reconstruct the vanished worlds around them.

It is humbling, really.

We spend our lives hoping to leave behind something meaningful—a great work, a lasting legacy, perhaps a beautifully preserved skeleton in a respectable museum.

Have you found fossilized poop? Good on you! It is a mark of pride in any civilized collection!

Yet for some ancient creatures, the most revealing thing they ever left us was what they left behind.

Image: Asset id: 2461279721; Fossilized dinosaur feces (coprolites) on display at Rainbow Forest Museum and Visitor Center in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. Dinosaur droppings or poop fossil.

URSUS CURIOUS: TLA'YI

A young Black Bear cub, Ursus americanus, tip-toes toward a frisky (and very startled) Striped Skunk, Mephitis mephitis — two wonderfully charismatic neighbours here in southern British Columbia.

Skunks, despite their reputation as the great olfactory villains of the mammal world, are actually closer to Old World stink badgers than to true polecats. 

Their infamous spray comes from paired anal scent glands capable of delivering a sulphur-rich chemical cocktail with uncanny accuracy — up to three metres, cross-wind. 

A single blast contains thiols so potent that predators learn, very quickly, that curiosity is overrated. Well… most predators. This wee bear clearly didn’t get the memo.

Black Bear cubs are, by nature, little bundles of kinetic joy and overwhelming inquisitiveness. Born in mid-winter, blind and tiny (weighing little more than a can of soup), they spend their first months cozied up in the den. 

By spring, though? Trouble. Pure, adorable trouble. Cubs stay with their mothers for about two years, learning every essential skill — how to climb, what to eat, what not to poke — but sometimes a particularly irresistible mystery will lure one a few metres away for a solo investigation.

Skunks, meanwhile, are far more than their signature scent. They’re accomplished insectivores with surprisingly strong forelimbs, adapted for rooting out beetle larvae, grubs, and other soil-dwelling goodies. 

They’re also bold. A skunk will usually stomp its feet, click its teeth, and arch its tail in a dramatic “Don’t make me do it” warning display. 

And yet — miracle of miracles — nobody got skunked. A karmic win for everyone involved.

This charming moment is also a reminder of the rich biodiversity we’re blessed with on the rugged west coast of British Columbia, where coastal rainforests shelter everything from salmon-loving black bears to nocturnal, grub-snuffling skunks.

Bears and skunks also have deep, fascinating roots in the fossil record. The lineage leading to modern skunks (Mephitidae) first appears in the Oligocene, roughly 30–32 million years ago, with early forms like Promephitis showing many of the skeletal hallmarks — and likely the scent-gland superpowers — of their modern cousins. 

Bears (Ursidae), meanwhile, trace their ancestry back even further. Their earliest known relatives emerge in the late Eocene, around 38 million years ago, with small, doglike proto-bears such as Parictis and later the hemicyonids, sometimes called “dog-bears,” bridging the evolutionary steps toward the true bears we know today. 

By the Miocene, both families were well established across North America, sharing ancient forests and floodplains just as their modern descendants do today — though hopefully with just as few skunk-related mishaps.

In the Kwak'wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations of the Pacific Northwest, this playful black bear is t̕ła'yi — a name that captures both its spirit and its place within these lands. 

A perfect word for a perfect little explorer with an arguably questionable sense of danger.

SPISULA FOSSIL CLAMS OF HAIDA GWAII

Some lovely Spisula praecursor (Dall) fossil clams from the Skonun Formation of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, captured from the Miocene when this coastline looked very different from today. 

These fossil bivalves belong to the surf clam lineage, a group well adapted to shallow, energetic marine environments with shifting sands and strong wave action. 

Their robust, equivalve shells and streamlined form speak to a life spent burrowed just beneath the sediment surface, filtering seawater for food while riding out constant motion above.

The Skonun Formation preserves a rich snapshot of nearshore marine life along the northeastern Pacific margin during the Miocene, roughly 23 to 5 million years ago. 

At that time, Haida Gwaii lay along an active tectonic edge, with sediments accumulating in coastal and shelf settings influenced by currents, storms, and abundant nutrient flow. 

Fossils such as Spisula praecursor help us reconstruct these dynamic environments, offering clues about water depth, substrate type, and even paleoclimate.

These particular specimens came from a single block only accessible on a falling tide. Timing, as ever, was everything—and the tide had other ideas. 

The excavation involved equal parts determination and seawater, leaving both collector and fossils thoroughly soaked. Still, there is something fitting about getting wet while freeing marine clams from their ancient shoreline, a small reminder that fieldwork often mirrors the environments we are trying to understand.

BEAUTY IN STONE: ANAHOPLITES PLANUS

There are fossils that whisper and then there are those that positively sing.

This interesting beauty is a splendid specimen of Anahoplites planus (Mantell, 1822), drawn from Albian-aged sediments at Courcelles-sur-Voire in the Aube region of north-central France. 

And sing, it does! There are so many things going on here!

Roughly 105 million years ago, when warm Cretaceous seas spread across much of Europe, this elegant cephalopod cruised ancient waters with all the poise of a creature that knew it wore excellent tailoring.

Anahoplites, first named by Sowerby in 1815, is a delightfully refined genus of hoplitid ammonite. 

Its shell is compressed and neatly streamlined, with flat flanks, a narrow venter — sometimes grooved, sometimes smooth — and graceful, flexuous ribs rising from modest umbilical tubercles before ending in a fringe of fine ventrolateral nodes. In short: less brute force, more couture. 

Its sturdier cousins in the Hoplitinae favour broader whorls and heavier ornament, but Anahoplites has always struck a finer silhouette.

Today, the genus sits comfortably within the subfamily Anahoplitinae, a taxonomic reshuffle that recognises its more delicate build and distinct style. We find these beauties in Middle to Late Albian rocks from England across Europe and eastward toward the Transcaspian reaches near the Caspian Sea — proof that good design travels.

And what a setting this fossil calls home. The Aube department lends its name to the Albian Stage itself, established by d’Orbigny in 1842. 

Here, the stratotype succession includes the Argiles tégulines de Courcelles, some 82 metres of clay-rich deposits, overlain by the Marnes de Brienne, a further 43 metres of marl. Their boundary is marked by a hardened bed, clear in the field to those with sharp eyes and muddy boots.

This particular shell, measuring 113 mm across, did not rest alone on the seafloor. It became a tiny apartment block after death. 

Two forms of bryozoans encrust its surface, joined by an oyster and industrious serpulid worms, all leaving their marks upon those handsome flanks. Even in death, it was prime real estate.

Lovingly prepared using potash by José Juárez Ruiz of Spain, this fossil now offers us not just the form of one ammonite, but a snapshot of an ancient community. 

WHALE REMAINS AT JOUGLA POINT, ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

Blue Whale Remains, Balaenoptera musculus

Along the stony shore of Jougla Point, near Port Lockroy on the Antarctic Peninsula, a scatter of great bones lies open to the wind. 

The skeleton is that of a blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, the largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth, though the assemblage may include bones from other baleen whales discarded during the industrial whaling era. 

Visitors approach in Zodiacs to find vertebrae the size of millstones, jaw elements curved like crossed oars, and ribs arcing across the gravel. 

It is a stark and unsentimental record of the 20th-century hunt that once emptied Antarctic waters of their giants.

Blue whales are baleen mysticetes within the rorqual family, engineered for long migrations and high-volume filter feeding. 

Adults can exceed 30 meters in length and reach masses over 150 tonnes — a scale that eclipses even the largest dinosaurs. Their fossil record is surprisingly young. 

Although whale ancestors arose in the Eocene (~50 million years ago), the lineage leading to modern rorquals, including blue whales, diversifies during the Miocene and Pliocene (roughly 23–2.6 million years ago). 

Fossil mysticetes from California, Italy, Peru, and New Zealand document that transition: from toothed baleen ancestors to fully edentulous filter feeders with vaulting skulls and expandable throats built for krill-rich seas. 

True “blue whale–like” forms appear only in the Pleistocene and Holocene, making these colossal cetaceans a relatively recent evolutionary experiment.

In life today, blue whales occupy vast swaths of the global ocean, moving seasonally between high-latitude feeding grounds and lower-latitude calving areas. Major populations persist in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, eastern tropical Pacific, Southern Ocean, and waters off Australia and New Zealand. 

Their preferred summer feeding grounds lie in zones of upwelling and krill abundance — places like the California Current, the Subantarctic Front, and the Scotia Sea.

The industrial era nearly erased them. 

Prior to commercial hunting, global numbers likely exceeded 250,000 individuals. By the 1970s, after decades of relentless Antarctic whaling, their numbers crashed to less than 1% of pre-exploitation levels. 

With international protections in place, blue whales are recovering slowly but unevenly. 

Current estimates hover around 10,000–25,000 animals worldwide — still critically small for a species of such enormous ecological footprint.

Despite their rarity, blue whales remain visible to those who seek them. They are encountered off California and Baja, around Sri Lanka, in the Gulf of Corcovado, the Tasman Sea, the Kerguelen Plateau, and sporadically across the Southern Ocean. 

In these places, the sea shines with plankton and the long low blows of a whale may hang in the air like cold breath.

At Jougla Point, the story is told through bones weathering in chilly silence — a natural museum without walls. I am generally in search of fossil remains, but these hit all those same emotions. Barring our intervention and natural disaster, these great beasts can live to be more than 100 years old. What they must see over those long years.   

And, how do we know how old they are? We can estimate age by reading earplug layers (like tree rings) in deceased whales — each waxy layer marks a period of life, helping confirm those long lifespans.

DRIFTWOOD CANYON FOSSIL BEDS

Puffbird similar to Fossil Birds found at Driftwood Canyon 

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park 

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park covers 23 hectares of the Bulkley River Valley, on the east side of Driftwood Creek, a tributary of the Bulkley River, 10 km northeast of the town of Smithers in northern British Columbia. 

Driftwood Canyon is recognized as one of the world’s most significant fossil beds. 

It provides park users with a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology. The day-use area is open from May 15 to September 2. There is a short, wheelchair-accessible interpretative trail that leads from the parking are to the fossil beds. Pets are welcome on leash. Signs along the trail provide information on fossils and local history. 

Wet'suwet'en First Nation

The parklands are part of the Traditional Territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation which includes lands around the Bulkley River, Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia. 

The Wetʼsuwetʼen are part of the Dakelh or Carrier First Nation, and in combination with the Babine First Nation are referred to as the Western Carrier. They speak Witsuwitʼen, a dialect of the Babine-Witsuwitʼen language which, like its sister language Carrier, is a member of the Athabaskan family.

Their oral history or kungax recounts a time when their ancestral village, Dizkle or Dzilke, once stood upstream from the Bulkley Canyon. This cluster of cedar houses on both sides of the river was said to be abandoned because of an omen of impending disaster. The exact location of the village has been lost but their stories live on. 

The neighbouring Gitxsan, collectively the People of Smooth Waters—the Gilseyhu Big Frog Clan, the Laksilyu Small Frog Clan, the Tsayu Beaver Clan, the Gitdumden Wolf and Bear Clan and the Laksamshu Fireweed and Owl Clan—each phratry or kinship group calling the Lax Yip home—33,000 km2 of land and water in northwestern ​British Columbia along the waters of the Skeena River and its tributaries—have a similar tale—though the village in their versions is referred to as Dimlahamid or Temlahan depending on which house group or wilp is sharing the tale—as well as where they are located as dialects differ. 

Gitksan speak Sim'algax—the real or true language. Within the Gitxsan communities there are two slightly different dialects. The Gyeets (Downriver) dialect spoken in Gijigyukwhla (Gitsegukla), Gitwangax, and Gitanyow—and the Gigeenix (Upriver) dialect is spoken in Ansbayaxw (Kispiox), Sik-E-Dakh and Gitanmaax.

Driftwood Canyon Fossil Beds

Driftwood Canyon's Fossil Beds record life in the earlier portion of the Eocene when British Columbia — and indeed our world — was much warmer than it is today. This site was discovered in the beginning of the 20th century and is now recognized as containing significant fossil material. 

I was speaking this week with a friend and classmate recently from a Traditional Ecological Knowledge course through the University of Northern British Columbia, Jessy, about Driftwood Canyon and the fossil resources found here.

The fossils are tremendous—and their superb preservation—provide a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology over the past fifty million years or so. The fossils themselves are 51.7 million years old and look remarkably like many of the species we recognize today. 

The fossil beds are on the east side of Driftwood Creek, C’ide’Yikwah in Witsuwit’en, which has its headwaters in the main, southwest facing basin of the Babine Mountains. The park that contains these beautiful fossils is fifty-seven years old. 

It was created in 1967 by the generosity of the late Gordon Harvey (1913–1976). He donated the land to protect fossil resources that he truly loved and wanted to see preserved. How Harvey came to be in a position to donate lands once part of a First Nation Traditional Territory will need to be explored deeper. I will share as I learn more about this as I learn more from locals and the local history museum in the coming weeks and months.

Metasequoia, the Dawn Redwood

Exploring the region today, we see a landscape dominated by conifers blanketing the area. 

Forests teem with the aromatic Western Red Cedar, Pacific Silver Fir with its many medicinal properties, the tall and lanky Subalpine Fir with its soft, brittle and quickly decaying wood, the slender scaly Lodgepole Pine, the graceful and slightly forlorn looking Western Hemlock. 

Across the landscape you see several species of Spruce, including the impressive Sitka, Picea sitchensis, the world's largest spruce tree who live up to an impressive 800 years. 

The stands of mature Sitka standing here today were just being established in this ground back in 1921 when Smithers was designated as the first incorporated village in British Columbia. They are slow to establish and get going, but once embedded are amongst the fastest growing trees we see on the western edge of Canada, colonizing glacial moraines with their cold resistant stock centuries ago when the glaciers that once covered this land eventually retreated.

Some of the tallest on view would have been mere seedlings, colonizing the glacial moraines centuries ago when the glaciers retreated. Collectively, these conifers tell the tale of the region's cool climate today. 

The Gitsan territory boasts seven of the 14 biogeoclimatic zones of the province—the Alpine Tundra, Spruce-Willow-Birch, Boreal White and Black Spruce, Sub-Boreal Pine-Spruce, Sub-Boreal Spruce, Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir and Interior Cedar-Hemlock. 

The fossil material we find here speaks to a warmer climate in this region's past. We find fossil plants, fish—including specimens of salmon, suckerfish and bowfin, a type of air breathing fish—and insect fossil here—wasps and water striders—fossil plants including Metasequoia, the Dawn Redwood, alder—and interesting vertebrate material. Bird feathers are infrequently collected from the shales; however, two bird body fossils have been found here.

In 1968, a bird body fossil was collected in the Eocene shales of the Ootsa Lake Group in Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park by Pat Petley of Kamloops. 

Pat donated the specimen in 2000 to the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) palaeontology collections. This fossil bird specimen is tentatively identified as the puffbird, Piciformes bucconidae, of the genus Primobucco.

Primobucco is an extinct genus of bird placed in its own family, Primobucconidae. The type species, Primobucco mcgrewi, lived during the Lower Eocene of North America. It was initially described by American paleo-ornithologist Pierce Brodkorb in 1970, from a fossil right-wing, and thought to be an early puffbird. However, the discovery of a further 12 fossils in 2010 indicate that it is instead an early type of roller.

Related fossils from the European Messel deposits have been assigned to the two species P. perneri and P. frugilegus. Two specimens of P. frugilegus have been found with seeds in the area of their digestive tract, which suggests that these birds were more omnivorous than the exclusively predaceous modern rollers. The Driftwood specimen has never been thoroughly studied. If there is a grad student out there looking for a worthy thesis, head on down to the Thompson Rivers University where you'll find the specimen on display.

Another fossil bird, complete with feathers, was collected at Driftwood Canyon in 1970, This one was found by Margret and Albrecht Klöckner who were travelling from Germany. Theirs is a well-travelled specimen, having visited many sites in BC as they toured around, then to Germany and finally back to British Columbia when it was repatriated and donated to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. 

I am not sure if it is still on display or back in collections, but it was lovingly displayed back in 2008. There is a new grad student, Alexis, looking at Eocene bird feathers down at the RBCM, so perhaps it is once again doing the rounds. 

This second bird fossil is of a long-legged water bird and has been tentatively identified by Dr. Gareth Dyke of the University of Southampton as possibly from the order Charadriiformes, a diverse order of small to medium-ish water birds that include 350 species of gulls, plovers, sandpipers, terns, snipes, and waders. Hopefully, we'll hear more on this find in the future.

A Tapir showing off his prehensile nose trunk

Tapirs and Tiny Hedgehogs

The outcrops at Driftwood Canyon are also special because they record a record of some of the first fossil mammals ever to be found in British Columbia at this pivotal point in time. 

Wee proto-hedgehogs smaller than your thumb lived in the undergrowth of that fossil flora. They shared the forest floor with an extinct tapir-like herbivore in the genus Heptodon that looked remarkably similar to his modern, extant cousins (there is a rather cheeky fellow shown here so you get the idea) but lacked their pronounced snout (proboscis). I am guessing that omission made him the more fetching of his lineage.

In both cases, it was a fossilized jaw bone that was recovered from the mud, silt and volcanic ash outcrops in this ancient lakebed site. And these two cuties are significant— they are the very first fossil mammals we've ever found from the early Eocene south of the Arctic.

How can we be sure of the timing? The fossil outcrops here are found within an ancient lakebed. Volcanic eruptions 51 million years ago put loads of fine dust into the air that settled then sank to the bottom of the lake, preserving the specimens that found their way here — leaves, insects, birds, mammals.

As well as turning the lake into a fossil making machine—water, ash, loads of steady sediment to cover specimens and stave off predation—the volcanic ash contains the very chemically inert—resistant to mechanical weathering—mineral zircon which we can date with uranium/lead (U/Pb). 

The U/Pb isotopic dating technique is wonderfully accurate and mighty helpful in dating geologic events from volcanic eruptions, continental movements to mass extinctions. This means we know exactly when these lovelies were fossilized and, in turn, their significance.

Know Before You Go

If you fancy a visit to Driftwood Canyon Park, the park is accessible from Driftwood Road from Provincial Highway 16. You are welcome to view and photograph the fossils found here but collecting is strictly forbidden. 

Driftwood Canyon is recognized as one of the world’s most significant fossil beds. It provides park users with a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology. The day-use area is open from May 15 to September 2. There is a short, wheelchair-accessible interpretative trail that leads from the parking are to the fossil beds. Pets are welcome on leash. Signs along the trail provide information on fossils and local history. 

Below a cliff face at the end of the trail is a viewing area that has interpretive information and viewing area overlooking Driftwood Creek.

This park proudly operated by Mark and Anais Drydyk

Email: kermodeparks@gmail.com / Tel: 1 250 877-1482 or 1 250 877-1782

Palaeo Coordinates: Latitude: 50° 51' 59" N / Longitude: 116° 27' 37" W

Lat/Long (dec): 50.86665,-116.46042 / GUID: d3a6bd3e-68d6-42cf-9b2c-d20a30576988

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park Brochure: 

https://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/driftwood_cyn/driftwood-canyon-brochure.pdf?v=1638723136455

Sheila Peters: Driftwood Creek – and the ways we cross it; here Sheila Peters shares a wonderful lived history which I have not had the pleasure to yet fully explore as of 09 February 2025. I do recommend you checking out her post as it contains information and photographs worthy of a newcomers visit to the area.

Link: https://sheilapeters.com/tag/peavine-harvey/

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LA BREA TAR PITS: STICKY DEATH AND DIRE WOLVES

Smilodon Skull at La Brea Tar Pits

In the heart of Los Angeles, surrounded by traffic, office towers and people carrying coffees of improbable complexity, the Earth is still bubbling. 

Dark pools of natural asphalt rise through the ground at Hancock Park, methane breaks at the surface and the air carries the unmistakable scent of petroleum. 

Beneath the lawns and walkways lies one of the richest Late Pleistocene fossil deposits on Earth.

Mammoths are here. Dire wolves are here. Sabre-toothed cats, enormous bison, ancient horses, camels, ground sloths, coyotes, birds, beetles, seeds, pollen and the delicate bones of tiny rodents are all here. 

Not alive, mercifully, but preserved in extraordinary numbers beneath modern Los Angeles, where natural asphalt seeps have been trapping plants and animals for tens of thousands of years.

The La Brea Tar Pits do not record one terrible day. They contain the accumulated evidence of countless separate accidents repeated across millennia. One animal became trapped, another arrived to investigate and several more approached because the Ice Age had not yet developed adequate warning signage.

FIRST, THEY ARE NOT ACTUALLY TAR PITS

The substance at La Brea is more accurately called natural asphalt, asphaltum or bitumen. Tar is generally produced by heating organic materials such as wood or coal, while asphalt is a naturally occurring petroleum substance. The familiar name has nevertheless stuck, which seems appropriate under the circumstances.

There is also a pleasing redundancy in “La Brea Tar Pits.” La brea means “the tar” in Spanish, making the full name roughly “the Tar Tar Pits.” 

It always has me thinking of Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars — “the Tar Tar Pits” has that same playful rhythm.

We could insist upon calling them the La Brea Asphalt Seeps, but that would deprive palaeontology of a perfectly good geological tongue-twister.

Beneath the Los Angeles Basin are thick, oil-rich marine deposits laid down millions of years ago. Petroleum migrated upward through faults and fractures until it reached the surface. There, lighter components evaporated or were degraded by microorganisms, leaving the heavier and remarkably sticky asphalt behind.

This material did not necessarily form the enormous open pools often depicted in paintings and museum dioramas. Asphalt could seep into shallow depressions and spread across the ground, sometimes hidden beneath water, dust, leaves or sediment. To an approaching animal, the surface may have looked like ordinary damp soil or a harmless watering place.

The mistake would become apparent with the first step.

THE MAKING OF A PREDATOR TRAP

An asphalt seep did not need to be deep enough to swallow a mammoth whole. It needed only to be sticky enough to hold a foot. Once a hoof sank into the asphalt, the animal’s attempts to pull free could trap another limb. Struggling pressed the feet deeper, spread asphalt across hair and skin and rapidly exhausted the victim.

Large herbivores such as bison, horses, camels, mammoths and ground sloths occasionally became immobilized in this way. Their distress calls and movements attracted predators and scavengers. 

A trapped bison represented a large meal that had already been thoughtfully restrained, and predators approached the opportunity with understandable enthusiasm and insufficient caution.

Dire wolves gathered. Sabre-toothed cats moved closer. Coyotes and scavenging birds arrived. Some fed from firmer ground, while others stepped onto the same deceptive surface and became trapped themselves.

This process is known as the predator-trap hypothesis, and it helps explain the remarkable abundance of carnivores in the La Brea deposits. One struggling herbivore could attract several predators and scavengers, producing a fossil assemblage in which carnivores greatly outnumber herbivores.

Roughly 70 to 80 per cent of the site’s larger mammal specimens are carnivores. That is almost the reverse of what we would expect in a living ecosystem, where herbivores generally outnumber large predators. The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County notes that this carnivore-heavy composition distinguishes La Brea from most other fossil deposits.

This does not mean Ice Age Los Angeles was carpeted in dire wolves with the occasional bison squeezed between them. It means the asphalt seeps selectively trapped animals attracted to struggling prey. The deposit records not only which species lived in the region, but also how their behaviour influenced their likelihood of preservation.

The fossil record is rarely an impartial census. At La Brea, it is closer to a list of everyone who approached the buffet without first inspecting the floor.

DIRE WOLVES, SABRE-TOOTHED CATS AND ANCIENT COYOTES

Dire wolves were among the most frequently trapped large mammals. Known scientifically as Aenocyon dirus, they were heavily built canids that lived across the Americas during the Late Pleistocene. They had robust jaws and teeth suited to feeding on large prey, although, like living wolves, they probably scavenged when a meal presented itself.

Their abundance at La Brea may provide indirect evidence of social behaviour. If dire wolves hunted or scavenged in groups, one trapped herbivore might attract several pack members. A single incident could therefore add multiple wolves to the deposit. One meal, several hopeful carnivores and a deeply regrettable group decision.

The large collection allows researchers to study dire wolves as a population rather than as a scattering of isolated specimens. Individual animals can be compared for age, body size, tooth wear, injury and disease. Changes in anatomy and diet can also be tracked through time.

The most famous predator at La Brea is Smilodon fatalis, the sabre-toothed cat. If you have seen the skull and teeth of this kitty, you will agree the name is apt. 

A fun fact and wee aside, Canada's first Smilodon was found in a drawer in a museum by Dr. Rufus Churcher when he was poking about an old collection in Alberta. A wonderful storyteller with a keen eye, we owe that man a lot.

It was not a tiger, despite the enduring popularity of the name “sabre-toothed tiger.” Smilodon belonged to an extinct branch of the cat family and had a body built quite differently from that of modern lions or tigers.

It possessed enormous upper canine teeth, exceptionally powerful forelimbs, a deep chest and a relatively short tail. Its jaw could open extraordinarily wide, allowing those elongated canines to be used without colliding with the lower jaw. Rather than pursuing prey over long distances, Smilodon was likely an ambush predator. Its muscular forelimbs may have helped restrain large prey while it delivered a carefully positioned bite.

This was important because the famous canine teeth, though formidable, were not indestructible. They were effective weapons but poor candidates for being driven casually into struggling bone. Even the Ice Age’s most dramatic dental arrangement required responsible handling.

La Brea specimens preserve evidence of arthritis, fractures, tooth damage and healing. Some animals survived serious injuries long enough for their bones to repair. This has raised intriguing questions about whether sabre-toothed cats lived socially and whether impaired individuals may have received food or protection from others.

Healing proves survival, but it does not automatically prove social care. An injured animal might have scavenged, selected smaller prey or simply endured. We must distinguish what a bone demonstrates from what it merely suggests. Still, the injuries reveal that these cats had individual histories. They aged, suffered accidents, recovered and continued living in a landscape filled with large prey, competing carnivores and treacherously sticky patches of ground.

Coyotes, Canis latrans, also occur abundantly at La Brea, but unlike dire wolves and sabre-toothed cats, they survived the end-Pleistocene extinction. Their ecological flexibility may have given them an advantage. Coyotes can eat mammals, insects, fruit, carrion and an impressive assortment of whatever else becomes available. They can occupy deserts, grasslands, woodlands, agricultural areas and cities.

Large specialists often thrive when their preferred prey and habitats are stable, but they can struggle when ecosystems change rapidly. Coyotes appear to have regarded climatic upheaval, megafaunal extinction and the eventual construction of Los Angeles as challenges requiring only minor adjustments.

They still live in the city today.

MAMMOTHS, MASTODONS AND CAMELS IN CALIFORNIA

The herbivores preserved at La Brea include ancient bison, horses, camels, deer, pronghorn, mammoths and mastodons. Together, they reveal a Southern California landscape quite different from the one we know today.

Columbian mammoths, Mammuthus columbi, were enormous members of the elephant family. They possessed long, curving tusks and high-crowned ridged teeth suited to processing abrasive vegetation. Their diets varied across environments and could include both grasses and other plants.

American mastodons, Mammut americanum, were shorter and more heavily built, with molar teeth bearing rounded cusps. These teeth were better suited to crushing leaves, twigs and branches. Mammoths and mastodons were related, but they were not interchangeable shaggy elephants wandering through identical habitats.

Their teeth record the difference rather elegantly. Mammoth molars resemble enormous washboards. Mastodon molars carry prominent rounded cusps, which gave the animal its name: “mastodon” refers to the breast-like shape of the tooth projections. Palaeontology occasionally arrives at terminology by routes we might not choose today.

One of the site’s remarkable discoveries is a largely complete Columbian mammoth nicknamed Zed. His remains were uncovered in 2006 during the construction of an underground parking facility beside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Zed. 

Not every major palaeontological discovery requires an expedition to a distant desert. Sometimes they require a construction crew, a parking proposal and someone sensible enough to stop digging. If you have a chance, look up the Dove Creek Mosasaur find. Similar story. Different place. Equally eagle-eyed humans. I'm thinking of you, Rick Ross! 

Ancient camels also lived in Ice Age California. The western camel, Camelops hesternus, was a large North American member of the camel family. This seems surprising only because we associate camels with Africa and Asia today. Camels actually evolved in North America and lived on the continent for tens of millions of years. Some migrated into Eurasia across Beringia, while others moved into South America and eventually gave rise to llamas, alpacas, guanacos and vicuñas.

The disappearance of camels from North America is the unusual part. Their presence at La Brea was perfectly ordinary at the time.

PROJECT 23: PALAEONTOLOGY BY WOODEN BOX

When construction near the Tar Pits encountered fossil deposits in 2006, excavating every specimen individually would have delayed work for an extremely long time. Instead, palaeontologists and engineers built large wooden crates around 23 fossil-bearing deposits. The blocks were lifted intact and moved to La Brea Tar Pits, where they could be excavated under controlled conditions.

The operation became known as Project 23.

Along with the boxed deposits came 327 buckets of fossil-rich sediment. The material contains large mammal bones, but also turtles, fish, snails, insects, seeds, leaves, small vertebrates and other remains essential to reconstructing the wider ecosystem. The museum’s Project 23 overview notes that researchers will be processing this enormous collection for years.

Project 23 demonstrates an important reality of modern palaeontology: fossil discovery frequently occurs during construction. Roads, foundations, mines and parking structures expose geological layers that would otherwise remain hidden. When scientific teams and developers work together, these unexpected discoveries can be recovered without sacrificing either the fossils or the project.

It also proves that if you place 23 enormous crates of asphalt-soaked Ice Age sediment in front of palaeontologists, they will be happily occupied for the foreseeable future.

THE TINY FOSSILS THAT RECONSTRUCT A LANDSCAPE

Mammoths and sabre-toothed cats attract attention, but some of La Brea’s most informative fossils are less than a centimetre long.

The asphalt and surrounding sediments preserve insects, spiders, seeds, leaves, pollen, molluscs, fish, frogs, lizards, bird bones, rodent teeth and tiny skeletal fragments. These remains are recovered from the excavated sediment, or matrix, which is carefully processed and examined under microscopes.

Staff and volunteers sort through it grain by grain. It is patient, meticulous work requiring steady hands and an ability to become sincerely delighted by something resembling a burnt sesame seed.

Microfossils allow researchers to reconstruct details that large mammal bones cannot provide. Pollen and seeds identify ancient vegetation. Beetles and other insects can indicate temperature, moisture and local habitat. Frogs and salamanders reveal the presence of freshwater or damp environments. Rodents can be sensitive indicators of particular ecological conditions.

The La Brea Fossil Lab emphasizes the importance of these small fossils for understanding environmental and climatic change during the Late Pleistocene.

Large mammals tell us who occupied the landscape. Microfossils tell us what the landscape was like.

Ice Age Los Angeles was not buried beneath a continental glacier. The region was generally cooler and wetter than it is today, with streams, grasslands, scrub and woodlands of oak and juniper. Mammoths, bison, horses and camels moved through these habitats while predators followed them.

It was recognizably Southern California, but with more water, fewer freeways and a substantial increase in large mammals capable of overturning your vehicle.

HOW ASPHALT PRESERVED THE FOSSILS

When animals became trapped, their bodies decayed and their bones sank into asphalt-rich sediment. Petroleum entered the pores of the bones, staining them dark brown or black and helping protect them from weathering and some forms of microbial destruction.

The asphalt also preserved delicate biological materials rarely retained at other fossil sites. These include bone collagen, plant cellulose and chitin from insect exoskeletons. Such materials can be used for radiocarbon dating, stable-isotope analysis and other forms of biochemical research.

La Brea is an exceptional Late Quaternary fossil deposit created by petroleum seepage over approximately the past 60,000 years. Its geoheritage profile notes that the site preserves millions of fossils representing hundreds of species.

The preservative, however, is also a contaminant. Petroleum contains ancient carbon that can distort radiocarbon dates. Researchers must therefore remove the asphalt carefully and isolate original organic material from the fossil.

The substance that protected the bone for tens of thousands of years must be persuaded to leave before the bone will surrender its age.

La Brea likes to keep its secrets sticky.

DATING EXTINCTION

Specialized methods for removing petroleum contamination have allowed researchers to obtain increasingly reliable radiocarbon dates from La Brea specimens.

In a major study of Ice Age extinction, scientists produced approximately 170 new dates for coyotes, horses, camels, bison, sabre-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, American lions and dire wolves. These dates helped establish when each species disappeared from Southern California.

The results suggest that the regional extinction did not occur in one sudden event. Large mammals vanished as the climate warmed, drought intensified, vegetation changed and fire activity increased. Human populations were also becoming established in the region, adding another ecological influence.

These pressures interacted. A warming climate altered habitats. Drought dried vegetation. Fire transformed plant communities. Large herbivores lost forage, while predators lost prey. Species able to change their diets or behaviour had an advantage over those dependent on a narrower range of conditions.

The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County describes La Brea as an exceptional record because some species are represented by hundreds or thousands of individuals. This makes it possible to study not simply their existence, but their decline and disappearance through time.

The Tar Pits preserve extinct animals, but more importantly, they preserve the approach of extinction.

GIANT GROUND SLOTHS AND OTHER UNEXPECTED RESIDENTS

Among the more impressive herbivores at La Brea was Harlan’s ground sloth, Paramylodon harlani. Unlike modern tree sloths, it lived on the ground and possessed a heavily built body, powerful limbs and long claws. Small bony plates called osteoderms were embedded within its skin, providing an additional layer of protection.

It may have used its claws to pull down vegetation, dig for roots or defend itself from predators. When standing partly upright and supported by its tail, it could reach vegetation well above the ground.

Modern sloths give the impression that they would apologize for occupying your chair. Giant ground sloths look as though they might take the chair, the dining table and the adjacent shrubbery.

The deposits also preserve American lions, short-faced bears, pronghorn, peccaries and native horses, alongside reptiles, amphibians and an extraordinary diversity of birds. Asphalt is particularly effective at preserving delicate hollow bird bones, which are easily destroyed at other sites. As a result, La Brea holds one of the world’s largest fossil bird collections.

The birds are not merely background characters. Eagles, vultures, owls, ravens, waterbirds and songbirds occupied different parts of the ecosystem. Their remains help reconstruct habitats and food webs, while changes in bird communities can reflect broader environmental change.

ASPHALT AS A CULTURAL RESOURCE

The La Brea landscape has a human history as well as a palaeontological one. Indigenous peoples knew and used natural asphalt long before scientific excavation or commercial extraction began.

Tongva and Chumash peoples used asphalt to waterproof baskets and canoes, improve tools and create decorative objects. The material was also traded across the region. Educational material from La Brea Tar Pits recognizes this long history of Indigenous knowledge and use.

The asphalt was therefore not simply a dangerous geological substance. In knowledgeable hands, it was a valuable technology.

Commercial mining and extraction followed much later. Asphalt from Rancho La Brea was used for roofing and road construction before the area became protected for its fossils.

The site cannot be understood only as a trap for Ice Age animals. It is a cultural landscape where people observed, understood and worked with a distinctive natural resource for thousands of years.

A COLLECTION OF MILLIONS

Scientific excavation at La Brea began in earnest in 1913, although fossil bones had been encountered earlier. More than 100 excavations have since been conducted.

At the collection’s last comprehensive census in 1992, it already contained more than 3.5 million specimens. That number includes everything from large mammal bones to insects, seeds and tiny vertebrate remains. The La Brea collections include more than 60 mammal species, along with birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, molluscs, arthropods and plants.

The site remains scientifically active. Asphalt continues to seep, methane continues to bubble and fossil-bearing deposits continue to be excavated. La Brea is not a completed quarry whose discoveries are safely finished and catalogued. It is an active research site in the middle of a major city.

Beneath the lawns, streets and buildings, the Ice Age is still present.

A FOSSIL RECORD WITH A TRAP BUILT INTO IT

La Brea offers a particularly useful lesson in how fossil deposits must be interpreted.

The asphalt did not collect organisms fairly. Large animals were more likely to become immobilized than very small ones. Carnivores and scavengers were disproportionately drawn to trapped herbivores. Birds, insects and plants entered the deposits through different pathways. Individual seeps may also have accumulated remains over hundreds or thousands of years rather than during a single event.

We cannot simply count the fossils and assume the resulting proportions mirror the living community. More dire wolf bones do not prove that dire wolves vastly outnumbered bison across the landscape. 

They may demonstrate that dire wolves were social, attracted to distressed prey and willing to step onto suspicious ground when meat was involved.

Understanding how remains accumulated is the work of taphonomy—the study of everything that happens between an organism’s death and its discovery as a fossil.

La Brea is both a window and a filter. It reveals the Ice Age, but it reveals it through asphalt.

THE STICKY ARCHIVE OF LOS ANGELES

There is something wonderfully improbable about La Brea. A city famous for reinvention sits above an archive of extinction. Traffic moves along Wilshire Boulevard while methane rises from petroleum formed by ancient marine organisms. 

People walk through Hancock Park above the remains of mammoths, dire wolves and sabre-toothed cats. The past is not somewhere else. It is directly beneath the picnic blanket. Oh, how I would love to dig a little but they frown on that sort of thing in parks. Shame. Yes, we can see wonderful examples in the museum, but it is sheer pleasure to excavate yourself.

The Tar Pits preserve death in overwhelming abundance, but their scientific value lies in what they reveal about life. Their fossils tell us what animals ate, how they were injured, which plants grew around them and how ecosystems responded as the climate changed. Tiny seeds document shifting vegetation. Tooth enamel preserves chemical evidence of diet. Bones record growth, disease and survival.

Even the strange abundance of carnivores tells a story. One trapped herbivore could attract several predators. One tempting meal could produce fossils studied tens of thousands of years later.

The asphalt waited. The animals approached, encouraged by hunger and betrayed by optimism.

And the Earth kept every receipt.

Image Credit: Asset id: 2278428163. Prehistoric bones and the skull of saber-tooth cat, Smilodon fatalis, in a block of resin at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, California.

HOW DO FOSSILS FORM? THE MOST UNLIKELY AFTERLIFE ON EARTH

Let us begin with a rather brutal truth. You are probably not going to become a fossil.

Neither am I.

Neither is the salmon that washed onto the riverbank, the beetle beneath the cedar tree nor the unfortunate vole currently being carried away by an owl.

Most living things disappear completely after death. 

They are eaten, scavenged, scattered, dissolved, trampled, weathered or dismantled by bacteria and fungi. Their nutrients return to the ecosystem, but their physical remains leave no lasting geological record.

Fossilization is the exception. Yet, it is still a conversation I have with my fossil friends more times than I can count. We would all love to become fossils ourselves. Geeky? Yes, but one can dream!

To become a fossil requires the right organism to die in the right place, at the right time, under the right conditions—and then remain protected through thousands, millions or even billions of years of geological upheaval.

To become a fossil is to win one of the most improbable lotteries on Earth.

Even then, success is not guaranteed. A fossil must survive burial, pressure, mineral-rich water, chemical change, shifting continents, rising mountains and erosion. Finally, it must reach the surface at precisely the moment when someone is there to recognize it.

Too early, and it remains hidden. Too late, and it erodes into dust.

Fossilization is therefore not a single event. It is a journey—a long and perilous passage from life to stone and, with extraordinary luck, back into the light.

STEP ONE: SOMETHING DIES

Upper Cambrian Trilobite

Every body fossil begins with death. This may happen quietly. A leaf drops into a lake. A clam dies on the seafloor. A fish sinks into deep water.

Or it may happen with considerably more geological enthusiasm.

A volcanic eruption blankets an ecosystem in ash. A flood sweeps animals into a river channel. A mudslide buries an entire community. A tree releases sticky resin around a struggling insect. A creature wanders into natural tar and discovers, much too late, that the surface is not as solid as advertised.

The cause of death can influence what happens next, but death alone does not begin fossilization.

The critical issue is what happens to the remains immediately afterward.

A dead organism is suddenly of great interest to nearly everything around it. Scavengers arrive. Insects feed and lay eggs. Microorganisms begin breaking down tissues. Sunlight, oxygen, water and temperature all accelerate physical and chemical change.

Fossilization begins as a race between destruction and preservation. Destruction usually wins.

STEP TWO: THE BODY BEGINS TO DECAY

Soft tissues generally disappear first.

Eyes, skin, internal organs, muscles and other delicate tissues are quickly attacked by bacteria, fungi, insects and scavengers. Under ordinary conditions, little may remain after days, weeks or months.

Hard parts last longer. Bones, teeth, shells, exoskeletons and wood resist decay, giving them a greater opportunity to be buried. This is why the fossil record contains far more shells and teeth than jellyfish and worms.

It is also why our picture of ancient life is biased.

An ecosystem may have been filled with soft-bodied creatures, but unless unusually favourable conditions preserved them, their absence from the fossil record can make them nearly invisible to us.

Imagine trying to reconstruct the modern ocean using only shark teeth, clam shells and the occasional whale bone. You would learn a great deal, but you would miss most of the story.

Hard body parts and rapid burial are two of the most important factors increasing an organism’s chance of fossilization. Without them, the journey often ends before it begins.

STEP THREE: RAPID BURIAL CHANGES EVERYTHING

Burial is the great opportunity.

When remains are quickly covered by mud, sand, silt, volcanic ash or another material, they become less accessible to scavengers and less exposed to weather.

Burial can also reduce the amount of oxygen reaching the remains. Many bacteria and scavenging organisms require oxygen, so low-oxygen conditions can slow decomposition.

This does not mean all buried organisms become fossils. Most do not. But rapid burial buys time.

The best locations for fossilization are therefore usually places where sediment accumulates:

• River channels and floodplains
• Lakes
• Deltas
• Beaches
• Shallow seas
• Deep ocean basins
• Sand dunes
• Caves
• Volcanic ash deposits
• Tar seeps
• Peat bogs

An animal dying on a rocky mountaintop has poor prospects. Its remains may be scattered by wind, water and scavengers without ever being buried.

A clam dying on a muddy seafloor has much better odds. Sediment is already accumulating around it, and its shell is resistant to decay.

This is one reason marine organisms are so well represented in the fossil record. Oceans have covered enormous portions of the planet, and their floors provide vast areas where sediment can accumulate.

Many rocks now exposed high in mountains began as sediment beneath ancient seas.

Finding seashells on a mountain does not mean clams were once exceptionally skilled climbers. It means the seafloor was lifted. We can look to the Burgess Shale Biota as a wonderful example of this.

HOW MUCH BURIAL IS ENOUGH?

The first thin layer may protect remains temporarily, but continued burial is usually necessary for long-term preservation.

New sediment settles on top of older sediment. Layer after layer accumulates, gradually increasing the pressure on the material below.

The sediment becomes compacted. Water is squeezed from the spaces between grains. Dissolved minerals precipitate and act like cement, binding those grains together.

Loose mud may become shale. Sand may become sandstone. Accumulations of shells and carbonate mud may become limestone.

Sedimentary rocks form when deposited material is buried, compacted and cemented. These rocks are particularly important to palaeontology because they form at Earth’s surface under conditions capable of preserving evidence of life.

Fossils are rarely found in rocks that once existed as molten magma. Lava is not known for its gentle handling of organic remains.

Metamorphism can also destroy fossils. When sedimentary rocks are subjected to intense heat and pressure, their minerals recrystallize. Delicate structures may be distorted or erased entirely.

Fossils therefore survive best when their rocks experience enough burial to become solid, but not so much heat and pressure that their history is cooked beyond recognition.

It is a narrow path. Sinking to the bottom of a body of water with little to no oxygen will also do the trick in many cases. 

THE ODDS ARE NOT IN YOUR FAVOUR

Even rapid burial does not guarantee fossilization. The remains may later dissolve. Groundwater may carry them away. Geological pressure may crush them. The surrounding rock may be heated, folded, faulted or dragged deep into Earth’s crust.

Entire fossil-bearing formations can disappear through erosion or be transformed so completely that no recognizable trace of life remains.

Then there is the final difficulty: discovery.

A fossil may remain safely hidden underground for millions of years. Tectonic movement must lift the fossil-bearing rocks, and erosion must remove enough material to expose them at the surface.

Exposure creates another race against time.

Wind, rain, waves, frost and flowing water reveal fossils—but they also destroy them. A bone that survived 100 million years underground may begin crumbling within a few seasons of reaching the surface.

Someone must pass by during that brief window, notice an unusual shape and understand that it matters.

A line of vertebrae. The curve of a shell. A tooth emerging from sandstone. A delicate leaf pressed into shale.

The moment of discovery may feel sudden, but it is the final stage of a journey that began with death and continued through deep time.

AN IMPROBABLE MESSAGE FROM THE PAST

Fossils are often described as the remains of dead organisms. I prefer to think of them as survivors.

They survived decay, scavengers and weather. They survived burial, pressure and chemical change. They survived the shifting, folding and fracturing of Earth’s crust. Finally, they survived erosion long enough for someone to find them.

AMMONITES IN CONCRETION

At first glance they look like ordinary stones—rounded, weathered, unassuming. 

But then you notice the delicious hints: a spiral ghosting through the surface, a faint rib, a seam where time is ready to split wide open—it's magic!

Ammonites, long extinct cephalopods, so often appear this way because, shortly after death, their shells became chemical centres of attraction on the seafloor. 

As the soft tissues decayed, they altered the surrounding sediment, triggering minerals—often calcium carbonate or iron-rich compounds—to precipitate rapidly around the shell. 

This early cementation formed a concretion, a protective stone cocoon that hardened long before the surrounding mud was compressed into rock. While everything around it flattened, cracked, and distorted under pressure, the ammonite inside remained cradled and whole.

What you see here is a gathering of these time capsules: a cluster of ammonites preserved in their concretions, each one split or weathered just enough to reveal the coiled story within. 

Some are neatly halved, spirals laid bare like fingerprints from ages past; others are only just beginning to show themselves, teasing their presence beneath rough stone skins. 

Together, they tell a familiar fossil-hunter’s tale—of patience, sharp eyes, and the thrill of knowing that this unassuming rock holds an ancient ocean inside.

QUIKY CAMBRIAN CURIOSITIES: OPABINIA

Meet one of the most wonderfully peculiar animals to ever grace our ancient seas. 

This five-eyed marvel swam through the Cambrian oceans some 508 million years ago, its soft body drifting above the seafloor of what is now British Columbia—preserved in exquisite detail within the famed Burgess Shale of Yoho National Park.

At first glance, Opabinia regalis feels almost mischievous in its design. I think of them as Cambrian submarines. Five stalked eyes sit atop its head like a crown of periscopes, scanning a world teeming with early life. 

Along its sides, a series of delicate lobes ripple in coordinated waves, propelling it forward with gentle, undulating grace. But it is the feeding apparatus that truly steals the show—a long, flexible proboscis ending in a tiny claw, perfectly suited for plucking soft prey from the seafloor and delivering it to its backward-facing mouth tucked beneath the head.

Yes—five eyes. And a claw-tipped trunk. Nature was experimenting, and Opabinia was one of her boldest sketches.

When Charles Doolittle Walcott first described this curious creature in 1912, it puzzled generations of paleontologists. At the time, he believed it was an anostracan branchiopod. I don't see the resemblance but I wasn't looking at a fossil mystery with his lived experience of the time.

Walcott named the species Opabinia after Opabin Peak in the Canadian Rockies. While his initial classification as a crustacean was later debated and revised by researchers like Harry Whittington in the 1970s—who identified it as a far more enigmatic "weird wonder"—Walcott's 1912 publication remains the initial scientific description of this marvelous fancy of nature.

For decades, its place on the tree of life remained uncertain, its anatomy so unlike anything alive today that it seemed almost alien. 

Thanks to the careful work of Harry Whittington and colleagues—that Opabinia was understood as part of an early branch of arthropod evolution, a relative—albeit a very strange one—of the lineage that would eventually give rise to insects, crustaceans and spiders.

Soft-bodied and delicate, Opabinia would never have fossilized under ordinary circumstances. It is only through the extraordinary preservation of the Burgess Shale—where rapid burial in fine mud and low-oxygen conditions halted decay—that we are gifted this glimpse into deep time’s more experimental chapters.

In Opabinia, we see evolution not as a straight line, but as a riot of possibilities—forms tried, tested, and sometimes abandoned with countless strange and beautiful designs flickering briefly before fading into the stone. I am truly thrilled that we got a chance to see this one as so many never had the chance to fossilize and we'll never get to know their quirky selves. 

BEAUTIFUL PATHOLOGY: QUENSTEDTOCERAS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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