MISTER KANE AND THE ORIGINS OF CANINES

Mister Kane

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

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

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

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

Snuggle Bunnies — Mister Kane & Mozart

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

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

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

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

THIRST OF THE LOST CONTINENT: DODOS AT THE RIVER OF MAURITIA

Dodo Birds by Daniel Eskridge

Two dodo birds—one warm brown like sun-baked coconut husk, the other a pale, ghostly white with hints of grey—stand beak-deep in the shallows of a river that winds like a silver serpent through the tropical jungles of ancient Mauritia. 

Their feet sink into cool silt and damp leaves at a rivers edge. 

The air is thick with the scent of pandanus and damp leaves, heavy enough to taste. Dragonflies hover in lazy spirals above them, iridescent flashes stitching over the water’s skin.

The brown male dodo dips first, scooping up a beakful of water with a gentle glop, while the white female one pauses, head cocked, watching a fruit drift downstream. For a moment the world feels impossibly quiet—no humans, no predators bold enough to trouble them, only the chorus of the forest and the steady rhythm of their drinking.

These feathered oddities belong to an island that itself has slipped through time. Mauritia, a now-lost microcontinent once nestled between Madagascar and India, cracked and sank more than 60 million years ago as the Indian Ocean spread and rearranged the world’s geography. All that remains today are a few scattered fragments—Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues—emerald crumbs left atop an ancient submerged landmass.

Dodo Birds by Daniel Eskridge

It is on one of these volcanic islands, long after Mauritia’s foundering, that the dodo evolved into its peculiar glory. Descended from flighted pigeons that likely swept in on storm winds from Southeast Asia, the dodo abandoned the sky entirely. 

With no natural predators and an island full of fruits, nuts, and fallen seeds, wings became more decorative than practical. Their legs grew stout. Their bodies rounded. Their beaks curved into the iconic hooked silhouette now etched into the imagination of every natural historian.

The brown dodo nudges the white one aside, perhaps a sign of affection, perhaps mild irritation—dodos, after all, were social birds, not the clumsy caricatures drawn centuries later. 

They waddled in flocks, nested on the ground, and lived comfortably beneath the canopy of ebony forests. Their feathers, described by early visitors as soft and hair-like, varied from gray-brown to white depending on age, sex, and perhaps even seasonal cycles.

But their peace was fragile, vulnerable to change they could not see coming.

When humans finally set foot on Mauritius in the late 1500s, they brought ships that carried pigs, rats, goats, and monkeys, all eager for eggs, seedlings, and anything edible. 

Forests were cut, nests trampled, and the trusting dodos, unaccustomed to fear, walked directly into the hands of sailors who considered them a convenient, if not particularly tasty, meal. Within roughly a century, they were gone.

But in this imagined moment—two birds drinking from a clear jungle river on an island born from a drowned continent—they live again. 

The sun breaks through a gap in the canopy, scattering gold across their backs. The white dodo lifts its head, droplets falling like tiny jewels, and lets out a soft, throaty grunt.

Here, in the cool breath of Mauritia’s shadowed past, the dodos are a symbol of loss—curious, gentle, utterly at home.

And for a heartbeat, we remember them.

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

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

FOSSIL FISHAPODS FROM THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

Qikiqtania wakei, a fishapod & relative to tetrapods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aerial View of Ellesmere Island

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TETRAPODS AND THE VERTEBRATE HAND

The irresistable tetrapod Tiktaalik

In the late 1930s, our understanding of the transition of fish to tetrapods — and the eventual jump to modern vertebrates — took an unexpected leap forward. 

The evolutionary a'ha came from a single partial fossil skull found on the shores of a riverbank in Eastern Canada. 

Meet the Stegocephalian, Elpistostege watsoni, an extinct genus of finned tetrapodomorphs that lived during the Late Givetian to Early Frasnian of the Late Devonian — 382 million years ago. 

Elpistostege watsoni — perhaps the sister taxon of all other tetrapods — was first described in 1938 by British palaeontologist and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Thomas Stanley Westoll. Westroll was an interesting fellow whose research interests were wide-ranging. He was a vertebrate palaeontologist and geologist best known for his innovative work on Palaeozoic fishes and their relationships with tetrapods. 

Elpistostege watsoni

As a specialist in early fish, Westoll was the perfect person to ask to interpret that single partial skull roof discovered at the Escuminac Formation in Quebec, Canada. 

His findings and subsequent publication named Elpistostege watsoni and helped us to better understand the evolution of fishes to tetrapods — four-limbed vertebrates — one of the most important transformations in vertebrate evolution. 

Hypotheses of tetrapod origins rely heavily on the anatomy of but a few tetrapod-like fish fossils from the Middle and Late Devonian, 393–359 million years ago. 

These taxa — known as elpistostegalians — include Panderichthys, Elpistostege and Tiktaalik — none of which had yet to reveal the complete skeletal anatomy of the pectoral fin. 

Elpistostege watsoni

None until 2010 that is, when a complete 1.57-metre-long articulated specimen was found and described by Richard Cloutier et al. in 2020. 

The specimen helped us to understand the origin of the vertebrate hand. Stripped from its encasing stone, it revealed a set of paired fins of Elpistostege containing bones homologous to the phalanges (finger bones) of modern tetrapods and is the most basal tetrapodomorph known to possess them. 

Once the phalanges were uncovered, prep work began on the fins. The fins were covered in wee scales and lepidotrichia (fin rays). The work was tiresome, taking more than 2,700 hours of preparation but the results were thrilling. 

Origin of the Vertebrate Hand

We could now clearly see that the skeleton of the pectoral fin has four proximodistal rows of radials — two of which include branched carpals — as well as two distal rows organized as digits and putative digits. 

Despite this skeletal pattern — which represents the most tetrapod-like arrangement of bones found in a pectoral fin to date blurring the line between fish and land vertebrates — the fin retained lepidotrichia (those wee fin rays) distal to the radials. 

This arrangement confirmed an age-old question — showing us for the first time that the origin of phalanges preceded the loss of fin rays, not the other way around.

E. watsoni is very closely related to Tiktaalik roseae found in 2004 in the Canadian Arctic — a tetrapodomorpha species also known as a Choanata. These were advanced forms transitional between fish and the early labyrinthodonts playfully referred to as fishapods — half-fish, half-tetrapod in appearance and limb morphology. 

Up to that point, the relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) was well known, but the origin of major tetrapod features remained obscure for lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes — until Tiktaalik. While Tiktaalik is technically a fish, this fellow is as far from fish-like you can be and still be a card-carrying member of the group. 

Tiktaalik roseae

Complete with scales and gills, this proto-fish lacked the conical head we see in modern fish but had a rather flattened triangular head more like that of a crocodile. 

Tiktaalik had scales on its back and fins with fin webbing but like early land-living animals, it had a distinctive flat head and neck. He was a brawny brute. The shape of his skull and shoulder look part fish and part amphibian.

The watershed moment came as Tiktaalik was prepped. Inside Tiktaalik's fins, we find bones that correspond to the upper arm, forearm and even parts of the wrist — all inside a fin with webbing — remarkable! 

Its fins have thin ray bones for paddling like most fish, but with brawny interior bones that gave Tiktaalik the ability to prop itself up, using his limbs for support. I picture him propped up on one paddle saying, "how you doing?" 

Six years after Tiktaalik was discovered by Neil Shubin and team in the ice-covered tundra of the Canadian Arctic on southern Ellesmere Island, a team working the outcrops at Miguasha on the Gaspé Peninsula discovered the only fully specimen of E. watsoni found to date — greatly increasing our knowledge of this finned tantalizingly transitional tetrapodomorph. 

E. watsoni fossils are rare — this was the fourth specimen collected in over 130 years of hunting. Charmingly, the specimen was right on our doorstop — extracted but a few feet away from the main stairs descending onto the beach of Miguasha National Park. 

L'nu Mi’gmaq First Nations of the Gespe’gewa’gi Region

Miguasha is nestled in the Gaspésie or Gespe’gewa’gi region of Canada — home to the Mi’gmaq First Nations who self-refer as L’nu or Lnu. The word Mi’gmaq or Mi’kmaq means the family or my allies/friends in Mi'kmaw, their native tongue (and soon to be Nova Scotia's provincial first language). They are the people of the sea and the original inhabitants of Atlantic Canada having lived here for more than 10,000 years. 

The L'nu were the first First Nation people to establish contact and trade with European explorers in the 16th and 17th centuries — and perhaps the Norse as early as the turn of the Millenium. Sailing vessels filled with French, British, Scottish, Irish and others arrived one by one to lay claim to the region — settling and fighting over the land. As each group rolled out their machinations of discovery, tensions turned to an all-out war with the British and French going head to head. I'll spare you the sordid details but for everyone caught in the crossfire, it went poorly.

North America Map 1775 (Click to Enlarge)

Cut to 1760, the British tipped the balance with their win at the Battle of the Restigouche, the last naval battle between France and England for possession of the North American continent — Turtle Island. 

The bittersweet British victory sparked the American War of Independence. 

For the next twenty years, the L'nu would witness and become embroiled in yet another war for these lands, their lands — first as bystanders, then as American allies, then intimidated into submission by the British Royal Navy with a show of force by way of a thirty-four gun man-of-war, encouraging L'nu compliance — finally culminating in an end to the hostilities with the 1783 Treaty of Paris. 

The peace accord held no provisions for the L'nu, Métis and First Nations impacted. None of these newcomers was Mi'kmaq — neither friends nor allies.

It was to this area some sixty years later that the newly formed Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) began exploring and mapping the newly formed United Province of Canada. Geologists in the New Brunswick Geology Branch traipsed through the rugged countryside that would become a Canadian province in 1867. 

It was on one of these expeditions that the Miguasha fossil outcrops were discovered. They, too, would transform in time to become Miguasha National Park or Parc de Miguasha, but at first, they were simply the promising sedimentary exposures on the hillside across the water —  a treasure trove of  Late Devonian fauna waiting to be discovered.

In the summer of 1842, Abraham Gesner, New Brunswick’s first Provincial Geologist, crossed the northern part of the region exploring for coal. Well, mostly looking for coal. Gesner also had a keen eye for fossils and his trip to the Gaspé Peninsula came fast on the heels of a jaunt along the rocky beaches of Chignecto Bay at the head of the Bay of Fundy and home to the standing fossil trees of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs. 

Passionate about geology and chemistry, he is perhaps most famous for his invention of the process to distil the combustible hydrocarbon kerosene from coal oil — a subject on which his long walks exploring a budding Canada gave him a great deal of time to consider. We have Gesner to thank for the modern petroleum industry. He filed many patents for clever ways to distil the soft tar-like coal or bitumen still in use today.

He was skilled in a broad range of scientific disciplines — being a geologist, palaeontologist, physician, chemist, anatomist and naturalist — a brass tacks geek to his core. Gesner explored the coal exposures and fossil outcrops across the famed area that witnessed the region become part of England and not France — and no longer L'nu.

Following the Restigouche River in New Brunswick through the Dalhousie region, Gesner navigated through the estuary to reach the southern coast of the Gaspé Peninsula into what would become the southeastern coast of Quebec to get a better look at the cliffs across the water. He was the first geologist to lay eyes on the Escuminac Formation and its fossils.

In his 1843 report to the Geologic Survey, he wrote, “I found the shore lined with a coarse conglomerate. Farther eastward the rocks are light blue sandstones and shales, containing the remains of vegetables. In these sandstone and shales, I found the remains of fish and a small species of tortoise with fossil foot-marks.”

We now know that this little tortoise was the famous Bothriolepis, an antiarch placoderm fish. It was also the first formal mention of the Miguasha fauna in our scientific literature. Despite the circulation of his report, Gesner’s discovery was all but ignored — the cliffs and their fossil bounty abandoned for decades to come. Geologists like Ells, Foord and Weston, and the research of Whiteaves and Dawson, would eventually follow in Gesner's footsteps.

North America Map 1866 (Click to Enlarge)

Over the past 180 years, this Devonian site has yielded a wonderfully diverse aquatic assemblage from the Age of Fishes — five of the six fossil fish groups associated with the Devonian including exceptionally well-preserved fossil specimens of the lobe-finned fishes. 

This is exciting as it is the lobe-finned fishes — the sarcopterygians — that gave rise to the first four-legged, air-breathing terrestrial vertebrates – the tetrapods. 

Fossil specimens from Miguasha include twenty species of lower vertebrates — anaspids, osteostra-cans, placoderms, acanthodians, actinopterygians and sarcopterygians — plus a limited invertebrate assemblage, along with terrestrial plants, scorpions and millipedes.

Originally interpreted as a freshwater lacustrine environment, recent paleontological, taphonomic, sedimentological and geochemical evidence corroborates a brackish estuarine setting — and definitely not the deep waters of the sea. This is important because the species that gave rise to our land-living animals began life in shallow streams and lakes. It tells us a bit about how our dear Elpistostege watsoni liked to live — preferring to lollygag in cool river waters where seawater mixed with fresh. Not fully freshwater, but a wee bit of salinity to add flavour.  

• Photos: Elpistostege watsoni (Westoll, 1938 ), Upper Devonian (Frasnian), Escuminac formation, Parc de Miguasha, Baie des Chaleurs, Gaspé, Québec, Canada. John Fam, VanPS
• Origin of the Vertebrate Hand Illustration, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2100-8
• Tiktaalik Illustration: By Obsidian Soul - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47401797

References & further reading:

• From Water to Land: https://www.miguasha.ca/mig-en/the_first_discoveries.php
• UNESCO Miguasha National Park: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/686/
• Office of L'nu Affairs: https://novascotia.ca/abor/aboriginal-people/
• Cloutier, R., Clement, A.M., Lee, M.S.Y. et al. Elpistostege and the origin of the vertebrate hand. Nature 579, 549–554 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2100-8
• Daeschler, E. B., Shubin, N. H. & Jenkins, F. A. Jr. A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan. Nature 440, 757–763 (2006).
• Shubin, Neil. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion History of the Human Body.
• Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03972-8

CHEERFUL CHICKADEES: WASHINTON'S TINY WINTER SONGBIRD

On a frosty Washington morning, when mist clings to the Douglas firs and frost paints the ferns silver, a flit of motion catches your eye—a small, round bird with a bold black cap and curious, sparkling eyes. 

It lands on a branch covered in ice crystals, flicks its tail, and calls out its name: chick-a-dee-dee-dee! 

Few sounds are as heartening in the Northwest woods as the song of the chickadee, a reminder that even in the quiet cold of winter, life hums along in cheerful defiance.

Chickadees are some of the most beloved birds in Washington State. Two species are especially common: the Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), found in lowland forests, parks, and backyards, and the Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens), a fluffier cousin that prefers the damp coniferous forests of the coast and Cascades. Both species are year-round residents—tiny nonmigratory survivors who somehow endure the state’s wet winters and brief, brilliant summers.

Despite weighing less than a dozen paperclips, chickadees are bold, curious, and surprisingly fearless. Birdwatchers often find them among the first to visit feeders, snatching a seed and darting off to store it for later. They can remember the locations of hundreds, even thousands, of hidden food caches—an astonishing feat of memory for such a small creature.

Their name, “chickadee,” comes from their signature call, which varies in tone and number of “dees” depending on what’s happening. A few soft notes mean “all is well,” while a flurry of dee-dee-dees can signal alarm. The more “dees,” the greater the threat—almost like a feathery Morse code. Researchers have discovered that chickadees use an intricate communication system that rivals those of parrots or crows in complexity.

Chickadees thrive in Washington because of their incredible adaptability. They’re found from the Olympic Peninsula’s moss-draped rainforests to the dry ponderosa pine country east of the Cascades. In winter, they fluff their feathers to trap heat and can even lower their body temperature at night to conserve energy—a form of regulated hypothermia called torpor.

They feed on insects, seeds, and berries, often gleaning tiny larvae from bark crevices or pecking open fir cones for seeds. In summer, they shift toward a high-protein diet of caterpillars and spiders, feeding their chicks a steady stream of wriggling meals.

Each spring, chickadees begin their courtship with soft calls and playful chases through the trees. They’re cavity nesters, meaning they prefer to raise their young in holes—often old woodpecker nests or natural tree cavities. Sometimes they’ll even excavate a soft-rotted snag themselves, a remarkable feat for such a small bird.

Once a site is chosen, the female lines the nest with moss, fur, and feathers, creating a cozy chamber for her eggs. Typically, she lays 6–8 small white eggs, which she incubates for about two weeks. Both parents take part in feeding the chicks, bringing in insects almost constantly until the young fledge and venture into the world.

In Washington, chickadees are more than just a common backyard bird—they’re a symbol of resilience and cheer. Their constant movement and lively chatter seem to bring warmth even to the dampest winter days. Many Washingtonians hang feeders of black oil sunflower seeds or suet to attract these tiny visitors, rewarding them with a flurry of acrobatics and music.

If you’re out hiking in Mount Rainier National Park or walking through Seattle’s Green Lake Park, listen for that bright, whistled fee-bee or the classic chick-a-dee-dee-dee. You may find a black-capped chickadee tilting its head curiously at you from a low branch, unbothered by your presence.

Chickadees, like all modern songbirds, trace their lineage deep into the fossil record—back to the Miocene, around 23 to 5 million years ago, when the ancestors of the family Paridae (which includes chickadees, titmice, and tits) first appeared in Europe and Asia. 

These early perching birds evolved from small, insect-eating passerines that diversified rapidly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, filling the forests of the world with song. Fossil evidence from sites in Europe, such as the famed Miocene deposits of Germany, shows small tit-like birds already possessing the short, stout bills and agile feet that characterize today’s chickadees. 

Over time, these adaptable birds spread across the Northern Hemisphere, eventually colonizing North America through Beringia during cooler Pleistocene glacial periods. The Washington State chickadees we see today—bold, intelligent, and winter-hardy—carry within them the ancient legacy of these pioneering songbirds that once flitted through prehistoric forests millions of years ago.

In the heart of Washington’s wild landscapes—beneath towering cedars, beside mountain streams, or even outside your kitchen window—the chickadee sings. Unfazed by rain or snow, this tiny bird embodies the wild spirit of the Pacific Northwest: curious, enduring, and always full of life.

SEMENOVITES OF THE CASPIAN RIM: CRETACEOUS AMMONITES OF KAZAKHSTAN

This tasty block of Semenovites (Anahoplites) cf. michalskii hails from Cretaceous, Albian deposits that outcrop on the Tupqaraghan — Mangyshlak Peninsula, a stark and beautiful finger of land jutting into the eastern Caspian Sea in western Kazakhstan. 

The ammonites you see here are housed in the collection of the deeply awesome Emil Black. 

Their ancient provenance lies in rocks laid down some 105–110 million years ago, a time when warm epeiric seas flooded much of Central Asia and the ancestors of these coiled cephalopods thrived in shelf environments rich in plankton and marine life.

Present-day Kazakhstan is itself a geological palimpsest, a place made from multiple micro-continental blocks that were rifted apart during the Cambrian, later sutured back together, then pressed against the southern margin of Siberia before drifting to where we find them today. 

The Mangyshlak block preserves a record of these shifting tectonic identities, its plateaus and scarps reading like the torn edges of continents long departed.

The Mangyshlak (Mangghyshlaq) Peninsula is a land of structure and emptiness—high, wind-planed plateaus abruptly broken by escarpments, dry valleys, and shallow basins bleached white with salt. 

To the west lies the Caspian Sea; to the northeast the marshy Buzachi Peninsula, its wet depressions feeding migratory birds and a surprising profusion of reeds. Just north, the Tyuleniy Archipelago—a scattering of low islands—hints at the shallow bathymetry and shifting sediment loads that dominate this coastline.

Field workers on Mangyshlak often describe the region by its broad horizontality. The sky feels enormous, unbroken, a pale arch stretching over the tawny plateaus. The ground underfoot is firm but dusty, composed of compacted sandy limestones and weathered marl that break into familiar, fossil-bearing blocks. The climate is dry, the winds persistent, and visibility often perfect—ideal for spotting promising outcrops from a great distance.

Kazakhstan as a whole is a nation shaped by contrasts. Lowlands form fully one-third of its landmass. Hilly plateaus and plains account for nearly half. Low mountainous regions rise across the eastern and southern margins, making up roughly one-fifth of the terrain.

This spacious geography culminates at Mount Khan-Tengri (22,949 ft / 6,995 m) in the Tien Shan range, a crystalline sentinel marking the border between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. These far-off mountains are invisible from Mangyshlak, but their presence is felt in the broad regional tectonic architecture.

 
The Western Lowlands and the Caspian Depression

The Tupqaraghan Peninsula lies within the influence of the Caspian Depression, one of the lowest terrestrial points on Earth. At its deepest, the Depression reaches 95 feet below modern sea level, a phenomenon caused by both tectonic subsidence and the unusual hydrology of the endorheic Caspian Basin.

To the south, the land rises gradually into the Ustyurt Plateau, an immense chalk and limestone table marked by wind-sculpted buttes and long, eroded escarpments. The Tupqaraghan Peninsula itself is cut from these same sedimentary sequences—Miocene, Paleogene, and Mesozoic strata cropping out in irregular terraces that lure geologists and paleontologists alike.

This is a region where erosional processes are laid bare. Minimal vegetation allows exposures to remain clean and highly visible; many slopes are studded with ammonites, inoceramid bivalves, belemnite rostra, and the fragmentary remains of marine reptiles and pterosaurs. Expeditions here frequently report layers rich in small, well-preserved invertebrate fossils, their delicate sutures and ornamentation astonishingly intact.

 
Deserts, Uplands, and Salt-Lake Basins

Much of Kazakhstan is dominated by arid and semi-arid environments, and the Mangyshlak Peninsula is no exception. To the east and southeast of the region lie the great sand deserts that define Central Asia:

• Greater Barsuki Desert
• Aral Karakum Desert
• Betpaqdala Desert
• Muyunkum and Kyzylkum Deserts

These swaths of wind-polished grains advance and retreat across broad flats and shallow depressions. The vegetation here—shrubs, saxaul, and salt-tolerant herbs—is sparse, drawing life from subterranean groundwater or ephemeral spring melt.

In central Kazakhstan, salt-lake depressions punctuate the uplands. These basins often shimmer under the sun, their surfaces coated in chalky halite crusts that record cycles of evaporation stretching back millennia.

To the north and east the land lifts again, rising into ridges and massifs: the Ulutau Mountains, the Chingiz-Tau Range, and the Altai complex, which sends three great ridges reaching into Kazakhstan. Farther south, the Tarbagatay Range and the Dzungarian Alatau introduce still more rugged topography before the landscape resolves again into plains around Lake Balkhash.
Paleontological Richness of the Region

Kazakhstan is famed for more than its ammonites. Dinosaurian bones, trackways, and scattered pterosaur remains punctuate Mesozoic and Paleogene localities across the nation. The Mangyshlak region in particular has yielded:

• Albian ammonites
• Cretaceous bivalves
• Marine reptile fragments
• Occasional vertebrate traces

These Semenovites come from a fossiliferous belt once submerged under a warm, shallow sea—a world unfurled in silt and light where these cephalopods thrived.

Paleo-coordinates: 44° 35′ 46″ N, 51° 52′ 53″ E.

HAIDA GWAII: MISTY SHORES AND DAPPLED LIGHT

Misty shores, moss-covered forests, dappled light, and the smell of salt air—these are my memories of Haida Gwaii, a land where ancient stories are written in stone.

Formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, the archipelago of Haida Gwaii lies at the far western edge of Canada, where the Pacific Ocean meets the continental shelf. 

These islands—steeped in the rich culture of the Haida Nation—are not only a cultural treasure but a geologic and paleontological wonderland.

Geologically, Haida Gwaii is part of Wrangellia, an exotic tectonostratigraphic terrane that also includes parts of Vancouver Island, western British Columbia, and Alaska. The region's complex geological history spans hundreds of millions of years and includes volcanic arcs, seafloor spreading, and the accretion of entire landmasses.

The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) has long been fascinated with these remote islands. 

Their geologists and paleontologists have led numerous expeditions over the past century, documenting the diverse sedimentary formations and fossiliferous beds. 

Much of the foundation for this work was laid by Joseph Frederick Whiteaves, the GSC’s chief paleontologist in Ottawa during the late 19th century.

In 1876, Whiteaves published a pioneering paper on the Jurassic and Cretaceous faunas of Skidegate Inlet. This work firmly established the paleontological significance of the archipelago and cemented Whiteaves’ reputation as a global authority in the field. His paper, "On the Fossils of the Cretaceous Rocks of British Columbia" (GSC Report of Progress for 1876–77), remains a key early reference for West Coast palaeontology.

Later, Whiteaves would go on to describe Anomalocaris canadensis from the Burgess Shale—an “unlike other shrimp” fossil that would later be recognized as one of the most extraordinary creatures of the Cambrian explosion.

Whiteaves' early work on the fossil faunas of Haida Gwaii, particularly in the Haida Formation, created a foundation for generations of researchers to follow.

One of our most memorable fossil field trips was to the Cretaceous exposures of Lina Island, part of the Haida Formation. We considered it one of our “trips of a lifetime.” 

With great sandstone beach exposures and fossil-rich outcrops dating from the Albian to Cenomanian, Lina Island offered both scientific riches and stunning natural beauty.

Haida Fossil Fauna

Our expedition was supported and organized by John Fam, Vice Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society, and Dan Bowen, Chair of the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance and the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society. 

Their dedication to fostering collaborative research and building relationships with local Haida communities was key. 

We were warmly welcomed, and field trips to fossil sites were arranged in partnership with community members and cultural stewards.

The Haida Formation yielded beautifully preserved specimens embedded both in bedding planes and in concretions—hard, rounded nodules that often house exceptionally preserved fossils. 

Collecting in the mists along the foreshore, our finds included:

• Douvilleiceras spiniferum
• Brewericeras hulenense
• Cleoniceras perezianum
• Fossil cycads, evidence of rich Cretaceous plant life

These fossils offered a rare glimpse into an ancient marine ecosystem that once teemed with life. Douvilleiceras, a spiny ammonite, is particularly striking. 

Douvilleiceras spiniferum, Haida Gwaii

This genus, first identified by Whiteaves from Haida Gwaii, ranges from the Middle to Late Cretaceous and has been found across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  

The Haida specimens, from the early to mid-Albian, to my eye are the most beautiful—and beautifully preserved.

  Douvilleiceras is one of my favourite ammonites of all time and I was blessed to find several good examples of that species from our expeditions to these fossil-rich outcrops.

All of the fossils I collected from Haida Gwaii have been skillfully prepped and donated to the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, British Columbia. 

It is a privilege to contribute in a small way to the scientific and cultural understanding of these extraordinary islands.

References and Further Reading:

Whiteaves, J.F. (1876). On the Fossils of the Cretaceous Rocks of British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress.

Jeletzky, J.A. (1970). Paleontology of the Cretaceous rocks of Haida Gwaii. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 175.

Haggart, J.W. (1991). New Albian (Early Cretaceous) ammonites from Haida Gwaii. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 28(1), 45–56.

Haggart, J.W. & Smith, P.L. (1993). Paleontology and stratigraphy of the Cretaceous Queen Charlotte Group. Geological Survey of Canada Paper 93-1A.

Carter, E.S., Haggart, J.W., & Mustard, P.S. (1988). Early Cretaceous radiolarians from Haida Gwaii and implications for tectonic setting. Micropaleontology, 34(1), 1–14.

FOSSILS OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS MOTORCROSS SITE: NANAIMO

Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri

One of the classic fossil localities on Vancouver Island lies within the Santonian–Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) Haslam Formation at the old Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake, just outside Nanaimo, British Columbia. 

Once an active quarry, the site now hums with the roar of dirt bikes and the scent of gasoline and wet earth carried on the coastal wind. The air is cool and mineral-rich, and if you pause between races, you can catch the distant rush of Benson Creek Falls through the evergreens. 

A smaller gravel operation still works nearby, closer to Ammonite Falls, where shale and sandstone beds of the Nanaimo Group continue to reveal fossils from an ancient seaway that once covered this region. 

Despite its modern transformation, the Motocross Pit remains one of the most storied and scientifically valuable fossil sites of the Nanaimo Group.

We find well-preserved nautiloids and ammonites — Canadoceras, Pseudoschloenbachia, Epigoniceras — the bivalves — Inoceramus, Sphenoceramus— gastropods, and classic Nanaimo Group decapods — Hoploparia, Linuparus. We also find fossil fruit and seeds which tell the story of the terrestrial history of Vancouver Island.

The Motocross Pit locality was first brought to my attention by John Fam, Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society (VanPS). John is one of those rare individuals whose enthusiasm for paleontology is matched only by his warmth and generosity. During his years on Vancouver Island, he was an active VanPS member and a key collaborator during my tenure as Chair. Many of the most memorable joint VIPS/VanPS expeditions were sparked by his curiosity, leadership, and infectious passion for fossils.

John grew up just fifteen minutes from the Motocross locality and spent countless hours there collecting specimens with his father. His love of fossils is a family affair—one that continues today with his wife, Grace, and their two young sons, who now share in the same sense of wonder that first drew John to the site.

I first met John many years ago and still remember staying overnight at his parents’ home before a weekend field trip to Jurassic Point. That evening, he shared stories of his early fossil-hunting adventures and walked me through his carefully curated collection—an experience that spoke volumes about his dedication to the science and art of paleontology.

Upper Cretaceous Haslam Fm near Brannen Lake

Inspired by his stories, I later visited the Motocross Pit with my uncle Doug, a kind and curious man who had explored much of the coast but had never seen this fossil treasure so close to home. 

We spent the day walking through time together, tracing the ancient layers of the Cretaceous seafloor. 

When I returned to the site alone this past year, the wind in the trees and the scent of damp shale carried a bittersweet note—reminding me of the joy of that shared day and of one of the best men I have ever known, now gone but never forgotten. 

As I approached the site, there were no people around, so I walked the periphery looking for the bedrock of the Haslam. The rocks we find here were laid down south of the equator as small, tropical islands. They rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 80 million years to where we find them today.

Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit

Jim Haggart and Peter Ward have each made remarkable contributions to our understanding of the rich molluscan fauna of the Nanaimo Group, the Late Cretaceous sedimentary sequence that records the history of an ancient seaway once spanning much of what is now coastal British Columbia and Washington State.

Both men bring to paleontology a mix of scholarly rigor and adventurous spirit—embodying, in the best sense, that “Indiana Jones” archetype of the field scientist: field-worn boots, weathered notebooks, and an endless curiosity for the deep past. 

Their fieldwork across Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the San Juan archipelago has provided essential biostratigraphic correlations, linking fossil assemblages across what were once the submerged margins of the Wrangellia Terrane. 

Through careful mapping, fossil collection, and stratigraphic analysis, their work has helped clarify the temporal and environmental relationships among the various formations of the Nanaimo Group, from the Haslam and Extension to the Pender and Geoffrey formations.

Haggart and Ward’s research builds on a long tradition of geologic and paleontological inquiry in the region. Foundational studies by Usher (1952), Matsumoto (1959a, 1959b), and Mallory (1977) established the first detailed taxonomic and biostratigraphic frameworks for these Late Cretaceous faunas. 

Equally significant was the work of Muller and Jeletzky (1970), who untangled the complex lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic relationships within the Nanaimo Group—providing the bedrock upon which modern interpretations stand.

Together, this lineage of research has transformed the Nanaimo Group from a series of scattered coastal outcrops into one of the best-documented Cretaceous marine sequences in western North America, offering crucial insight into paleogeography, faunal migration, and the dynamic tectonic history of the Pacific margin.

Candoceras yokoyama, Photo: John Fam, VanPS

As I walked along the bedrock of the Haslam, a Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri, followed me from tree to tree making his guttural shook, shook, shook call. 

Instructive, he seemed to be encouraging me, timing his hoots to the beat of my hammer. Vancouver Island truly has glorious flora and fauna.

Fancy some additional reading? Check out a paper published in the Journal of Paleontology back in 1989 by Haggard and Ward on Nanaimo Group Ammonites from British Columbia and Washington State.

In it, they look at the ammonite species Puzosia (Mesopuzosia) densicostata Matsumoto, Kitchinites (Neopuzosia) japonicus Spath, Anapachydiscus cf. A. nelchinensis Jones, Menuites cf. M. menu (Forbes), Submortoniceras chicoense (Trask), and Baculites cf. B. boulei Collignon are described from Santonian--Campanian strata of western Canada and northwestern United States.

Stratigraphic occurrences and ranges of the species are summarized and those taxa important for correlation with other areas in the north Pacific region and Late Cretaceous ammonite fauna of the Indo-Pacific region. Here's the link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1305358?seq=1

Peter Ward is a prolific author, both of scientific papers and more popularized works. I highly recommend his book Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History. It is an engaging romp through a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert.

Photo: Candoceras yokoyamai from Upper Cretaceous Haslam formation (Lower Campanian) near Nanaimo, British Columbia. One of the earliest fossils collected by John Fam (1993). Prepared using only a cold chisel and hammer. Photo & collection of John Fam, VIPS.

PETALS FROZEN IN TIME: THE PRINCETON CHERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many of these plants have close relatives today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting There from Vancouver

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

FOSSILS, FISH AND FLAMING VOLCANOES: INTERIOR BC'S HISTORIC PAST

A Bird's Eye View of BC's Interior

Once upon a geologic time—about 52 million years ago—British Columbia wasn’t the mountain-studded landscape we know today. 

Instead, imagine a steaming chain of tropical islands floating in a warm inland sea, alive with crocodiles, palm trees, and enough volcanic activity to make any self-respecting geologist swoon.

Welcome to Eocene British Columbia—where the rocks are hot, the fossils are cool, and the story of our province’s ancient past stretches like a spine from north to south, stitched together by layers of lakebed shales and volcanic ash.

Let’s start at the McAbee Fossil Beds, just outside of Kamloops. This UNESCO-designated site is a world-class window into the Eocene Epoch. 

The rocks here formed at the bottom of an ancient lake, gently collecting the remains of leaves, insects, and fish that fluttered or flopped in at inconvenient moments. The preservation is exquisite—delicate leaf veins, dragonfly wings, even the odd fish fin are preserved in glorious, paper-thin shale. It’s like nature’s own scrapbook from the dawn of modern ecosystems.

McAbee Fossil Beds with Dr. Lawrence Yang's Crew

These fossils tell us that McAbee was once warm and lush, home to dawn redwoods, ginkgo trees, and the ancestors of modern maples. 

You can see the wonderfully distinct hoodoos up above the fossil site and in this photo, you can see Dr. Lawrence Yang and crew from a field trip we did there a few years ago.

But McAbee didn't look at all like this when the fossils were laid down. 

Picture tropical rainforests thriving where today you find sagebrush and rattlesnakes. 

Yes—Kamloops was once the Kamloops Rainforest. Try putting that on a postcard.

And McAbee isn’t alone. It’s just one stop on an ancient island arc that spanned the province. 

Head north to Driftwood Canyon near Smithers, where paper-thin fossils of fish and insects record a similar story of subtropical serenity. 

A Tasty Selection of Eocene Fossils from BC

Go south to Quilchena, where you’ll find the same lacustrine (lake-formed) layers yielding fossilized leaves and fish that look like they could still dart away if you poked them. The preservation is outstanding. 

Keep going across the border to Republic, Washington, and you’re still following the same Eocene lake chain—like geological breadcrumbs leading back to a time when the west coast was a simmering stew of volcanoes and freshwater basins.

Two of my favourite Eocene fish fossils from the region are Eohiodon, a genus related to the modern mooneye, found at McAbee and Princeton. And Amyzon aggregatum, a type of sucker fish found in the varved lake sediments near Horsefly.

British Columbia has never been shy about rearranging itself. Back in the Eocene, the region was being pulled, pushed, and smushed by tectonic forces. Volcanic eruptions blanketed lakes with fine ash—excellent for fossil-making but less great for anyone hoping for a sunny day at the beach. 

Over time, these lakes filled with sediment, entombing plants, fish, and insects beneath fine-grained layers that later hardened into shale.

The result: a geological photo album spanning millions of years, now tilted and lifted into the dry hills around Kamloops.

I have only visited once since the Bonaparte First Nation took over management of the McAbee Fossil Beds. I brought them some fossils, scientific papers and shared stories of the history of the site from a paleo perspective. I shared about the folks who first leased the land and worked to expand the site, Dave Langevin and John Leahy. The many field trips there by members of the Vancouver Paleontological Society and other groups. The site has a rich fossil history deep in time but also in the last 30 years.  

Eocene Fossil Fish from McAbee

They graciously allowed me to bring some folk up to explore and shared their desire to create a visitor and research center, enhancing public programming with Indigenous cultural activities. 

The Nation aims to highlight the scientific and cultural significance of the area, with a long-term goal of making it a premier Indigenous destination. 

Kneeling in that parched, golden landscape, it’s hard to imagine it once echoed with the croaks of ancient frogs and the buzz of tropical insects. 

But each fossil leaf, precious fossilized feather, March Fly and dragonfly wing at McAbee whispers the same improbable truth: British Columbia was once a lush archipelago of volcanic islands in a balmy world, a far cry from today’s ski slopes and spruce forests.

These sites hold a special place in my heart as they are some of the few that I visited as a teen with my mother and sister. I made repeated trips over the years as the Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society, but those early memories are especially dear to me.

As I drive through the Thompson Plateau and see those striped outcrops of shale, I give them a thoughtful nod. They’re the leftovers of a long-vanished paradise that remains a fossil treasure trove today. 

A DELIGHTFUL VISIT AND UNEXPECTED METASEQUOIA

Metasequoia sp., collection of Judy Hill

There is something deeply comforting about encountering a familiar fossil in the company of wonderfully engaging friends.

Yesterday delivered both gifts at once. I wandered into the Judy Hill Gallery on Vancouver Island—a place I enjoy visiting to soak in its stunning collection of Pacific Northwest Coast art and to chat with the gallery’s warm, knowledgeable team.

As we talked, Judy Hill brought out a remarkable treasure: a beautifully preserved Metasequoia fossil.

Its story is as intriguing as the specimen itself. Originally collected under the assumption it might be a petroglyph—its true origins a mystery—it was entrusted to Judy for safekeeping.

Of course it was. Judy is the heart and soul of the Judy Hill Gallery in Duncan, British Columbia, a family-run haven that has championed Indigenous art for more than 30 years. She is as lovely as she is learned, known not only for her expertise but for the kindness, generosity, and deep respect she brings to every relationship.

Perhaps because of this, people bring their curiosities, their heirlooms, and their unusual finds to her, knowing they will be honoured and protected.

And so, in the quiet magic of an impromptu morning visit, this Metasequoia sp. fossil came into view—another beautiful piece of natural history finding its way, as so many treasures do, to Judy’s caring hands. 

Metasequoia, McAbee Fossil Beds

The fossil is an ancient cousin to one of the many native trees on Vancouver Island and BC's mainland, the lovely conifer Metasequoia glyptostroboides — the dawn redwood. 

Of this long lineage, the sole surviving species in the genus Metasequoia and one of three species of conifers known as redwoods, is Metasequoia glyptostroboides. 

Metasequoia are the smaller cousins of the mighty Giant Sequoia, the most massive trees on Earth. 

As a group, the redwoods are impressive trees and very long-lived. The President, an ancient Giant Sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, and granddaddy to them all has lived for more than 3,200 years. While this tree is named The President, a worthy name, it doesn't really cover the magnitude of this giant by half.   

This tree was a wee seedling making its way in the soils of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California before we invented writing. It had reached full height before any of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, those remarkable constructions of classical antiquity, were even an inkling of our budding human achievements. 

It has outlasted them all save the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest and last of those seven still standing, though the tree has faired better. Giza still stands but the majority of the limestone façade is long gone.

Aside from their good looks (which can really only get you so far), they are resistant to fire and insects through a combined effort of bark over a foot thick, a high tannin content and minimal resin, a genius of evolutionary design. 

While individual Metasequoia live a long time, as a genus they have lived far longer. 

Like Phoenix from the Ashes, the Cretaceous (K-Pg) extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, ammonites and more than seventy-five percent of all species on the planet was their curtain call. The void left by that devastation saw the birth of this genus — and they have not changed all that much in the 65 million years since. Modern Metasequoia glyptostroboides looks pretty much identical to their late Cretaceous brethren.

Dawn Redwood Cones

They are remarkably similar to and sometimes mistaken for Sequoia at first glance but are easily distinguishable if you look at their size (an obvious visual in a mature tree) or to their needles and cones in younger specimens. 

Metasequoia has paired needles that attach opposite to each other on the compound stem. 

Sequoia needles are offset and attached alternately. Think of the pattern as jumping versus walking with your two feet moving forward parallel to one another. 

Metasequoia needles are paired as if you were jumping forward, one print beside the other, while Sequoia needles have the one-in-front-of-the-other pattern of walking.

The seed-bearing cones of Metasequoia have a stalk at their base and the scales are arranged in paired opposite rows which you can see quite well in the visual above. Coast redwood cone scales are arranged in a spiral and lack a stalk at their base.

Although the least tall of the redwoods, it grows to an impressive sixty meters (200 feet) in height. It is sometimes called Shui-sa, or water fir by those who live in the secluded mountainous region of China where it was rediscovered.

Fossil Metasequoia, McAbee Fossil Beds

Metasequoia fossils are known from many areas in the Northern Hemisphere and were one of my first fossil finds as a teenager. 

And folk love naming them. More than twenty fossil species have been named over time —  some even identified as the genus Sequoia in error — but for all their collective efforts to beef up this genus there are just three species: Metasequoia foxii, Metasequoia milleri, and Metasequoia occidentalis.

During the Paleocene and Eocene, extensive forests of Metasequoia thrived as far north as Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island and sites on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's far north around 80° N latitude.

We find lovely examples of Metasequoia occidentalis in the Eocene outcrops at McAbee near Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada. I shared a photo here of one of those specimens. 

Once this piece dries out a bit, I will take a dental pick to it to reveal more of the teaser fossils peeking out.

The McAbee Fossil Beds are known for their incredible abundance, diversity and quality of fossils including lovely plant, insect and fish species that lived in an old lake bed setting. 

While the Metasequoia and other fossils found here are 52-53 million years old, the genus is much older. It is quite remarkable that both their fossil and extant lineage were discovered in just a few years of one another. 

Metasequoia was first described as a new genus from a fossil specimen found in 1939 and published by Japanese paleobotanist Shigeru Miki in 1941. Remarkably, the living version of this new genus was discovered later that same year. 

Professor Zhan Wang, an official from the Bureau of Forest Research was recovering from malaria at an old school chum's home in central China. His friend told him of a stand of trees discovered in the winter of 1941 by Chinese botanist Toh Gan (干铎). The trees were not far away from where they were staying and Gan's winter visit meant he did not collect any specimen as the trees had lost their leaves. 

The locals called the trees Shui-sa, or water fir. As trees go, they were reportedly quite impressive with some growing as much as sixty feet tall. Wang was excited by the possibility of finding a new species and asked his friend to describe the trees and their needles in detail. 

Emboldened by the tale, Wang set off through the remote mountains to search for his mysterious trees and found them deep in the heart of  Modaoxi (磨刀溪; now renamed Moudao (谋道), in Lichuan County, in the central China province of Hubei. He found the trees and was able to collect living specimens but initially thought they were from Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松). 

A few years later, Wang showed the trees to botanist Wan-Chun Cheng and learned that these were not the leaves of s Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松 ) but belonged to a new species. 

While the find was exciting, it was overshadowed by China's ongoing conflict with the Japanese that was continuing to escalate. With war at hand, Wang's research funding and science focus needed to be set aside for another two years as he fled the bombing of Beijing. 

When you live in a world without war on home soil it is easy to forget the realities for those who grew up in it. 

Zhan Wang and his family lived to witness the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, then the 1937 clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge, just outside Beijing. 

That clash sparked an all-out war that would grow in ferocity to become World War II. 

Within a year, the Chinese military situation was dire. Most of eastern China lay in Japanese hands: Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, Wuhan. As the Japanese advanced, they left a devastated population in their path where atrocity after atrocity was the norm. Many outside observers assumed that China could not hold out, and the most likely scenario was a Japanese victory over China.

Yet the Chinese hung on, and after the horrors of Pearl Harbor, the war became genuinely global. The western Allies and China were now united in their war against Japan, a conflict that would finally end on September 2, 1945, after Allied naval forces blockaded Japan and subjected the island nation to intensive bombing, including the utter devastation that was the Enola Gay's atomic payload over Hiroshima. 

With World War II behind them, the Chinese researchers were able to re-focus their energies on the sciences. Sadly, Wang was not able to join them. Instead, two of his colleagues, Wan Chun Cheng and Hu Hsen Hsu, the director of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology would continue the work. Wan-Chun Cheng sent specimens to Hu Hsen Hsu and upon examination realised they were the living version of the trees Miki had published upon in 1941. 

Hu and Cheng published a paper describing a new living species of Metasequoia in May 1948 in the Bulletin of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology.

That same year, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University sent an expedition to collect seeds and, soon after, seedling trees were distributed to various universities and arboreta worldwide. 

Today, Metasequoia grow around the globe. When I see them, I think of Wang and all he went through. He survived the conflict and went on to teach other bright, young minds about the bountiful flora in China. I think of Wan Chun Cheng collaborating with Hu Hsen Hsu in a time of war and of Hu keeping up to date on scientific research, even published works from colleagues from countries with whom his country was at war. 

Deep in my belly, I ache for the huge cost to science, research and all the species impacted on the planet from our human conflicts. Each year in April, I plant more Metasequoia to celebrate Earth Day and all that means for every living thing on this big blue orb.  

References: 

• https://web.stanford.edu/group/humbioresearch/cgi-bin/wordpress/?p=297
• https://humboldtredwoods.org/redwoods

Lead Photo Credit: This lovely Metasequoia sp. is in the collections of Judy Hill—gallery owner, connector, and a steadfast advocate for Indigenous artistry. To visit the gallery virtually, head to: https://www.judyhillgallery.net. Or stop by her Duncan, BC., location. It is a visual feast!