MUMMIFIED RED TILE FISH

An amazing mummified Red tilefish, Branchiostegus japonicus (Houttuyn, 1782) from Holocene deposits near Shizuoka, Japan. This specimen shows remarkable detail right down to the scales. Quite spectacular, truly.

Modern cousins of this 'horsehead' fishy fellow are native to the western Pacific ocean live as far south as the Arafura Sea today. They can grow to around 46 centimetres in length though most reach about 35 cm. Tilefish enjoy sandy and mud substrates and live in depths of 30 to 200 metres. Collection and photos from the deeply awesome Takashi Ito.

ANCIENT AEGEAN ELEPHANTS

The islands of the Aegean are peaks of underwater mountains that extend out from the mainland. 

Crete is the last of this range and boasts a diverse beauty from its high mountains of Psiloritis, Lefka Ori, and Dikti, to its ocean-caressed pink sand beaches.

Much of the island of Crete is Miocene and filled with fossil molluscs, bivalves, and gastropods who lived 5 to 23 million years ago in warm, tropical seas.

They are easily collected from their pink limestone matrix and are often eroded out, mixing with their modern relatives. Aside from the marine deposits, the island boasts some great vertebrate finds, including the remains of 

Deinotherium with its strange downward-curving tusks

Deinotherium giganteum, a massive 8 million-year-old mammal and primitive relative of the elephants roaming the Earth today. 

Deinotherium evolved from the slightly smaller, early Miocene, Prodeinotherium, though both genera were much larger than all of the more primitive proboscideans.

With an enormous large nasal opening at the centre of his skull, presumably, to house a rather largish trunk, Deinotherium may be the inspiration behind the myth of the Cyclops, the one-eyed giant from Homer's famous Odyssey. I'll share about some of the North African finds with you and you can judge for yourself. I think the resemblance is striking. 

The photo above is from the Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History in Bucharest, Romania. If you're in Romania, it's definitely a highlight. Photo credit: Flavius70 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22541962. The illustration of Deinotherium ("terrible beast") is by the hugely talented Daniel Eskridge.

PERICLIMENES COLEMANI

These lovelies are Coleman shrimp, Periclimenes colemani. They are generally found in mating pairs atop the exquisitely beautiful but frightfully poisonous, Fire Sea Urchin, Asthenosoma varium.

The female of the Coleman pair in this photo is the slightly larger beauty on the left. She's looking poised and ready to catch something tasty with her open claws. Coleman shrimp and several other fish and invertebrates were named after the Australian naturalist and underwater nature photographer, Neville Coleman. It was his life's mission to document all of the sea life of Australia.

CERATIOCARIS OF SCOTLAND

This braw fellow is Ceratiocaris papilio (Salter in Murchison, 1859) a Pod Shrimp from the Silurian mudstones of the Kip Burn Formation in the Midland Valley of Scotland. 

He swam in our ancient seas, rising with the tide alongside and in the waters above many marine creatures that you will likely know — crinoids, brachiopods, trilobites and new and exotic fish — some sporting jaws for the first time in their lineage.

Ceratiocaris is a genus of extinct Palaeozoic phyllocarid crustacean whose fossils are found in marine strata from the Upper Ordovician through to the Silurian.

They are typified by eight short thoracic segments, seven longer abdominal somites and an elongated pretelson somite. Their carapace is slightly oval-shaped; they have many ridges parallel to the ventral margin and possess a horn at the anterior end.

This tidy specimen is from the Silurian mudstones that characterize the Kip Burn Formation with its dark laminated silty bands. The lower part of the Kip Burn houses the highly fossiliferous ‘Ceratiocaris beds’, that yield the arthropods Ceratiocaris, Dictyocaris, Pterygotus, Slimonia and the fish Birkenia and Thelodus.

The upper part of the formation, the Pterygotus beds, contain abundant eurypterid fauna together with the brachiopods Lingula and Ceratiocaris. The faunas in the Kip Burn Formation reflect the start of the transition from marine to quasi- or non-marine conditions in the group. Ceratiocaris is also well-known from the Silurian Eramosa Formation of Ontario, Canada, which also has rather nice eurypterids, too. Photo credit/collection of York Yuxi Wang and Tianyi Zhang.

Joseph H. Collette; David M. Rudkin (2010). Phyllocarid crustaceans from the Silurian Eramosa Lagerstätte (Ontario, Canada): taxonomy and functional morphology. Journal of Paleontology. 84 (1): 118–127. doi:10.1666/08-174.1.

M. Copeland; T. E. Bolton (1985). Fossils of Ontario part 3: the eurypterids and phyllocarids. Volume 48 of Life Sciences Miscellaneous Publications. Royal Ontario Museum. ISBN 0-88854-314-X.

SHOSHONE MOUNTAIN RANGE

Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park encompasses 1,540 acres. The elevation ranges from 6,840 feet to a high point of 7,880 feet. The hillsides in the park are covered with big sagebrush, while pinyon pine and Utah juniper dominate the upper elevations.

Common animal inhabitants include mule deer, black-tailed jackrabbits, cottontails, western bluebirds, pinyon jays, chukar partridge, whiptail lizards, western fence lizards, gophers and snakes.

​​Nestled at 7,000 feet on the western slope of central Nevada’s Shoshone mountain range, the park provides an array of stimulating recreational opportunities. The forested slopes provide shade, and breezes help to moderate the summer temperatures which seldom exceed 90˚F. Late spring and early fall can often be the nicest times of the year. Winter visits to the park are possible, but call for weather and road conditions before visiting.

PHYLLOCERAS OF JAPAN

Phylloceras consanguineum (Gemmellaro 1876) a fast-moving carnivorous ammonite from Late Jurassic (Middle Oxfordian) deposits near Sokoja, Madagasgar, off the southeast coast of Africa. (22.8° S, 44.4° E: 28.5° S, 18.2° E)

This classical Tethyan Mediterranean specimen is very well preserved, showing much of his delicate suturing in intricate detail. Phylloceras were primitive ammonites with involute, laterally flattened shells.

They were smooth, with very little ornamentation, which led researchers to think of them resembling plant leaves and gave rise to their name, which means "leaf-horn."

They can be found in three regions that I know of.  In the Jurassic of Italy near western Sicily's Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Lower Kimmeridgian fossiliferous beds of Monte Inici East and Castello Inici (38.0° N, 12.9° E: 26.7° N, 15.4° E) and in the Armine area, southeastern Toyama Prefecture, northern central Japan, roughly (36.5° N, 137.5° E: 43.6° N, 140.6° E).

OUR CARIBOO MOUNTAINS

We soak up the breathtaking views after a long morning's paddle. The east and south sides of our route are bound by the imposing white peaks of the Cariboo Mountains, the northern boundary of the Interior wet belt, rising up across the Rocky Mountain Trench, and the Isaac Formation, the oldest of seven formations that make up the Cariboo Group.

Some 270 million-plus years ago, had one wanted to buy waterfront property in what is now British Columbia, you’d be looking somewhere between Prince George and the Alberta border. The rest of the province had yet to arrive but would be made up of over twenty major terranes from around the Pacific. The rock that would eventually become the Cariboo Mountains and form the lakes and valleys of Bowron was far out in the Pacific Ocean, down near the equator.

With tectonic shifting, these rocks drifted north-eastward, riding their continental plate, until they collided with and joined the Cordillera in what is now British Columbia. Continued pressure and volcanic activity helped create the tremendous slopes of the Cariboo Range we see today with repeated bouts of glaciation during the Pleistocene carving their final shape. Warm and dry with bellies filled full of soup and crisps, we head back out to explore more of nature's bounty.

HOLCOPHYLLOCERAS OF MADAGASCAR

There is tremendously robust suturing on this lovely ammonite, Holcophylloceras mediterraneum, (Neumayr 1871) from Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) deposits near Sokoja, Madagasgar. Madagascar is a treasure trove of outstanding fossil species and this ammonite is no exception.

The shells had many chambers divided by walls called septa. The chambers were connected by a tube called a siphuncle which allowed for the control of buoyancy with the hollow inner chambers of the shell acting as air tanks to help them float.

We can see the edges of this specimen's shell where it would have continued out to the last chamber, the body chamber, where the ammonite lived. Picture a squid or octopus, now add a shell and a ton of water.

EOCENE INSECTS OF PRINCETON

March Flies are hardy, medium-sized flies in the Order Diptera, with a body length ranging from 4.0 to 10.0 mm. This species is one of the most satisfying fossils to collect in the Eocene deposits of Princeton, British Columbia.

The body is black, brown, or rusty, and thickset, with thick legs. The antennae are moniliform. The front tibiae bear large strong spurs or a circlet of spines. The tarsi are five-segmented and bear tarsal claws, pulvilli, and a well-developed empodium. As it is with many species, these guys included, the teens of this species are troublesome but the adults turn out alright. As larvae, Bibionidae is an agricultural pest, devouring all those tasty young seedlings you've just planted.

Then, as they mature their tastes turn to the nectar of flowers from fruit trees and la voila, they become your best friends again. With their physical and behavioural transformation complete, Bibionidae becomes a welcome garden visitor, pulling their weight in the ecosystems they live in by being important pollinators.

GIANT GROUND SLOTH

In 1788, this magnificent specimen of a Megatherium sloth was sent to the Royal Cabinet of Natural History from the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata.

The megaterios were large terrestrial sloths belonging to the group, Xenarthra. These herbivores inhabited large areas of land on the American continent. Their powerful skeleton enabled them to stand on their hind legs to reach leaves high in the trees, a huge advantage given the calories needed to be consumed each day to maintain their large size.

Avocados were one of the food preferences of our dear Giant ground sloths. They ate then pooped them out, spreading the pits far and wide. The next time you enjoy avocado toast, thank this large beastie. One of his ancestors may have had a hand (or butt) in your meal.

In 1788, Bru assembled the skeleton as you see it here. It is exhibited at the Museo Nacional De Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain, in its original configuration for historic value. If you look closely, you'll see it is not anatomically correct. But all good paleontology is teamwork. Based upon the drawings of Juan Bautista Bru, George Cuvier used this specimen to describe the species for the very first time.

MIDDLE TRIASSIC AMMONOID & BELEMNITE

A beautiful plate with a lovely example of the Middle Triassic ammonoid and belemnite from Fossil Hill in the Humboldt Mountains of Nevada. This locality is perhaps the most famous and important locality for the Middle Triassic (Anisian/Ladinian) of North America.

This was the site of the 1905 Expedition of the University of California’s Department of Geology in Berkeley funded by the beautiful and bold, Annie Alexander, the women to whom the UCMP owes both its collection and existence. J. P. Smith joined the expedition, though he was interested in the invertebrate fauna, not the mighty marine reptiles that helped get the project funded.

J.P. Smith published on the marine fauna in the early 1900s. They formed the basis for his monograph on North American Middle Triassic marine invertebrate fauna published in 1914.

N. J. Siberling from the US Geological Survey published on these outcrops in 1962. His work included nearly a dozen successive ammonite faunas, many of which were variants on previously described species. Evidently, his collections consisted mainly of weathered material and were made without stratigraphic control because he believed that most, if not all, of these species, were coexistent. The fossiliferous beds found here, as well as localities in north-western Nevada, were designated the 'Daonella dubia' zone. Dubious would be closer to the truth. Smith joined the 1905 Expedition of the University of California’s Department of Geology in Berkeley funded by the beautiful and bold, Annie Alexander, the women to whom the UCMP owes both its collection and existence.

AN ANCIENT MARINE LINEAGE

Life on Earth began in the oceans more than 3.5 billion years ago. That means that all of us, all of our homo sapien sapien brethren and every living thing on the planet is a  descendant of a marine organism.

Knowing that we share an ancient history with every living species is rather humbling. While we diverged early on from cats, dogs, frogs and birds, we share a history and proud lineage with all the vertebrates alive today.

I was up hunting for trilobites near Cranbrook and came across a graptolite. It looked like a wee pen mark on a bit of rock. It too is one of our relatives and one of the earliest. So how did vertebrates go from worm-like marine animals like Metaspriggina, to the modern diversity of forms?

CRETACEOUS NAUTILUS OF MEXICO

A picture-perfect Campanian nautilus, Eutrophoceras irritilansis,
who lived during the Upper Cretaceous (late Campanian) near the town of Porvenir de Jalpa (about 64 km / 40 miles west of Saltillo) in what is now southern Coahuila (formerly Coahuila de Zaragoza), northern Mexico. Collection of Jose Ventura.