LOS NEANDERTALES

PLAZA DE ESPANA

PALTECHIOCERAS OF WRANGELLIA

Those working in the Jurassic exposures on Vancouver Island are a determined crew. Most of the sedimentary deposits of the Jurassic are exposed in the hard to reach areas between Nootka Sound and Cape Scott.

By the time these ammonites were being buried in sediment, Wrangellia, the predominately volcanic terrane that now forms Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, had made its way to the northern mid-laditudes.

This detail of the Jurassic ammonite, Paltechioceras sp. shot with an ultra-low f-stop, is from an all but inaccessible site in Sayward, Bonanza Group, Vancouver Island.

We did a fossil field trip up there a few years ago with the Courtenay & Qualicum beach crew. The drive up the mountain was thrilling as the road narrowed until it was barely the width of our wheel base. Thrilling to say the least.

HOMAGE TO SPRING

ROLLED TRILOBITE

SUNBURST CORDOBA, SPAIN

ALHAMBRA PALACE, ANDALUSIA

LINCOLN CREEK FORMATION: EOCENE-OLIGOCENE BORDER

Fossil crabs, several dozen species of mulluscs including the elusive tusk shell have been found in the fossil exposures of the Lincoln Creek Formation, southern Olympic Peninsula, near the town of Porter, Washington, 46°56'20"N, 123°18'38"W.

It is a site I return to each year to see the erosion and what new specimens have worked their way to the surface.

The whitish strata consists of tuffaceous siltstone and sandstone with concretionary beds throughout. They are slightly older than originally thought, coming in around 37 million-years, straddling the Eocene-Oligocene border. Here a lovely crab, Pulalius vulgaris, sits in the sand. He would be in good company at the site amongst the more common scaphodpod shells and other wee gastropods.

The whitish aragonitic shells of scaphopods are conical and curved with a planispiral curve, looking a bit like an elephant's tusk, hence their common name. They prefer to live on soft substrates in subtidal zones so they are not as abundant or readily visible on our beaches as their gastropods and bivalves compatriots. Tusk shells and their fossil relatives, however, are found commonly in the sediments at Porter and other localities throughout the Pacific Northwest while crabs are found, but more rare.

TUSKS AND BONE: TANGIERS

During the Miocene and Pliocene, 12-1.6 million years ago, a diverse group of extinct proboscideans, elephant-like animals walked the Earth.

Most of these large beasts had four tusks and likely a trunk similar to modern elephants. They were creatures of legend, inspiring myths and stories of fanciful creatures to the first humans to encounter them.

Beyond our neanderthal friends, one such fellow was Quintus Sertorius, a Roman statesman come general, who grew up in Umbria. Born into a world at war just two years before the Romans sacked Corinth to bring Greece under Roman rule, Quintus lived much of his life as a military man far from his native Norcia. Around 81 BC, he travelled to Morocco, the land of opium, massive trilobites and the birthplace of Antaeus, the legendary North African ogre who was killed by the Greek hero Heracles.

The locals tell a tale that Quintus requested proof of Antaeus, hard evidence he could bring back to Rome to support their tales so they took him to a mound at Tingis, Morocco, where they unearthed the bones of a Neogene elephant, Tetralophodon.

Tetralophodon bones are large and skeletons singularly impressive. Impressive enough to be taken for something else entirely. By all accounts these proboscidean remains were that of the mythical ogre Antaeus and were thus reported back to Rome as such. It was hundreds of years later before their true heritage was known.

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW

ANTARCTIC COMMUTE

PALEO PUPPERS ON PATROL

ANDALUSIAN AUTUMN

OREGON COAST: BASALT COLUMNS

TYLOSTOME TUMIDUM

This lovely big fellow is Tylostoma tumidum, an epifaunal grazing Lower Cretaceous Gastropod from the Goodland Formation near Fort Worth, Texas, USA. (171.6 to 58.7 Ma)

PALM TRUNK MOULD

George Mustoe of the Burke Museum preparing to make a mould of a palm trunk that once gew in the wetlands that bordered an ancient river.

ERBENOCHILE ERBENI

A spectacular specimen of the trilobite Erbenochile erbeni. This impressive fossil arthropod shows unusual schizochroal eyes characteristic of the genus.

Family Odontopleuridae, Odontopleurid trilobite from the Lower Devonian, Emsian, 408 to 393 MYA, Bou Tiskaouine Formation, Hamar l”Aghdad Limestones, Taharajat, Oufaten, Djebel Issoumour

ARNIOCERAS AMMONITE: CANADIAN ROCKIES

CAMPING UNDER THE STARS

GASTROPODA

LION: PANTHERA LEO

 

PARASAUROLOPHUS WITH A PEARL EARRING

 

ICHTHYOSAUR EVOLUTION

During the early Triassic period, ichthyosaurs evolved from a group of unidentified land reptiles that returned to the sea.

They were particularly abundant in the later Triassic and early Jurassic periods before being replaced as a premier aquatic predator by another marine reptilian group, the Plesiosauria, in the later Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

EOCENE PLANT MATERIAL

GULLS ON THE FORESHORE: T'SIK'WI

A gull cries in protest at not getting his share of a meal

Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. 

The Laridae are known from not-yet-published fossil evidence from the Early Oligocene — 30–33 million years ago. 

Three gull-like species were described by Alphonse Milne-Edwards from the early Miocene of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France. 

Another fossil gull from the Middle to Late Miocene of Cherry County, Nebraska, USA, has been placed in the prehistoric genus Gaviota. 

These fossil gulls, along with undescribed Early Oligocene fossils are all tentatively assigned to the modern genus Larus. Among those of them that have been confirmed as gulls, Milne-Edwards' "Larus" elegans and "L." totanoides from the Late Oligocene/Early Miocene of southeast France have since been separated in Laricola.

Gulls are most closely related to the terns in the family Sternidae and only distantly related to auks, skimmers and distantly to waders. 

A historical name for gulls is mews, which is cognate with the German möwe, Danish måge, Swedish mås, Dutch meeuw, Norwegian måke/måse and French mouette. We still see mews blended into the lexicon of some regional dialects.

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest and my family, gulls are known as t̕sik̕wi. Most folk refer to gulls from any number of species as seagulls. This name is a local custom and does not exist in the scientific literature for their official naming. Even so, it is highly probable that it was the name you learned for them growing up.

If you have been to a coastal area nearly everywhere on the planet, you have likely encountered gulls. They are the elegantly plumed but rather noisy bunch on any beach. You will recognize them both by their size and colouring. 

Gulls are typically medium to large birds, usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings. They typically have harsh shrill cries and long, yellow, curved bills. Their webbed feet are perfect for navigating the uneven landscape of the foreshore when they take most of their meals. 

Most gulls are ground-nesting carnivores that take live food or scavenge opportunistically, particularly the Larus species. Live food often includes crab, clams (which they pick up, fly high and drop to crack open), fish and small birds. Gulls have unhinging jaws which allow them to consume large prey which they do with gusto. 

Their preference is to generally live along the bountiful coastal regions where they can find food with relative ease. Some prefer to live more inland and all rarely venture far out to sea, except for the kittiwakes. 

The larger species take up to four years to attain full adult plumage, but two years is typical for small gulls. Large white-headed gulls are typically long-lived birds, with a maximum age of 49 years recorded for the herring gull.

Gulls nest in large, densely packed, noisy colonies. They lay two or three speckled eggs in nests composed of vegetation. The young are precocial, born with dark mottled down and mobile upon hatching. Gulls are resourceful, inquisitive, and intelligent, the larger species in particular, demonstrating complex methods of communication and a highly developed social structure. Many gull colonies display mobbing behaviour, attacking and harassing predators and other intruders. 

Certain species have exhibited tool-use behaviour, such as the herring gull, using pieces of bread as bait with which to catch goldfish. Many species of gulls have learned to coexist successfully with humans and have thrived in human habitats. Others rely on kleptoparasitism to get their food. Gulls have been observed preying on live whales, landing on the whale as it surfaces to peck out pieces of flesh. They are keen, clever and always hungry.

ON THE GLOVE

GROUSE GRIND

HIKING THE CHIEF

CRETACEOUS CAPILANO RIVER

If you are looking for a wee fossil day trip, then a stroll down to the Capilano River is just the thing.

From downtown Vancouver, drive through Stanley Park heading north over the Lion’s Gate Bridge. Take the North Vancouver exit toward the ferries. Turn right onto Taylor Way and then right again at Clyde Avenue. Look for the Park Royal Hotel. Park anywhere along Clyde Avenue.

From Clyde Avenue walk down the path to your left towards the Capilano River. Watch the water level and tread cautiously as it can be slippery if there has been any recent rain. Look for beds of sandstone about 200 meters north of the private bridge and just south of the Highway bridge. The fossil beds are just below the Whytecliff Apartment high rises.

You will see some exposed shale in the area. It does not contain fossil material. The fossils occur only in the sandstone. Interesting, but again, not fossiliferous are the many granitic boulders and large boulders of limestone which may have been brought down by glaciers from as far away as Texada Island. Cretaceous plant material (and modern material) found here include Poplar (cottonwood) Populus sp. Bigleaf Maple, Acer machphyllum, Alder, Alnus rubra, Buttercup Ranvuculus sp., Epilobrium, Red cedar, Blackberry and Sword fern.

LINGULA ANATINA: PRIMATIVE BRACHIOPOD

Lingula anatina — a primitive brachiopod 

One of the most primitive brachiopods is this caramel and cream fellow, Lingula anatina. 

Brachiopods are marine invertebrates with a stalk and two shells connected along a hinge. They are often confused with bivalves such as clams. 

Bivalves have shells on the sides of their bodies. Brachiopods have shells on the top and bottom. As a result, the plane of symmetry in a bivalve runs along the hinge while it runs perpendicular to the hinge in brachiopods. 

Lingula forms are regarded as the most primitive brachiopods and represent the first certain appearance of brachiopods in the fossil records dating back 530 million years. 

Their shells do not have any locking mechanisms. Instead, they rely on complex musculature to move their shells. They are the first known examples of animal biomineralisation — a process whereby living organisms stiffen or harden tissues with minerals. Their shells are composed of calcium phosphate and collagen fibres, characters shared only by evolutionarily distant vertebrates.

Lingulid brachiopods had changed so little in appearance since the Silurian, 443-419 million years ago, they are referred to as living fossils — a term bestowed upon them by Charles Darwin himself.

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