CRETE: DEINOTHERIUM GIGANTEUM

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, Dikti, to its ocean caressed pink sand beaches.

Much of the island of Crete is Miocene and filled with fossil mollusks, bivalves, 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 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

HYPODICRANOTUS STRIATULUS OF ONTARIO

Hypodicranotus striatulus

Take a gander at this unusual trilobite, Hypodicranotus striatulus (Walcott, 1875), with his gloriously bulbous head shield. Missing from this specimen is the wonderful forked hypostome from the dorsal exoskeleton that marks him as H. striatulus.

He’s from outcrops in the Verulam Formation, Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. He lived in a deep subtidal environment as a nektobenthic deposit feeder some 460.9 to 449.5 million years ago.

These extinct pelagic trilobites are in the order Asaphida in the family Remopleuridae. Specimens have been found in Middle Ordovician marine outcrops from Ontario, Canada (this fellow is from here), the Northwest Territories, Quebec and in New York State, United States. Some of his sister taxa also in Remopleurididae (Hawle and Corda, 1847)  have been found in the Northwest Territories, Quebec, the UK and in Iowa, Wisconsin and Nevada. Collection of the awesome Marc R. Hänsel

DINOSAUR GEORGE PODCAST

Recently, I had the very great pleasure of chatting with the deeply awesome "Dinosaur George" Blasting for his Dinosaur George Podcast. We talked about fossil sites of the Pacific Northwest, what's cool in paleontology, new fossil discoveries, finds that have made me cry and hunting ammonites (while getting shot at) in Alberta, Canada.

George is the host of the Dinosaur George Podcast. And, as one might expect, it is devoted entirely to paleontology and the natural sciences. In each episode, he and a guest explore what paleontologists do, what area of research or discovery lights them up, how they know what kind of fossil they have found and share personal stories from the field. If you're interested in learning more about paleontology, I highly recommend it.

Dinosaur George interviews some of the most interesting cats in paleo. Evolutionary Biologist, Dr. Devin O'Brien was on recently talking about canine teeth of our beloved saber-tooth-cat, Smilodon. Paleo-artist, Eric Warren shared about his craft which is a mix of science with pure-hearted creativity, and Dr. Dave Hone waxed poetic about pterosaurs. The podcast promises a veritable who's who in paleontology eager to share their love of fossils, along with stories of their very best and very worst days in the field.

Give it a listen. I'm hugely biased (we love George) but I'm not alone. The Dinosaur George Podcast just made the Top 5 Podcasts of all time. I'll pop a live link here: http://www.dinosaurgeorgepodcast.com/

CRETACEOUS TERRESTRIAL TURTLE

A beautifully articulated Basilemys hand with osteoderms on the palmar surface. This specimen is from outcrops in the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah, USA. Basilemys is an extinct genus of terrestrial (land) turtle belonging to the family Nanhsiungchelyideae.

These ectotherms (cold-blooded) reptiles were amniotes -- they breathed air and did not lay eggs underwater but came to shore similar to modern turtles. They are known from Cretaceous deposits in North America and Asia.

Fossil remains of Basilemys have been found in Alberta, Saskatchewan, China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, the United States in California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wyoming and Uzbekistan from 144 collections and 152 occurrences. Photo credit: Joe Sertich