ELEPHANT SHREW

This adorable little fellow is a Short-eared elephant shrew, Macroscelides proboscideus, one of 15 species of this order. They range in size from 9.5-12.5 cm.

These small, quadrupedal, insectivorous mammals strongly resemble rodents or opossums with their scaly tails, elongated snouts, and rather longish legs.

They live in the desert and temperate grasslands of southern Africa. The Elephant shrew is considered "Living Fossils" as their distinctive morphology has not changed all that much in the past 30 million years. They ought to have been named Elephant Bunny shrew. They move through the world like wee baby elephant-bunnies, snuffling on all fours and hopping about looking for tasty snacks. They have a preference for seeds, fruit, termites and berries. They know how to live well, taking a siesta each afternoon when the sun gets high in the sky.

BASILEMYS FORELIMB

A beautifully articulated Basilemys turtle forelimb with osteoderms on the palmar surface. This specimen is from outcrops in the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah, USA.

Basilemys is an extinct genus of early terrestrial or land turtles belonging to the family Nanhsiungchelyideae. They had a carapace similar in shape to aquatic turtles but limps and beak closer to terrestrial herbivores.

Today, these lovelies live in the Hell Creek floodplains munching on bits of grass and swamp plants. They are ectotherms, cold-blooded, reptiles and 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. We've got some lovely examples from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation in Alberta and the Sustut Basin in northern British Columbia. Fossil remains of Basilemys have also been found in 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

BASILEMYS: FRESHWATER TURTLE

In April of 2018, Jordan Mallon and Donald Brinkman described a new species of nanhsiungchelyid turtle, Basilemys morrinensis, from a nearly complete shell from the Horsethief Member, lower Maastrichtian, Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta.

You'll recall we've found Basilemys in the Sustut Basin of northern British Columbia. These two finds allow us to make some correlations on what was happening during the Upper Cretaceous in BC and Alberta.

The species Mallon and Brinkman wrote up is intermediate in age between the Campanian forms B. variolosa and B. gaffneyi and the upper Maastrichtian forms B. sinuosa and B. praeclara. It is also intermediate in its morphology, possessing a unique suite of both plesiomorphic — divided extragulars — and derived, square epiplastral beak, pygal wider than long, traits.

The Horseshoe Canyon specimen also boasts an autapomorphic square cervical scale. Phylogenetic analysis assuming parsimony recovers B. morrinensis in a polytomy with B. variolosa and B. gaffneyi, outside the clade formed by the upper Maastrichtian forms B. sinuosa and B. praeclara. The holotype of Basilemys morrinensis provides the first evidence that this genus reached a fairly large size, sometimes over a meter in length in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, so not as small as previously thought based on less complete shell material.

Although Basilemys is usually regarded as terrestrial based on its skull and limb morphology, this specimen has a shell with a low profile — a derived hydrodynamic feature usually indicative of an aquatic mode of life.

The Horseshoe Canyon specimen was found with well-preserved fossils of Equisetum or horsetail. The Basilemys from Sustut was also found in association with plant fossils. So, aquatic, yes. But swampy freshwater aquatic. Or perhaps wet woods and the peripheries of water bodies — lakes, rivers, ponds. We know horsetails prefer a moist location and it appears our dear Basilymys did also. 

Image One: Basilemys morrinensis, CMN 57059, shell, in A, dorsal, B, ventral, C, right lateral, and D, anterior views. Photo: Donald B. Brinkman

Image Two: Depositional context of CMN 57059. Segmented stalks of Equisetum cf. E. perlaevigatum (marked by arrowheads) found associated with shell. B, CMN 57059 as it was originally uncovered in the field (CMN negative #61554). Scale bar equals 8 cm (A).  Photo: Donald B. Brinkman

Mallon, J. C., and D. B. Brinkman. 2018. Basilemys morrinensis, a new species of nanhsiungchelyid turtle from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta, Canada. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2018.1431922.

BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS

These delightfully friendly and super smart fellows are Bottlenose dolphins. They are marine mammals who live in our world's oceans and breathe air at the surface, similar to humans.

They have lungs, inhaling and exhaling through a blowhole at the top of their heads instead of a through their nose.

Dolphins are social mammals and very playful. You may have seen them playing in the water, chasing boats or frolicking with one another. Humpback whales are fond of them and you'll sometimes see them hanging out together. They are also quite vocal, making a lot of interesting noises in the water. They squeak, squawk and use body language — leaping from the water while snapping their jaws and slapping their tails on the surface. They love to blow bubbles, will swim right up to you for a kiss and cuddle. Each individual dolphin has a signature sound, a whistle that is uniquely theirs. Dolphins use this whistle to tell one of their friends and family members from another.