- Alder
- Unidentified Bark
- Poplar (cottonwood) Populus sp.
- Bigleaf maple Acer machphyllum
- Alder Alnus rubra
- Buttercup Ranvuculus sp.
- Epilobrium
- Red cedar
- Blackberry
- Sword fern
Her brethren are playing in the waters of the deep all over the world, from surface waters to our deepest seas — and they are old. They are some of the oldest animals in the fossil record.
Jellyfish and sea jellies are the informal common names given to the medusa-phase or adult phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, a major part of the phylum Cnidaria — more closely related to anemones and corals.
Jellyfish are not fish at all. They evolved millions of years before true fish. The oldest conulariid scyphozoans appeared between 635 and 577 million years ago in the Neoproterozoic of the Lantian Formation, a 150-meter-thick sequence of rocks deposited in southern China.
Others are found in the youngest Ediacaran rocks of the Tamengo Formation of Brazil, c. 505 mya, through to the Triassic. Cubozoans and hydrozoans appeared in the Cambrian of the Marjum Formation in Utah, USA, c. 540 million years ago.
I have seen all sorts of their brethren growing up on the west coast of Canada. I have seen them in tide pools, washed up on the beach and swam amongst thousands of Moon Jellyfish while scuba diving in the Salish Sea. Their movement in the water is marvellous.
In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, jellyfish are known as ǥaǥisama.
The watercolour ǥaǥisama you see here in dreamy pink and white is but one colour variation. They come in blue, purple, orange, yellow and clear — and are often luminescent. They produce light by the oxidation of a substrate molecule, luciferin, in a reaction catalyzed by a protein, luciferase.
Fossil remains of Koala-like animals have been found dating back 25 million years. Some of the relatives of modern koalas were much larger, including the Giant Koala, Phascolarctos stirtoni.
It should likely have been named the Robust Koala, instead of Giant, but this big boy was larger than modern koalas by about a third. Phascolarctos yorkensis, from the Miocene, was twice the size of the modern koalas we know today. Both our modern koalas and their larger relatives co-existed during the Pleistocene, sharing trees and enjoying the tasty vegetation surrounding them.
We get a bird's eye view (or Theropod's eye view) of life back in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. Both here and at Elliott we see dinosaur remains tracks and dino eggs!
Living Fossil / Comb Jelly / Ctenophore |
Look how epic this little guy is!
He is a crab — and if you asked him, the fiercest warrior that ever lived. While that may not be strictly true, crabs do have the heart of a warrior and will raise their claws, sometimes only millimetres into the air, to assert dominance over their world.
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the Phylum Arthropoda.Crabs build their shells from highly mineralized chitin — and chitin gets around. It is the main structural component of the exoskeletons of many of our crustacean and insect friends. Shrimp, crab, and lobster all use it to build their exoskeletons.
Chitin is a polysaccharide — a large molecule made of many smaller monosaccharides or simple sugars, like glucose.
It is handy stuff, forming crystalline nanofibrils or whiskers. Chitin is actually the second most abundant polysaccharide after cellulose. It is interesting as we usually think of these molecules in the context of their sugary context but they build many other very useful things in nature — not the least of these are the hard shells or exoskeletons of our crustacean friends.
Crabs in the Fossil Record
The earliest unambiguous crab fossils date from the Early Jurassic, with the oldest being Eocarcinus from the early Pliensbachian of Britain, which likely represents a stem-group lineage, as it lacks several key morphological features that define modern crabs.
Most Jurassic crabs are only known from dorsal — or top half of the body — carapaces, making it difficult to determine their relationships. Crabs radiated in the Late Jurassic, corresponding with an increase in reef habitats, though they would decline at the end of the Jurassic as the result of the decline of reef ecosystems. Crabs increased in diversity through the Cretaceous and represented the dominant group of decapods by the end.
We find wonderful fossil crab specimens on Vancouver Island. The first I ever collected was at Shelter Point, then again on Hornby Island, down on the Olympic Peninsula and along Vancouver Island's west coast near Nootka Sound. They are, of course, found globally and are one of the most pleasing fossils to find and aggravating to prep of all the specimens you will ever have in your collection. Bless them.
The species named the Canadodus suntoki by Russian researcher Evgeny Popov is named after collector Steve Suntok who donated the fossil to the Royal BC Museum in 2014.
The name roughly translates to “tooth from Canada,” as the fossil is part of a fish dental plate.
Popov, who is one of the world’s leading experts on fossil holocephalian fishes, says that the fossil that Suntok found is an entirely new fish compared to anything found before.
“I knew it was something significant. Not necessarily a new species but something significant,” Suntok told CTV News Thursday.
The fossil dental plate indicates that the fish was likely a type of Chimaeridae, which is a species of fish that feeds on invertebrates by crushing their shells on its hard flat dental plates, before eating the animal inside, according to researchers.
Suntok found the fossil in a northwest portion of Sooke. Researchers say that Sooke is an excellent area for paleontological discoveries, with a variety of fossils at the Royal BC Museum coming from the region.
Ancient whale vertebrae and rib specimens have been found in Sooke and donated to the museum, as well as a potential terrestrial mammal bone, fossil leaves, and many invertebrate fossils, such as oysters, barnacles and snails.
The Suntok family has experience finding and preserving fossils on Vancouver Island. Many fossils discovered by the family have been donated to the Royal BC Museum, including a new waterbird coracoid bone which was named after Steve Suntok’s daughter, Leah, in 2015, named the Stemec suntokum.“Because of erosion, every time we go there there’s something new,” said Suntok.
“New things get exposed so from time to time I go back just to check out the site. On this occasion, I found something I’d never seen before, which was pretty exciting.”
Researchers say that cliff faces near Muir Creek and beaches near Kirby Creek in Sooke “easily contain the richest exposures of fossils near Victoria.” Fossils in the area tend to date back approximately 25 million years.
Vancouver Island palaeontologist Marji Johns, who is a co-author of research on the Canadodus suntoki, says that she was thrilled by the discovery.
Sooke, British Columbia and Juan de Fuca Strait |
Suntok says that having the Canadodus suntoki named after him is a dream come true.
“I’m ecstatic about it. It’s the dream of every amateur collector,” he said.
“It’s an honour. I don’t deserve it, but I’m extremely appreciative of it.”
Reference:
https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/it-s-an-honour-newly-discovered-fossil-fish-species-named-after-vancouver-island-collector-1.13515837
Moon Raven Pole at Saxman Totem Park |
While rare today, these are British Columbia’s only native oyster. Had you been dining on their brethren in the 1800s or earlier, it would have been this species you were consuming. Middens from Port Hardy to California are built from Ostrea lurida.
These wonderful invertebrates bare their souls with every bite. Have they lived in cold water, deep beneath the sea away from the suns rays and heat? Are they the rough and tumbled beach denizens whose thick shells have formed to withstand the pounding of the sea?
Is the oyster in your mouth thin and slimy having just done the nasty spurred by the warming waters of Spring? Is this oyster a local or was it shipped to your current local and if asked would greet you with "Kon'nichiwa?" Not if the beauty on your plate is indeed Ostrea lurida.
We have been cultivating, indeed maximizing the influx of invasive species to the cold waters of the Salish Sea. But in the wild waters off the coast of British Columbia is the last natural abundant habitat of the tasty Ostrea lurida in the pristine waters of Nootka Sound. The area is home to the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have consumed this species boiled or steamed for thousands of years. Here these ancient oysters not only survive but thrive — building reefs and providing habitat for crab, anemones and small marine animals.
Oysters are in the family Ostreidae — the true oysters. Their lineage evolved in the Early Triassic — 251 - 247 million years ago.
In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, an oyster is known as t̕łox̱t̕łox̱. I am curious to learn if any of the Nuu-chah-nulth have a different word for an oyster. If you happen to know, I would be grateful to learn.
The head-and-body length is around 24–35 cm, and the weight is typically between 0.62 and 0.97 kg.