Woolly Mammoths, Mammuthus primigenius,  have always held wonder for me. These massive, hairy — and likely very smelly beasts — lived alongside us for a time. If you stood beside him and reached way up, you might be able to touch his tusks but likely not reach up to his mouth or even his eyes. He had a shaggy coat of light or dark coloured hair with long outer hair strands covering ..read more

Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri One of the classic Vancouver Island fossil localities is the Santonian-Maastrichtian, Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The quarry is no longer active as such though there is a busy little gravel quarry a little way down the road closer to Ammonite falls near Benson Creek Falls. Today it is ..read more

A lovely rolled trilobite, Calymene blumenbachii,  from outcrops in the UK. This wee beauty is in the collections of the deeply awesome Theresa Paul Spink Dunn — or perhaps in her daughter Layla's collections as she is quite the budding palaeontologist. This Silurian beauty is from the Homerian, Wenlock Series, Wrens Nest, Dudley, UK.Calymene blumenbachii, sometimes erroneously spelled ..read more

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. In the Kwak'wala language of the ..read more

Dall's PorpoiseThese delightfully friendly and super smart fellows are Dall's porpoise. In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, a blowhole is known as a ka̱'was, whether on a dolphin (porpoise) or whale and a porpoise is known as a k̓ulut̕a. In the Pacific Northwest, we see many of their kind — the shy, blunt-nosed ..read more

Light in the oceans? It is chemistry, my friends. In the inky blackness of the deep sea, more than 90% of the animals are luminescent. It is quite a startling number but makes good sense when you think of the edge bioluminescence provides. The ability to generate light helps umpteen animals find mates, attract prey and avoid predation. Handy stuff, light. What you know about light ..read more

This lovely little biscuit is a Holectypus sea urchin from 120 million-year-old deposits from the Lagniro Formation of Madagascar.The specimen you see here is in the collections of my beautiful friend Ileana. She and I were blessed to meet in China many years ago and formed an unbreakable bond that happens so few times in one's life.  Holectypus are a genus of extinct echinoids related to ..read more

A trip along Chuckanut Drive, in northwestern Washington is a chance to view incredible diversity from sea to sky. An amazing array of plants and animals call this coastline home. For the fossil enthusiast, it is a chance to slip back in time and have a bird’s eye view of a tropical paradise preserved in the Eocene strata of various fossil sites. Snug up against the Pacific Ocean, this ..read more

This lovely slate grey and beige ammonite with the fine ribbing is Brewericeras hulenense (Anderson 1938) — a fast-moving, nektonic (no idle floating here!) carnivorous ammonite from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada.This specimen is just over 12cm in length, a little under the average of 13.4cm. There are several localities in the islands of Haida Gwaii where ..read more

Horseshoe crabs are marine and brackish water arthropods of the order Xiphosura — a slowly evolving, conservative taxa.Much like (slow) Water Striders (Aquarius remigis), (relatively sluggish) Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and (the current winner on really slow evolution) Elephant Sharks (Callorhinchus milii), these fellows have a long history in the fossil record with very few anatomical ..read more