In this episode you'll hear about some wonderful free Zoom Fossil Talks coming up in March and May 2024. There is no need to register. You can head on over to www.fossiltalksandfieldtrips.com note the talk dates and times. The link will be shared live on the site on the day of the talk. Upcoming Free Zoom Lectures: Sun, March 24, 2024, 2PM PST — Dan Bowen — Struck by Lightning: The Mary Anning Story ​Learn about the history of Mary Anning from Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS) and British Columbia Palaeontological Alliance (BCPA). Mary Anning was an Engli ..read more

Victoria is a vertebrate palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist and is the leading expert on the palaeobiology of the armoured dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs. She has named several new species of ankylosaurs, studied how they used and evolved their charismatic armour and weaponry, and investigated how their biogeography was shaped by dispersals between Asia and North America. British Columbia has a rich fossil record spanning over 500 million years of the history of life on Earth. Victoria’s research at the Royal BC Museum will investigate how the ancient plants and animals that lived here ..read more

A Taste for Studies: Tortoise Urine, Armadillos, Fried Tarantula & Goat Eyeballs While eating study specimens is not in vogue today, it was once common practice for researchers in the 1700-1880s. Charles Darwin belonged to a club dedicated to tasting exotic meats, and in his first book wrote almost three times as much about dishes like armadillo and tortoise urine than he did on the biogeography of his Galapagos finches. One of the most famously strange scientific meals occurred on January 13, 1951, at the 47th Explorers Club Annual Dinner (ECAD) when members purportedly dined on a frozen ..read more

In the late 1930s, our understanding of the transition of fish to tetrapods — and the eventual jump to modern vertebrates — took an unexpected leap forward. The evolutionary a'ha came from a single partial fossil skull found on the shores of a riverbank in Eastern Canada.  Meet the Stegocephalian, Elpistostege watsoni, an extinct genus of finned tetrapodomorphs that lived during the Late Givetian to Early Frasnian of the Late Devonian — 382 million years ago.  Elpistostege watsoni — perhaps the sister taxon of all other tetrapods — was first described in 1938 by B ..read more

Learn all about the gear you might need out in the field fossil collecting. What you'll need depends on where you collect and what time of year you go but this will get you started and set up for success ..read more

Joe Moysiuk is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist, with research interests in macroevolution, evolutionary developmental biology, and the origin of animal life. He has extensive experience with fossils from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada, one of the world’s most significant fossil sites. As part of his continuum of Burgess Shale-related research, he is currently pursuing a PhD focusing on the earliest evolution of today’s most diverse animal group: the arthropods. Link to Video of the Talk on ARCHEA: https://youtu.be/4UZ-QwgDozk ..read more

Welcome to Season Seven of the Fossil Huntress Podcast. In this episode you’ll hear about the many yummy fossil projects and field trips over the past few months including a trip to Vancouver Island’s Wild West Coast, great talks & a TV project ..read more

2022 Palaeontology / Paleontology Lecture Series with all of you. Zoom Link: www.fossiltalksandfieldtrips.com SPRING 2022 Kicking off 2022 is Danna Staaf, the Cephalopodiatrist with Cephalopods are the New Dinosaurs, Sun, February 12, 2022 at 2PM PST. Cephalopods, Earth's first truly substantial animals, are still among us. Their fascinating family tree is a whose-who of squid, octopus, cuttlefish, nautilus, and their brethren. Cephalopods number more than 800 species with new species still being found. As the inventors of swimming, cephalopods presided over the sea for millions of years ..read more

The Rocky Mountain Trench is one of the few geologic wonders we can see from space. It is known as the Valley of a Thousand Peaks or simply the Trench — a large valley on the western side of the northern part of North America's Rocky Mountains ..read more

The islands have gone by many names. To the people who call the islands home, Haida Gwaii means Island of the People, it is a shortened version of an earlier name, Haadala Gwaii-ai, or taken out of concealment. Back at the time of Nangkilslas, it was called Didakwaa Gwaii, or “shoreward country.” By any name, the islands are a place of beauty and spirit and enjoy a special place in both the natural and supernatural world. Haida oral history traces the lineage of their families back to the ocean’s origins. Spear points from Huxley Island confirm a date of between 12,500 - 13,500 years ago. The ..read more