MUD, MONSTERS AND AMMONITES: FOSSIL HUNTING AT KIMMERIDGE BAY

There’s a particular kind of madness that takes hold when you arrive at Kimmeridge Bay on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset. 

You tell yourself you’re just going for a “nice seaside walk,” but five minutes later you’re crouched in the mud like an enthusiastic raccoon, pockets bulging with ammonites and your knees soaked through by 150 million years of ancient ooze.

Kimmeridge Bay is part of the famed Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site, and what a glorious bit of deep-time drama it is. These dark shales and limestones belong to the Kimmeridge Clay Formation, laid down during the Late Jurassic, roughly 157–152 million years ago, when Dorset sat beneath a warm shallow sea teeming with life. 

No cream teas. No tourists in sensible rain jackets. Just marine reptiles, squidgy cephalopods, fish, crustaceans and enough mud to preserve a kingdom.

The cliffs here are famously rich in organic material — so rich, in fact, that the Kimmeridge Clay became one of the major source rocks for North Sea oil. Every step you take is over the compressed remains of ancient plankton, algae and marine life. Delightful, really. Ancient death soup under your hiking boots.

And the fossils! Oh, the fossils.

Ammonites are the stars of the show, spiralled little beauties weathering out of the shale by the dozens after winter storms and heavy tides. Some are tiny enough to fit on your fingertip; others are dinner-plate sized beasts that make you briefly consider whether you can casually carry 40 pounds of rock back to the car without injuring yourself or your dignity.

You’ll also find belemnites — the bullet-shaped internal guards of extinct squid-like cephalopods — scattered everywhere like Jurassic cigars tossed aside by some enormous marine gangster. Bivalves, marine snails, crustaceans and fossil wood turn up regularly, and if the fossil gods are smiling upon you, you may glimpse bones from ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs weathering from the cliffs. Proper sea dragons.

These waters once swam with predators. Ichthyosaurs sliced through the sea with tuna-shaped precision while long-necked plesiosaurs lurked below like nightmare swans with teeth. Above them drifted ammonites in absurd abundance, jetting through the water column while trying very hard not to become lunch.

The real joy of Kimmeridge is that the geology is laid out like pages in a very muddy storybook. Broad wave-cut platforms stretch out at low tide, exposing bedding planes packed with fossils. You can literally walk across ancient seabeds while gulls scream overhead and the English Channel hurls itself dramatically against the shore in proper British fashion.

There is, of course, an art to fossil hunting here. The first rule is simple: always check the tides. The sea at Kimmeridge comes in with alarming enthusiasm and absolutely no regard for your collecting plans. More than one eager fossil hunter has found themselves trapped while trying to “just check one more rock.”

The second rule? Never trust a shale slab. The moment you pick one up, it will either crumble beautifully to reveal a perfect ammonite — or explode directly into your face like a Jurassic cream cracker.

Honestly, both outcomes are part of the experience.

And that is the magic of Kimmeridge Bay. It is messy, windswept, ancient and utterly alive with stories. Every fossil you hold was once part of a thriving Jurassic ecosystem long before humans arrived to invent car parks, sandwiches and waterproof trousers.

You arrive looking for fossils, but somewhere between the ammonites, the sea spray and the black shale under your boots, you begin to feel something else entirely — the dizzying wonder of deep time.

Also lower back pain from carrying too many rocks. Fossil hunting is a glamorous business.

OCEAN SUNFISH: MOLA MOLA

Mola mola (Linnaeus, 1758)

Meet the mighty Mola mola — the ocean’s giant floating dinner plate with the personality of an overgrown puppy and the body plan of a fish someone clearly stopped designing halfway through. 

This massive, docile sunfish is one of the two heaviest bony fish alive today, rivalled only by its equally peculiar cousin, the southern sunfish. 

Imagine a Volkswagen Beetle crossed with a pizza crust and you are delightfully close to the truth.

The Molidae family first flapped onto the evolutionary scene between 45 and 35 million years ago — long after the dinosaurs had shuffled off this mortal coil and back when whales still sported legs and looked suspiciously like wolves testing out a new aquatic lifestyle. 

Their ancestors were adorable pufferfish-like oddballs, chunky little reef dwellers built like armoured dumplings. 

Those early pioneers eventually gave rise to Mola around 23 to 20.4 million years ago. Their cousins, the wonderfully bizarre Ranzania, appeared a bit later, around 16 to 13.8 million years ago. 

A third modern genus, Masturus, remains frustratingly absent from the fossil record. 

Somewhere out there, hidden in ancient sediments, is the fossil equivalent of a missing puzzle piece waiting for some lucky fossil hunter to stumble upon.

Now here is where things get wonderfully absurd. Baby mola are tiny. Ridiculously tiny. Dozens of newborns could fit in the palm of your hand, each scarcely larger than a pea and looking more like nervous confetti than future leviathans. 

As youngsters, they are intensely curious and occasionally swim up to humans for a wee investigative nibble. My own mother was sampled by one as a girl while travelling. One tiny tooth embedded itself in her leg and worked its way out weeks later like the world’s most polite shark attack. She still tells the story fondly, which says a great deal about both her and the fish.

As adults, however, mola abandon all restraint and become absolute units. Most tip the scales at 247 to 1,000 kilograms — roughly one-and-a-half cows or one very surprised grizzly bear. The heavyweight champion so far is a bump-head sunfish, Mola alexandrini, caught off Japan in 1996. 

That magnificent beast weighed an astonishing 2,300 kilograms (5,070 pounds) and stretched nearly 2.72 metres long. That is less “fish” and more “sentient manhole cover with fins.”

Their sheer bulk and thick hide discourage many predators, though younger fish are still vulnerable to bluefin tuna and mahi-mahi. Adults, meanwhile, occasionally end up on the menu for orca, sharks, sea lions, and sadly, humans. In parts of Japan, Korea and Taiwan they have historically been eaten, though thankfully the European Union has banned the sale of mola species from the family Molidae.

And then there are the names. Oh, the names. No fish on Earth seems to have inspired quite so much international confusion.

The scientific name mola comes from the Latin for “millstone,” which is honestly fair. They do look like giant grinding stones with fins glued on as an afterthought. 

Their English name, sunfish, comes from their habit of basking at the surface like retirees on holiday in Palm Springs. Across Europe, many names translate loosely to moonfish — the Dutch maanvis, Portuguese peixe lua, French poisson lune, Spanish pez luna, Italian pesce luna and many others — all nodding to that glorious moon-shaped silhouette.

The Germans, never ones to sugarcoat things, also call it Schwimmender Kopf — “swimming head.” Accurate. Slightly rude, but accurate. The Polish samogłów means “head alone,” which again feels unnecessarily personal. 

Scandinavian languages gift us klumpfisk or “lump fish,” while the Finnish möhkäkala roughly translates to “chunky blob fish,” which sounds less like a species name and more like playground bullying. I am Norwegian on my Mother's side and am going to have to fail my relations on their truly uninspired use of names here.

The Chinese name, fān chē yú 翻車魚, means “toppled wheel fish,” which may be my favourite of all. Somewhere, someone looked at a mola and thought, “Ah yes. An overturned wagon wheel with opinions.”

By any name, these gentle giants continue to drift through tropical and temperate seas around the world, basking in the sunlight, nibbling jellyfish, and confusing humanity with their glorious evolutionary weirdness

FOSSIL FLOWERS AND POLLINATORS

Flower encased in amber

Plant fossils are found coast-to-coast in Canada, from 45-million-year-old mosses in British Columbia to fossil forests on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere islands in the Canadian Arctic.

The early angiosperms developed advantages over contemporary groups — rapid reproductive cycles —  which made them highly efficient, adapting well to "weedy" growth. These modifications, including flowers for the attraction of insect pollinators, proved advantageous in many habitats.

Interaction between plant and pollinator has been a driving force behind the astounding diversification of both flowering plants and insects. 

Together, they tell one of the most interesting co-evolutionary stories on Earth, and one of vital importance to us. We must give thanks to our precious bees for their work pollinating about one-third of our diet and adding nutritious and delicious fruits and vegetables to our menu. 

Some of the earliest known flowering plants are found in northeastern British Columbia coalfields. Late Cretaceous (about 101–66 million years ago) floras of the Dawson Creek area of British Columbia, and Milk River, Alberta, reveal increasing dominance by angiosperms. 

These fossils, while generally resembling some living angiosperms, represent old, extinct families, and their relationships to living groups remain unclear.

Early pollinators co-evolved with flowering plants

At the end of the Cretaceous, the climate cooled, inland seas covering much of western Canada drained, and dinosaurs became extinct. 

At the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene is evidence of extinction amongst land plants, too. 

During this interval of mass extinction, the Earth was struck by a massive meteorite. The fallout from this impact is preserved in boundary sediments in southern Saskatchewan as a pale clay, rich in rare earth elements such as iridium.

In the early Paleogene period (66–56 million years ago), we entered the age of mammals. Paralleling the rise of mammals is the rise of modern flora, which consists overwhelmingly of our glorious flowering plants. One of the most prolific fossil sites for Paleogene flowering plants, fruits and seeds is the Messel pit in Germany. In 2012, a research group found over 140 different plant species, 65 of which were previously unknown.

Early Paleogene fossils are found over much of Alberta —  Red Deer River, Lake Wabamun coalfields and Robb to Coal Valley coalfields —  and southern Saskatchewan —  Eastend area to Estevan coalfield —  to as far north as Ellesmere Island. 

These floras reveal a variety of flowering plants, including members of the sycamore, birch and walnut families, but the most abundant fossil plants are the katsuras and the dawn redwood, now native only to southeastern Asia.

In the mid-Paleogene period (56–34 million years ago) brief climatic warming coincided with the rapid diversification of flowering plants. Eocene fossils in British Columbia (Princeton, Kamloops and Smithers areas) reveal increasing numbers of modern plant families, with extinct species of birch, maple, beech, willow, chestnut, pine and fir.

Fossil Leaves, Princeton, British Columbia, Canada

Exceptionally well-preserved fossil forests found on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere islands in the Canadian Arctic illustrate clearly the contrast between modern Canadian vegetation and the floras of a much warmer past. 

These fossil forests, 40 to 60 million years old, consist of large stumps, many over 1 m in diameter, preserved where they grew, still rooted in ancient soil.

Thick mats of leaf litter that formed the forest floor reveal the types of plants inhabiting the forests.

Lush redwood and cypress swamps covered the lowlands, while the surrounding uplands were dominated by a mixed conifer and hardwood forest resembling that of modern eastern North America. Even accounting for continental drift, these forests grew well above the Arctic Circle, and bear witness to a time in Canada's past when a cold arctic climatic regime did not exist.

Around 45-50 million years ago, during the middle Eocene, a number of freshwater lakes appeared in an arc extending from Smithers in northern British Columbia, south through the modern Cariboo, to Kamloops, the Nicola Valley, Princeton and finally, Republic, Washington.

The lakes likely formed after a period of faulting created depressions in the ground, producing a number of basins or grabens into which water collected — imagine gorgeous smallish lakes similar to Cultus Lake near Chilliwack, British Columbia.

The groaning Earth, pressured by the collision of tectonic plates produced a series of erupting volcanoes around the Pacific Northwest. These spouting volcanoes blew fine-grained ash into the atmosphere and it rained down on the land.

Eocene Plant Fossils, McAbee, BC

The ash washed into the lakes and because of its texture, and possibly because of low water oxygen levels on the bottoms that slowed decay beautifully preserved the dead remains of plant, invertebrate, and fish fossils —  some in wonderful detail with fascinating and well-preserved flora.

Near the town of Princeton, British Columbia, we see the results of that fine ash in the many fossil exposures. The fossils you find here are Middle Eocene, Allenby Formation with a high degree of detail in their preservation. Here we find fossil maple, alder, fir, pine, dawn redwood and ginkgo material. 

The Allenby Formation of the Princeton Group is regarded as Middle Eocene based on palynology (Rouse and Srivastava, 1970), mammals (Russell, 1935; Gazin, 1953); freshwater fishes (Wilson, 1977, 1982) and potassium-argon dating (Hills and Baadsgaard, 1967).

Several species of fossilized insects can be found in the area and rare, occasional fossil flowers and small, perfectly preserved fish. More than 50 flowers have been reported (Basinger, 1976) from the Princeton chert locality that crops out on the east side of the Similkameen River about 8 km south of Princeton, British Columbia.

The first descriptions of fossil plants from British Columbia were published in 1870–1920 by J.W. Dawson, G.M. Dawson, and D.P. Penhallow. Permineralized plants were first described from the Princeton chert in the 1970s by C.N. Miller, J.F. Basinger, and others, followed by R.A. Stockey and her students. W.C. Wehr and K.R. Johnson revitalized the study of fossils at Republic with the discovery of a diverse assemblage in 1977.

In 1987, J.A. Wolfe and Wehr produced a United States Geological Survey monograph on Republic, and Wehr cofounded the Stonerose Interpretive Center as a venue for public collecting. Systematic studies of the Okanagan Highlands plants, as well as paleoecological and paleoclimate reconstructions from palynomorphs and leaf floras, continue to expand our understanding of this important Early Eocene assemblage.

One of the sister sites to McAbee, the Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park Fossil Beds, offers an honours system for their site. Visitors may handle and view fossils but are asked to not take them home. 

Both Driftwood Canyon and McAbee are part of that arc of Eocene lakebed sites that extend from Smithers in the north, down to the fossil site of Republic Washington, in the south. 

The grouping includes the fossil sites of Driftwood Canyon, Quilchena, Allenby, Tranquille, McAbee, Princeton and Republic. Each of these localities provides important clues to our ancient climate.

The fossils range in age from Early to Middle Eocene. McAbee had a more temperate climate, slightly cooler and wetter than other Eocene sites to the south at Princeton, British Columbia, Republic in north-central Washington, in the Swauk Formation near Skykomish and the Chuckanut Formation of northern Washington state. The McAbee fossil beds consist of 30 metres of fossiliferous shale in the Eocene Kamloops Group.

The fossils are preserved here as impressions and carbonaceous films. We see gymnosperm (16 species); a variety of conifers (14 species to my knowledge); two species of ginkgo, a large variety of angiosperm (67 species); a variety of insects and fish remains, the rare feather and a boatload of mashed deciduous material. Nuts and cupules are also found from the dicotyledonous Fagus and Ulnus and members of Betulaceae, including Betula and Alnus.

We see many species that look very similar to those growing in the Pacific Northwest today. You can find well-preserved specimens of cypress, dawn redwood, fir, spruce, pine, larch, hemlock, alder, birch, dogwood, beech, sassafras, cottonwood, maple, elm and grape. If we look at the pollen data, we see over a hundred highly probable species from the site. Though rare, McAbee has also produced spiders, birds (and lovely individual feathers) along with multiple specimens of the freshwater crayfish, Aenigmastacus crandalli.

For insects, we see dragonflies, damselflies, cockroaches, termites, earwigs, aphids, leafhoppers, spittlebugs, lacewings, a variety of beetles, gnats, ants, hornets, stick insects, water striders, weevils, wasps and March flies. The insects are particularly well-preserved. Missing are the tropical Sabal (palm), seen at Princeton.

200 km to the south, fossil leaves and fish were first recognized at Republic, Washington, by miners in the early 1900s. We find the impressive Ensete (banana) and Zamiaceae (cycad) at Eocene sites in Republic and Chuckanut, Washington. 

Many early workers considered these floras to be of Oligocene or Miocene age. C.A. Arnold described Canadian occurrences of conifers and Azolla in the 1950s. Palynological studies in the 1960s by L.V. Hills, G.E.Rouse, and others and those of fossil fish by M.V.H. Wilson in the 1970–1980s provided the framework for paleobotanical research at several key localities.

With the succession of ice ages that swept down across North America in the Pleistocene, there were four intervening warm periods. These warmer periods help many species, including the genus Oenothera, enjoy four separate waves of colonization — each hybridizing with the survivors of previous waves. This formed the present-day subsection Euoenothera. The group is genetically and morphologically diverse and contains some of the most interesting of the angiosperms.

Today, there are about 145 species of herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Oenothera, all native to the Americas. It is the type genus of the family Onagraceae. We know them by many names — evening primrose, suncups, and sundrops  —  but they are not closely related to the true primroses (genus Primula).

Oenothera flowers are pollinated by insects, such as moths and bees. One of the most interesting things I have learned (thank you, Jim Barkley) is a clever little evolutionary trait exhibited by the beach evening primrose, Oenothera drummondil. 

These lovelies can actively sense and respond to the buzzing of bees. Marine Veits et al. were able to show that this species has evolved to respond to the sound of bees by producing nectar with a higher sugar concentration, certainly yummy by bee standards — therein attracting more pollinators and increasing the plant species reproductive success.

David R. Greenwood, Kathleen B. Pigg, James F. Basinger, and Melanie L. DeVore: A review of paleobotanical studies of the Early Eocene Okanagan (Okanogan) Highlands floras of British Columbia, Canada, and Washington, USA.

Sauquet H, von Balthazar M, Magallón S, et al. The ancestral flower of angiosperms and its early diversification. Nat Commun. 2017;8:16047. Published 2017 Aug 1. doi:10.1038/ncomms16047

Marine Veits  Itzhak Khait  Uri Obolski, et al. Flowers respond to pollinator sound within minutes by increasing nectar sugar concentration. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13331

PETALS FROZEN IN TIME: THE PRINCETON CHERT

It began with a bloom, Florissantia quilchenensis, its petals splayed across a creamy, beige-brown matrix like a fossilized whisper from a warmer world. 

This precious bloom was hard-earned. Covered in dust and sweat, I grinned and held this elusive beauty to the light to take in its exceptional preservation and dusty beauty!

It was day three of my travels. I was hiking the hills around the town of Princeton in the Similkameen region of southern British Columbia, Canada. 

The former mining and railway hub lies at the confluence of the Tulameen into the Similkameen River, just east of the Cascade Mountains. It is dry, arid country covered by native grasslands and low scrub. 

Princeton, BC is located in the traditional territories of the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx (Okanagan) peoples. 

The region has historical significance for the Syilx, particularly the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands, and has been an important area for gathering red ochre for thousands of years. I had first explored the region looking for red ochre deposits to photograph, always with an eye to the local fossils.

On this particular trip, I was searching for fossils and the iconic flower, Florissantia, in the slopes known locally as Hospital Hill.

A lucky split brought a eureka moment. Is it? Could it be? Yes! Peeling back the layers, I had uncovered a near perfect flower and the treasure I had long been seeking. Searching for Florissantia had brought me to the Princeton area on many occasions but my first was found on this trip. 

Under a hand lens, its details unfurl: each vein etched in silica, each contour revealed with startling fidelity. 

I had uncovered a perfect flower, a time capsule telling us about the landscape as it once was, lush, tropical, and steaming with life.

This singular fossil, preserved in almost impossibly fine detail, is one of the jewels of the Princeton Chert, a fossil treasure hidden in the hills of British Columbia. 

Here, an entire ancient ecosystem—plants, fungi, fish, and the delicate traces of vanished warmth—was captured in stone with such precision that cell walls, stomata, and even parasitic fungi remain visible 48 million years later.

The Princeton Chert lies tucked along the east bank of the Similkameen River, 8.5 km south of the town of Princeton, B.C. At first glance, the exposures of the Allenby Formation appear unassuming: thinly layered bands of shale, coal, and pale chert. 

But within these layers, we've discovered something extraordinary—an anatomically preserved flora, fossilized in three dimensions. Unlike typical compression fossils, these organisms were permeated by silica-rich waters so quickly and so thoroughly that even their internal structures survived.

Since the 1950s, collectors and researchers have pulled back the curtain on this Eocene world, but it was in the 1970s and onward that the Chert achieved global attention. Scientists recognized that the Princeton Chert wasn’t just another fossil site. 

It was a Lagerstätte of unparalleled richness—one of the few places on Earth where entire plant communities are preserved down to the microscopic level.

Thin-sectioned under a microscope, these fossils show xylem vessels, aerenchyma, reproductive organs, pollen, seeds, roots, and fungal pathogens—all exquisitely intact. Few fossil floras in the world rival this clarity.

The Princeton Chert formed in a landscape shaped by fire and water. Its 49 known chert layers, ranging from thin wafers to thick beds over half a metre, alternate with volcanic ash, coal, and shale. Each layer represents a momentary pause in time—a lake or pond basin repeatedly drowned in silica-rich waters after nearby volcanic eruptions.

Radiometric dating now places the site at 48.7 million years old, deep within the Early Eocene Ypresian Stage, a time when Earth’s climate simmered near its all-time warmest. Greenhouse gases were high, ice was nearly absent, and tropical warmth lapped into polar regions.

The Princeton Chert flora thrived in shallow lakes and quiet backwaters. Many species were fully aquatic or semi-aquatic, and the fossils show unmistakable features of plants adapted to waterlogged conditions:

• Reduced vascular tissue (because buoyant plants need little support)
• Aerenchyma—honeycombed air chambers for floatation
• Protoxylem lacunae, ringed by thick-walled cells

Many of these plants have close relatives today:

• Allenbya – a water lily
• Keratosperma – an arum with curling, sculptural leaves
• Alismataceae – water plantains
• Ethela – rush-like monocots and sedges

Seeds, fruits, and roots appear in beautiful profusion. Meanwhile, terrestrial plants—those carried in by floods or dropped by birds—are rare but present.

The chert also preserves snippets of the animals that lived alongside these aquatic gardens. In the overlying shale beds, paleontologists have recovered Amia (bowfins), Amyzon, Libotonius, and even a soft-shelled turtle—a small but telling cast of freshwater neighbours.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Princeton Chert is its preservation of fungi. Here, we have identified:

• Tar spot fungi parasitizing Uhlia palm leaves
• Cryptodidymosphaerites princetonensis, a mycoparasite attacking the tar spot fungus
• Ectomycorrhizae—the first ever documented fossil mycorrhizal symbiosis with Pinus

In Metasequoia milleri, the Eocene ancestor of modern dawn redwood, mycorrhizal relationships appear nearly identical to those in modern forests. It is as though 50 million years have passed with hardly a change.

The Princeton Chert has attracted generations of paleobotanists, sedimentologists, and fossil enthusiasts, each drawn to its exquisite three-dimensional preservation and its window into Eocene ecosystems. 

Charles William “Chuck” Basinger, a Canadian paleobotanist renowned for his work on anatomically preserved plants and early conifer evolution. His meticulous studies helped illuminate the internal structures of Princeton Chert flora at cellular resolution. 

Ruth A. Stockey, a leading paleobotanist specialising in fossil conifers, seed plants, and reproductive biology, has published (along with her many grad students) extensively on the chert’s gymnosperms and angiosperms, reconstructing entire plants from roots to reproductive organs. 

Together with many collaborators over the decades, these scientists have pieced together a vivid portrait of ancient wetland forests—lush, diverse, and humming with microscopic and macroscopic life. 

The site is also beloved within the fossil-collecting community. The Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS) has organized field trips here for decades. 

Many members remember their first visit: crouched on a hot summer slope, poking about the roadcuts, collecting fossil insects and plants. One of the first large scale field trips to the region by the VanPS was part of the first BCPA Symposium held in 1998 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 

Smaller field trips became a regular occurrence, usually one every year or two, and that trend continues. The result of all that exploration is a greater understanding of the many fossil species to be found here.

Dan Bowden of the VanPS has done some wonderful work cataloguing the many fossils found here, with a particularly good eye in identifying the fossil insects. 

These excursions have helped train new generations of citizen scientists, fostering a deep respect for the site’s scientific importance.

If you plan to head to Princeton, be sure to include the Princeton & District Museum on your travels. The museum holds a good selection of the local fossils. It is located at 167 Vermillion Avenue, Princeton, BC, V0X 1W0. You can confirm their house on their website at princetonmuseum.org

Know Before You Go: Exploring the Fossil Lakes of British Columbia

Getting There from Vancouver

• Drive east on Highway 1 through Hope, then continue along Highway 3 (the Crowsnest Highway). The town of Hope offers a good place to stop for a meal and gas up your vehicle.
• Pass through Manning Park and descend into the Similkameen Valley toward Princeton.
• The Princeton Chert itself is on private and protected land; access requires permission and often participation in sanctioned society trips.
• Surface collecting yields a wonderful assortment of fossils. 

ETHELDRED BENETT: ENGLISH GEOLOGIST & CITIZEN SCIENTIST

In the early days of paleontology, men were men, and women, quite frankly, were not paleontologists, geologists, members of the Royal Society nor welcome in a male dominated science community. 

Until they were. And sometimes quite by accident.

Meet Etheldred Benett, an early English geologist often credited with being the first female geologist — a fossil collector par excellence.

If you happened to join us for today's VIPS talk with Phil Hadland, Collections & Engagement Curator of Natural Sciences at the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, UK, on 101 Fossils of Folkstone, you will have heard him mention her in his talk.

She was also credited with being a man  —  the Natural History Society of Moscow awarded her membership as Master Etheldredus Benett in 1836. The confusion over her name (it did sound masculine) came again with the bestowing of a Doctorate of Civil Law from Tsar Nicholas I.

The Tsar had read Sowerby's Mineral Conchology, a major fossil reference work which contained the second-highest number of contributed fossils of the day, many of the best quality available at the time. Forty-one of those specimens were credited to Benett. Between her name and this wonderous contribution to a growing science, the Russian Tsar awarded the Doctorate to what he believed was a young male scientist on the rise. 

He believed in education, founding Kyiv University in 1834, just not for women. He was an autocratic military man frozen in time — the thought that this work could have been done by a female was unthinkable. Doubly charming is that the honour from the University of St Petersburg was granted at a time when women were not allowed to attend St. Pete's or any higher institutions. That privilege arrived in 1878, twenty years after Nicholas I's death.

Benett took these honours (and social blunders) with grace. She devoted her life to collecting and studying fossils from the southwest of England, amassing an impressive personal collection she openly shared with geologist friends, colleagues and visitors to her home. Her specialty was fossils from the Middle Cretaceous, Upper Greensand in the Vale of Wardour — a valley in the county of Wiltshire near the River Nadder.

Etheldred was a local Wiltshire girl. Born Etheldred Benett on 22 July 1775 at Pyt House, Tisbury, Wiltshire, the eldest daughter of the local squire Thomas Benett. Etheldred's interest was cultivated by the botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842), a founding member of the Linnean Society. 

Benett's brother had married Lucy Lambert, Aylmer's half-sister. Aylmer was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Society of the Arts. He was also an avid fossil collector and member of the Geological Society of London. The two met and got on famously.

Aylmer kindled an interest in natural history in both of Benett's daughters. Etheldred had a great fondness in geology, stratigraphy and all things paleo, whilst her sister concentrated on botany. Etheldred had a distinct advantage over her near contemporary, the working-class Mary Anning (1799-1847), in that Benett was a woman of independent wealth who never married — and didn't need to — who could pursue the acquisition and study of fossils for her own interest.

While Anning was the marine reptile darling of the age, she was also greatly hindered by her finances. "She sells, seashells by the seashore..." while chanted in a playful spirit today, was not meant kindly at the time. Aylmer's encouragement emboldened Etheldred to go into the field to collect for herself — and collect she did. Profusely.

Benett’s contribution to the early history of Wiltshire geology is significant. She corresponded extensively with the coterie of gentlemen scientists of the day —  Gideon Mantell, William Buckland, James Sowerby, George Bellas Greenough and, Samuel Woodward. She also consorted with the lay folk and had an ongoing correspondence with William Smith, whose stratigraphy work had made a favourable impression on her brother-in-law, Aylmer.

Her collections and collaboration with geologists of the day were instrumental in helping to form the field of geology as a science. One colleague and friend, Gideon Mantell, British physician, geologist and palaeontologist, who discovered four of the five genera of dinosaurs and Iguanadon, was so inspired by Benett's work he named this Cretaceous ammonite after her — Hoplites bennettiana.

Benett's fossil assemblage was a valuable resource for her contemporaries and remains so today. It contains thousands of Jurassic and Cretaceous fossil specimens from the Wiltshire area and the Dorset Coast, including a myriad of first-recorded finds. The scientific name of every taxon is usually based on one particular specimen, or in some cases multiple specimens. Many of the specimens she collected serve as the Type Specimen for new species.

Fossil Sponge, Polypothecia quadriloba, Warminster, Wiltshire

Her particular interest was the collection and study of fossil sponges. Alcyonia caught her eye early on. She collected and recorded her findings with the hope that one of her colleagues might share her enthusiasm and publish her work as a contribution to their own.

Alas, no one took up the helm — those interested were busy with other pursuits (or passed away) and others were less than enthusiastic or never seemed to get around to it.

To ensure the knowledge was shared in a timely fashion, she finally wrote them up and published them herself. You can read her findings in her publication, ‘A Catalogue of Organic Remains of the County of Wiltshire’ (1831), where she shares observations on the fossil sponge specimens and other invert goodies from the outcrops west of town.

She shared her ideas freely and donated many specimens to local museums. It was through her exchange of observations, new ideas and open sharing of fossils with Gideon Mantell and others that a clearer understanding of the Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of Southern England was gained.

In many ways, Mantell was drawn to Benett as his ideas went against the majority opinion. At a time when marine reptiles were dominating scientific discoveries and discussions, he pushed the view that dinosaurs were terrestrial, not amphibious, and sometimes bipedal. Mantell's life's work established the now-familiar idea that the Age of Reptiles preceded the Age of Mammals. Mantell kept a journal from 1819-1852, that remained unpublished until 1940 when E. Cecil Curwen published an abridged version. (Oxford University Press 1940). John A. Cooper, Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove, published the work in its entirety in 2010.

I was elated to get a copy, both to untangle the history of the time and to better learn about the relationship between Mantell and Benett. So much of our geologic past has been revealed since Mantell's first entry two hundred years ago. The first encounter we share with the two of them is a short note from March 8, 1819. "This morning I received a letter from Miss Bennett of Norton House near Warminster Wilts, informing me of her having sent a packet of fossils for me, to the Waggon Office..." The diary records his life, but also the social interactions of the day and the small connected community of the scientific social elite. It is a delight!

Though a woman in a newly evolving field, her work, dedication and ideas were recognized and appreciated by her colleagues. Gideon Mantell described her as, "a lady of great talent and indefatigable research," whilst the Sowerbys noted her, "labours in the pursuit of geological information have been as useful as they have been incessant."

Benett produced the first measured sections of the Upper Chicksgrove quarry near Tisbury in 1819, published and shared with local colleagues as, "the measure of different beds of stone in Chicksgrove Quarry in the Parish of Tisbury.” The stratigraphic section was later published by naturalist James Sowerby without her knowledge. Her research contradicted many of Sowerby’s conclusions.

She wrote and privately published a monograph in 1831, containing many of her drawings and sketches of molluscs and sponges. Her work included sketches of the fossil Alcyonia (1816) from the Green Sand Formation at Warminster Common and the immediate vicinity of Warminster in Wiltshire.

Echinoids and Bivalves. Collection of Etheldred Benett (1775-1845)

The Society holds two copies, one was given to George Bellas Greenough, and another copy was given to her friend Gideon Mantell. This work established her as a true, pioneering biostratigrapher following but not always agreeing with the work of William Smith.

If you'd like to read a lovely tale on William's work, check out the Map that Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester. It narrates the intellectual context of the time, the development of Smith's ideas and how they contributed to the theory of evolution and more generally to a dawning realization of the true age of the earth.

The book describes the social, economic or industrial context for Smith's insights and work, such as the importance of coal mining and the transport of coal by means of canals, both of which were a stimulus to the study of geology and the means whereby Smith supported his research. Benett debated many of the ideas Smith put forward. She was luckier than Smith financially, coming from a wealthy family, a financial perk that allowed her the freedom to add fossils to her curiosity cabinet at will.

Most of her impressive collection was assumed lost in the early 20th century. It was later found and purchased by an American, Thomas Bellerby Wilson, who donated it to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Small parts of it made their way into British museums, including the Leeds City Museum, London, Bristol and to the University of St. Petersburg. These collections contain many type specimens and some of the very first fossils found — some with the soft tissues preserved. When Benett died in 1845, it was Mantell who penned her obituary for the London Geological Journal.

In 1989, almost a hundred and fifty years after her death, a review of her collection had Arthur Bogen and Hugh Torrens remark that her work has significantly impacted our modern understanding of Porifera, Coelenterata, Echinodermata, and the molluscan classes, Cephalopoda, Gastropoda, and Bivalvia. A worthy legacy, indeed.

Her renown lives on through her collections, her collaborations and through the beautiful 110 million-year-old ammonite you see here, Hoplites bennettiana. The lovely example you see here is in the collection of the deeply awesome Christophe Marot.

Spamer, Earle E.; Bogan, Arthur E.; Torrens, Hugh S. (1989). "Recovery of the Etheldred Benett Collection of fossils mostly from Jurassic-Cretaceous strata of Wiltshire, England, analysis of the taxonomic nomenclature of Benett (1831), and notes and figures of type specimens contained in the collection". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 141. pp. 115–180. JSTOR 4064955.

Torrens, H. S.; Benamy, Elana; Daeschler, E.; Spamer, E.; Bogan, A. (2000). "Etheldred Benett of Wiltshire, England, the First Lady Geologist: Her Fossil Collection in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the Rediscovery of "Lost" Specimens of Jurassic Trigoniidae (Mollusca: Bivalvia) with Their Soft Anatomy Preserved.". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 150. pp. 59–123. JSTOR 4064955.

Photo credit: Fossils from Wiltshire.  In the foreground are three examples of the echinoid, Cidaris crenularis, from Calne, a town in Wiltshire, southwestern England, with bivalves behind. Caroline Lam, Archivist at the Geological Society, London, UK. http://britgeodata.blogspot.com/2016/03/etheldred-benett-first-female-geologist_30.html

MASSIVE EXTINCT CERVID: THE IRISH ELK

Irish Elk, Megaloceros giganteus

Imagine cresting a windswept hillside in the fading amber of a Pleistocene sunset. 

The tall grass parts in slow ripples, stirred by a warm evening breeze—then by something far larger. An Irish Elk steps into view, a towering ghost from deep time, its silhouette edged with gold.

This magnificent deer—Megaloceros giganteus—was not, in fact, strictly Irish, nor truly an elk. 

It was a giant among cervids, a member of a lineage that roamed from Ireland to Siberia across vast Ice Age steppes. But Ireland’s bogs preserved their remains so exquisitely that the name stuck, and so did the awe.

Irish Elk fossils appear in abundance in the peatlands of Ireland, the loess plains of Eastern Europe, and far into Central Asia. Their lineage traces back to the genus Megaloceros, a group of large deer that emerged around two million years ago. 

What made M. giganteus the superstar of its clan? Two words: monumental antlers.

Irish Elk, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Spanning up to 3.7 metres (twelve feet) from tip to tip, the antlers were not simply oversized decoration—they were evolutionary billboards, broadcasting strength, health, and genetic prowess. They also had a hand in their fossil fame. 

When these massive antlers were unearthed centuries ago, early naturalists were convinced they belonged to mythical beasts or antediluvian monsters. 

The truth turned out to be even better: a deer so grand it nearly defied imagination.

Despite their size and majesty, Irish Elk were true deer, closely related to fallow deer and part of an ancient and diverse cervid family. Their bodies were robust, their legs strong and built for open ground, where visibility mattered and where their spectacular antlers could be displayed in their full glory.

But evolution is a dance with the environment, and as the Pleistocene climate fluctuated, the lush grasslands they depended on began to shrink. Their decline wasn’t sudden but drawn out, a slow waltz toward extinction.

The last of these giants fell only a short time ago. We do not know the exact date but the fossils share their stories as more and more are found. The youngest known fossils come from Siberia and date to about 7,700 years ago—well after most Ice Age megafauna had disappeared. 

Irish Elk, Natural History Museum London

By then, humans were spreading across Eurasia, climates were shifting, and dense forests were overtaking open plains. 

A giant deer with enormous antlers was increasingly out of place in a world thick with trees and rife with hunters.

Climate change, habitat loss, and possibly selective hunting all nudged the Irish Elk toward its final chapter. 

They are one of these species that have been talked about as contenders for using DNA to bring them back. 

Today the Irish Elk lives on in museum halls, in bog-darkened bones, and in our imaginations—a giant stepping through grass, pausing on a Pleistocene hillside as if it might turn its head toward us at any moment. There are several Irish Elk in collections and on display at museums around the world where you can view them at your leisure. 

A particularly impressive specimen is on view at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The museum is a personal favourite of mine and worthy of a visit for its rich history and marvelous fossils, including the Irish Elk you see in the photo above. There are also wonderful examples in the British Museum in London, also worthy of a visit. 

The sheer grandeur of their size is sure to impress you! These beauties are a reminder that the world once held creatures both familiar and impossibly grand.

Illustration Credit: The lead image above was created by the supremely talented Daniel Eskridge, Paleo Illustrator from Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I share it here with permission as I have licensed the use of many of his images over the years, including this one. 

To enjoy his works (and purchase them!) to adorn your walls, visit his website at www.danieleskridge.com

DINOSAUR RIDGE: DENVER, COLORADO

Tucked along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, just outside Denver, Colorado, lies one of the world’s most famous fossil localities: Dinosaur Ridge. 

This epic landscape is a place where deep time is etched into stone, where dinosaurs left their mark 150 million years ago, and where modern visitors can step directly into prehistory. It is a little like heaven!

The ridge is part of the Morrison Formation, a Late Jurassic rock unit renowned for its abundance of dinosaur fossils. Many of the first specimens that shaped our understanding of North American dinosaurs—including Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Allosaurus—were discovered here in the late 1800s during the feverish days of the Bone Wars — the famous fossil hunting fighting days of Cope and Marsh. 

Today, Dinosaur Ridge serves as both an outdoor museum and a natural classroom, where geology and paleontology meet fresh mountain air.

The main attraction is the Dinosaur Ridge Trail, a 1.5-mile paved walk (shuttle service is also available). Along the way, interpretive signs and viewing points highlight the ridge’s fossil treasures:

• Dinosaur tracks: Hundreds of fossilized footprints line the sandstone, most famously those of Iguanodon-like ornithopods and fearsome carnivorous theropods. Standing where a dinosaur once strode is both humbling and exhilarating.
• Ripple marks and mud cracks: These ancient impressions show that the area was once a shallow shoreline, where dinosaurs waded and water receded, leaving behind patterns still visible millions of years later.
• Bone quarries: Exposed rock layers reveal the same fossil-rich beds where early paleontologists extracted bones of long-necked sauropods and armored Stegosaurus.

The site also features striking geology, with tilted rock layers rising dramatically at an angle, giving visitors a clear glimpse into Earth’s shifting crust.

The Visitor Center Experience

Before or after the trail, the Dinosaur Ridge Visitor Center is worth a stop. Inside, you’ll find fossil replicas, hands-on activities for kids, and exhibits that tell the story of the dinosaurs and the scientists who first uncovered them. The staff and volunteers—many of them seasoned interpreters—bring the ridge’s history to life with enthusiasm.

What It Feels Like to Be There

Visiting Dinosaur Ridge gives all the "feels" you could ever ask for in a paleo field trip. The air is filled with the mingled scent of sagebrush and sun-warmed stone, while meadowlarks call from the surrounding grasslands. Standing beside a line of fossilized tracks, you can almost hear the splash of giant feet in mud, the rustle of prehistoric vegetation, and the low rumble of sauropods moving in herds. 

The contrast between Denver’s skyline in the distance and the Jurassic world beneath your feet makes for a surreal and unforgettable moment.

Planning Your Visit

• Location: Just off C-470 near Morrison, Colorado, about 25 minutes from downtown Denver.
• Best time to go: Spring and fall for cooler weather, though summer mornings can be pleasant.
• Accessibility: The paved trail is walkable, with shuttles available for those who prefer not to hike.
• Events: Check the Dinosaur Ridge website for guided tours, fossil festivals, and kids’ programs.

To stand on those rocks is to place yourself in a continuum of discovery, from the dinosaurs themselves, to the fossil hunters of the 19th century, to today’s scientists still uncovering new secrets. 

Whether you’re a lifelong paleontology fan or just curious about Earth’s story, Dinosaur Ridge offers a rare chance to literally walk in the footsteps of giants.

BULL CANYON DINOSAUR TRACKSIDE OF EASTERN UTAH

Darrin Mottler's Human to Theropod Comparison

The wind always arrives first.

It sweeps across the red cliffs of eastern Utah, brushing your shoulders like a quiet invitation as you step out onto the stone. 

The La Sal Mountains rise blue and snow-dusted on the horizon—silent, ancient witnesses. 

At your feet, the sandstone is warm, sun-baked, and patterned with bowls and dimples that look, at first, like the aftermath of a rainstorm.

But then you kneel.

You place your hand inside one of the indentations—fingers spreading to follow the outline—and suddenly time collapses. 

Your palm disappears into a footprint three times the size of your own, pressed into this rock nearly 190 million years ago by a three-toed dinosaur striding across a muddy lakeshore. 

The warmth of the desert stone meets your fingers and presses against the cool, deep sensation of time.

This is Bull Canyon Tracksite, one of Utah’s most awe-inspiring windows into the Jurassic.

Bull Canyon lies on the western flank of the La Sal Mountains, within a rugged plateau of red Wingate and Navajo sandstone. The site preserves an astonishing spread of footprints left by Early Jurassic theropods—light, agile, meat-eating dinosaurs with talons and hollow bones, the forerunners of modern birds.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

The tracks rest within the Glen Canyon Group formations, sediments laid down along the shifting margins of a prehistoric playa lake system. 

Here, mudflats dried and cracked under the sun, then were wetted again by brief storms—an ideal condition for holding tracks long enough to be buried by the next layer of sand.

Among the most distinctive ichnotaxa present are:

• Grallator – small, delicate three-toed prints often linked to slender theropods.
• Eubrontes – larger, deeper, more robust prints associated with big-bodied carnivores like Dilophosaurus.
• Occasional ornithischian tracks, including possible Anomoepus prints, representing small herbivorous dinosaurs moving across the same shoreline.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

Standing before them, the sandstone seems alive with movement. Each footprint shows a frozen splash of action: the slip of a claw, the twist of a heel, the moment a predator shifted its weight.

Every print reveals insights. Some trackways show animals striding with long, confident steps—suggesting a loping, ground-covering gait. Others are tight and compact, indicating slower or more cautious movement.

Parallel trackways record two or more animals moving in the same direction at the same time—possible group travel, or predators trailing prey.

A few prints deform the underlying sediment, proof that the ground was saturated with water. Others preserve delicate claw tips, showing firmer, drying mud. These shifts map out rapid climate cycles in Early Jurassic Utah.

It’s a moment-by-moment account of life—written in the most ephemeral of materials. 

So why does eastern Utah have so many dinosaur tracks? The region around Moab and the La Sal foothills is a world-class dinosaur track corridor with many elements at play.

• Jurassic climate: alternating wet and dry periods created perfect track-preservation conditions.
• Basins & playas: low-lying flats captured footprints from multiple dinosaur species.
• Rapid burial: shifting dunes and lake sediments quickly sealed impressions.
• Erosion today: modern uplift and weathering have brought these ancient surfaces back to light.

Bull Canyon is one of the most accessible of the sites, offering broad paleosurface exposures ideal for study and public viewing. If you visit at sunrise, the low light throws shadows into the footprints. The tracks seem to deepen, their edges turning crisp like the outline of a freshly pressed print. 

Photo Credit: All photos shown here are by the deeply awesome Darrin Mottler, who generously shared them with me and introduced me to the site. Appreciate you, Darrin!

OIL IN WATER BEAUTY: FOSSILS OF FOLKSTONE

Sheer beauty — a beautiful Euhoplites ammonite from Folkstone, UK. I've been really enjoying looking at all oil-in-water colouring and chunkiness of these ammonites.

Euhoplites is an extinct ammonoid cephalopod from the Lower Cretaceous, characterized by strongly ribbed, more or less evolute, compressed to inflated shells with flat or concave ribs, typically with a deep narrow groove running down the middle.

In some, ribs seem to zigzag between umbilical tubercles and parallel ventrolateral clavi. In others, the ribs are flexious and curve forward from the umbilical shoulder and lap onto either side of the venter.

Its shell is covered in the lovely lumps and bumps we associate with the genus. The function of these adornments are unknown. I wonder if they gave them greater strength to go deeper into the ocean to hunt for food. 

They look to have been a source of hydrodynamic drag, likely preventing Euhoplites from swimming at speed. Studying them may give some insight into the lifestyle of this ancient marine predator. Euhoplites had shells ranging in size up to a 5-6cm. 

We find them in Lower Cretaceous, middle to upper Albian age strata. Euhoplites has been found in Middle and Upper Albian beds in France where it is associated respectively with Hoplites and Anahoplites, and Pleurohoplites, Puzosia, and Desmoceras; in the Middle Albian of Brazil with Anahoplites and Turrilites; and in the Cenomanian of Texas.

This species is the most common ammonite from the Folkstone Fossil Beds in southeastern England where a variety of species are found, including this 37mm beauty from the collections of José Juárez Ruiz.

GHOST CATS OF THE AMERICAS: COUGARS

Cougar, Puma concolor

Cougars are amongst the most elusive and adaptable predators in the Western Hemisphere. 

Sleek, solitary, and powerful, these big cats have a long evolutionary history and play a crucial role in the ecosystems they inhabit, including the dense rainforests of Vancouver Island.

Cougars, Puma concolor, belong to the Felidae family, which includes all wild cats, big and small. Their ancestors originated in Eurasia, but the earliest true cougars appeared in North America around 6 million years ago, during the late Miocene epoch.

Fossil evidence tells us that the cougar lineage diverged from its closest relative—the cheetah—millions of years ago. Interestingly, genetic research has shown that cheetahs once roamed North America before going extinct there. 

Today’s cougar is a descendant of that shared lineage and is thought to have recolonized North America from South America following the extinction of native North American cats during the last Ice Age—about 10,000 years ago.

Cougars have one of the widest ranges of any terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. Their habitat stretches from the Canadian Yukon all the way to the southern Andes in South America.

Despite this vast range, cougars are solitary and territorial animals, preferring rugged terrain, dense forests, or rocky mountains where they can stalk prey in relative seclusion. They are excellent climbers, swimmers, and can leap over 20 feet in a single bound.

Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia, is home to one of the densest cougar populations in North America. Despite being separated from the mainland, cougars are thriving here thanks to the island’s abundant black-tailed deer population and remote, forested habitat.

On the north island, they are called badi, in Kwak'wala, the language spoken by my Kwakwaka'wakw family on my father's side.

There are some resident cougars in my neighbourhood on Vancouver Island. They hunt our small island deer, the Columbian black-tail deer. When we find the deer remains, there is generally a high overhang above the spot where they were taken down, suggesting that these were ambush kills. 

While 80-90% of their diet is deer, locals feast on raccoons, beavers, rabbits and rodents. And, interestingly, not the local cats and dogs. Our neighbour was driving home and saw one of the cougars nose to nose with her cat. It was a scene of curiosity but not predation.

Estimates vary, but wildlife biologists believe there are between 600 and 900 cougars on Vancouver Island. Given the island’s size (about 32,000 square kilometres), this is considered a high density for such a large predator.

Cougars are at the top of the island’s food chain. Wolves, which often compete with or challenge cougars on the mainland, are largely absent from the island. That, combined with plentiful prey, gives cougars a unique ecological niche here.

Though rarely seen by humans, cougars occasionally make headlines on the island due to their stealthy presence in rural or suburban areas. 

Cougars are not currently endangered, but they face growing pressures from habitat loss, road networks, and conflicts with humans. 

As apex predators, they play a vital role in keeping ecosystems balanced by controlling prey populations and influencing the behaviour of other species.

On Vancouver Island, conservationists and wildlife agencies monitor cougar populations and educate the public about coexistence. This includes safe hiking practices, securing livestock and pets, and respecting the wild spaces these animals need to survive. 

Fortunately, there are still vast tracks of forest and unpeopled places for them to wander and call home. Well, mostly unpeopled, as these are some of my favourite spots to hike as well.

VANCOUVER ISLAND'S ELUSIVE COASTAL WOLVES

Along the storm-lashed shores of Vancouver Island, the west coast wolves move like shadows—silent, salt-streaked, and born of the sea. 

Their paws leave fleeting prints on sand swept by tide, their eyes glint with the wild hunger of untamed rainforests. 

Hunters of both land and surf, they dive into kelp beds for seal and salmon, ghosts of cedar and mist, bound to the roar of waves and the deep solitude of the Pacific.

Wolves are among the most iconic predators of the northern hemisphere—intelligent, social, and adaptable creatures that have roamed the wilds of North America for hundreds of thousands of years. 

But their story begins long before that, deep in the fossil record, when canids first began to evolve.

The ancestors of today’s wolves can be traced back more than 30 million years to the early canids of the Oligocene. One of the earliest known members of the dog family is Hesperocyon, a small, fox-like carnivore that lived in what is now North America. 

Over millions of years, these early canids diversified into various forms, including the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) and the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which appeared around 1 to 2 million years ago.

The gray wolf evolved in Eurasia and migrated into North America via the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene. Once here, it quickly became a dominant predator across the continent, adapting to a wide range of environments—from the Arctic tundra to the deserts of Mexico.

Today, Canis lupus is still widely distributed across North America, although its range has contracted significantly due to human expansion, habitat loss, and historical persecution. Wolves are found in:

• Alaska – home to the largest populations in North America.
• The Rocky Mountains – including parts of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
• The Western Great Lakes – especially Minnesota and Wisconsin.
• Canada – particularly British Columbia, Alberta, and the boreal forests of the northern provinces.
• Vancouver Island – which hosts a distinct coastal population.
• The Pacific Coast – small populations in Washington and Oregon are making a comeback.

Wolves are apex predators and essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems. They primarily prey on large ungulates such as deer, moose, elk, and caribou. 

In coastal regions, particularly on British Columbia’s Central Coast and Vancouver Island, wolves have adapted their diets to include salmon, intertidal invertebrates, and even seals. I have seen them eat their way along the tide line, scavenging whatever the sea has washed up for their breakfasts. 

These wolves have been observed swimming between islands in search of food, a behavior rarely seen in inland populations. If you explore the coast by boat, kayak or other means, you can see their footprints in the sand, telling you that you are not alone as you explore the rugged coast.

Wolves help control herbivore populations, which in turn benefits vegetation and can even influence river systems, as famously demonstrated in Yellowstone National Park after wolves were reintroduced in 1995.

Wolves on Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is home to a small but resilient population of coastal wolves, often referred to as coastal sea wolves. 

These wolves are genetically and behaviorally distinct from their inland counterparts. While exact numbers fluctuate, current estimates suggest approximately 350 wolves live on Vancouver Island.

In Kwak'wala, the language of the many Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations of Vancouver Island, wolves are known as atła'na̱m, u'liga̱n or wišqii. They symbolize loyalty, strength, family, and the spirit of unity. 

Wolves are highly respected as wise, cooperative, and powerful hunters, often seen as spirit guides. 

They play a role in our ceremonies and are prominently featured in our art on totem poles, jewellery and ceremonial masks. We have dances with the dancers wearing wolf headdresses called xisiwe' that are impressive to behold.

In the wild, wolves are elusive and tend to avoid human interaction, making them difficult to study and count accurately. Much of what we know comes from the work of wildlife researchers and photographers such as Ian McAllister, whose documentation of coastal wolf behavior has been instrumental in raising awareness.

If you are looking to see more of these coastal predators, search out the work of photographers like Liron Gertsman, Ian Harland, and Sandy Sharkey, who have captured stunning images and footage of these elusive creatures in their natural habitat, along our beaches and old-growth forests. 

Despite their adaptability, wolves face a number of threats:

• Habitat Loss and Human Encroachment: As logging and development continue to fragment wild areas on Vancouver Island, wolves are pushed into closer proximity with humans, increasing the likelihood of conflict.
• Hunting and Trapping: Wolves are not protected under the Wildlife Act in much of British Columbia and can be hunted or trapped in many areas. Although controversial, some view wolf control as a means to support ungulate populations for hunting.
• Poisoning and Culling: In parts of Canada, wolves have been poisoned or culled in misguided efforts to protect caribou herds, despite ecological evidence showing that habitat preservation is more critical to caribou survival.
• Decline in Prey: As deer populations fluctuate due to climate change, human hunting pressure, and habitat alteration, wolves may face food scarcity.
• Public Misunderstanding: Myths and negative stereotypes about wolves still persist, sometimes fueling unnecessary fear and policy decisions not based on science.
• Wolves have been on this land longer than humans. Their long evolutionary journey has shaped them into highly specialized, intelligent animals with complex social structures. But their survival now depends on us.

On Vancouver Island and across the continent, conservation efforts, education, and science-based wildlife management are essential to ensuring wolves continue to howl in the wild for generations to come.

Vancouver Island local, Gary Allan, who runs the SWELL Wolf Education Centre in Nanaimo and is known for his extensive work in wolf advocacy and education is a good resource of up-to-date information on our coastal wolves. 

He has been educating the public about wolves since 2006, both through the Tundra Speaks Society and the education centre. Allan's work involves interacting with wolves, including his wolf-dog Tundra, and sharing his knowledge with schools, community groups, and First Nations organizations. 

Have you seen one of our coastal wolves up close and in person? It is a rare treat and for me, generally on an early morning walk. I hope we keep the balance so that the wolves live in peace and continue to thrive.

Further Reading and Resources

McAllister, Ian. The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest. Greystone Books, 2007.

Mech, L. David, and Boitani, Luigi (eds.). Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Fossil Canids Database – University of California Museum of Paleontology

Raincoast Conservation Foundation – https://www.raincoast.org

ZENASPIS OF THE UKRAINE

A quiet gathering of ancient lives, stilled in a single moment — this Devonian mortality plate holds the lower shields of Zenaspis podolica (Lankester, 1869) alongside Stensiopelta pustulata (also known as Victoraspis longicornualis), lifted from Lower Devonian deposits in Podolia, Ukraine. 

As we look upon it, it’s impossible not to hold two timelines at once — one from some 420 million years ago, and one unfolding today. 

Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine, whose strength and endurance echo far louder than anything preserved in stone.

Zenaspis belongs to the ancient ranks of jawless fishes — the agnathans — early experiments in vertebrate design. Without jaws, these gentle oddities likely sifted along the seafloor, feeding as bottom dwellers in warm Devonian waters. 

Their armour, those distinctive head shields, is what remains here — a mosaic of protection that once shielded soft, fleeting lives.

Podolia — a historic region stretching across west-central and southwestern Ukraine into northeastern Moldova — is a place where deep time sits close to the surface. It is the only region in Ukraine where Lower Devonian ichthyofauna can be found so readily exposed. 

For over 150 years, fossils have been gathered from more than 90 localities along the banks of the Dniester River and its northern tributaries, as well as from sandstone quarries — each site a quiet archive of vanished seas.

The faunal richness here is extraordinary. At last count, some 72 species of Early Devonian agnathans and fishes have been described, including 8 Thelodonts, 39 Heterostracans, 19 Osteostracans, 4 Placoderms, 1 Acanthodian, and a single Holocephalan — a diverse cast of early vertebrate life navigating ancient ecosystems (Voichyshyn 2001a, modified).

These fossils rest within the Lower Devonian redbeds — the Old Red Formation, or Dniester Series — a sequence reaching up to 1,800 metres thick and spanning from the Lochkovian to the Eifelian. In its lower reaches, the Ustechko and Khmeleva members tell a story in colour and grain: multihued red sandstones, fine-grained and cross-bedded, interlayered with siltstones and seams of argillites. Sediments laid down by rivers and shifting waters, long before the world looked anything like it does today.

We find cousins of Zenaspis scattered across Devonian outcrops in Western Europe as well — in Scotland, for instance, where Zenaspis pagei and Zenaspis poweri reach lengths of up to 25 centimetres, their armoured forms a familiar refrain in these ancient rocks.

Stone remembers. It holds moments of stillness, of loss, of life interrupted and preserved. And as we study these long-vanished worlds, we’re reminded — gently but firmly — of the fragility and resilience of life, past and present.

Reference: Voichyshyn, V. 2006. New osteostracans from the Lower Devonian terrigenous deposits of Podolia, Ukraine. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 51 (1): 131–142. Photo courtesy of Fossilero Fisherman.

TOROSAURUS: FRILLS, BROW AND HORNS

Torosaurus was a ceratopsian dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous. These fellows look very similar to their Triceratops cousins but are an entirely different species in their own right. 

In 1891, two years after the naming of Triceratops, a pair of ceratopsian skulls with elongated frills bearing holes were found in southeastern Wyoming, Niobrara County, by John Bell Hatcher. 

Hatcher's employer, palaeontologist Professor Othniel Charles Marsh, coined the genus Torosaurus for them. While an estimated 2,000 Triceratops specimens have been collected from the American West, only seven partial skulls of Torosaurus have been found, so they are pretty rare.

Like Triceratops, they had massive skulls. Torosaurus had one of the largest skulls of any known land animal, with the frilled skull reaching 2.77 metres (9.1 ft) in length. Torosaurus were about the same size as Triceratops. 

They had an elongated frill with large openings (fenestrae), long squamosal bones of the frill with a trough on their upper surface, and the presence of five or more pairs of hornlets (epoccipitals) on the back of the frill. Torosaurus also lacked the long nose horn seen in Triceratops prorsus, and instead resembled the earlier and more basal Triceratops horridus in having a short nose horn. Three species have been named, Torosaurus latus, T. gladius and T. utahensis. T. gladius is no longer considered a valid species.

Wyoming Outcrops

The individuals referred to as Torosaurus are all large, comparable to the largest Triceratops specimens. Due to the elongated frill, especially the skull length is considerable. Hatcher estimated the skull of YPM 1830 at 2.2 metres, and of YPM 1831 at 2.35 metres. 

In 1933, Richard Swann Lull increased this to 2.4 metres and 2.57 metres respectively. Based on this, Torosaurus was thought, albeit briefly, to have the longest skull of any known land animal. 

Sixty-five years later in 1998, Thomas Lehman claimed that a Pentaceratops specimen possessed a partial skull that would have been 2.9 metres long in life. This was again doubted by Nicholas Longrich who in 2011 named this exemplar as a separate genus Titanoceratops and concluded its skull had been reconstructed as too long.

In 2006, Andrew Farke, a palaeontologist at the Alf Museum of Paleontology in South Dakota, pointed out that the new skulls described by him were on average even longer than Hatcher's original two: MOR 1122 has a length of 252 centimetres and MOR 981 of 277 centimetres.

Farke’s research interests focus on exploring the Cretaceous continental ecosystems of North America, particularly the ceratopsian (horned) dinosaurs, with active fieldwork in California and Wyoming.

In 2006, Farke published some diagnostic traits of Torosaurus. The frill is extremely long in comparison to the remainder of the skull. The rear, parietal, and edge of the frill bear ten or more epiparietals, triangular osteoderms. A midline epiparietal is absent; likewise, no osteoderm straddles the parietal-squamosal boundary. The parietal bone is thin. It is pierced by parietal fenestrae in the form of circular or transversely oval openings. The parietal bone is about 20% wider than long. 

Farke also identified a single trait in which T. latus differed from both Triceratops horridus and T. utahensis: its squamosal bore a conspicuous ridge on the edge with the parietal combined with a deep longitudinal trough parallel to it.

Farke pointed out that the known Torosaurus specimens are rather variable. The orbital "brow" horns are sometimes large and curved to the front, as with MOR 981, and sometimes short and straight as shown by MOR 1122 and ANSP 15191. 

Also, the position of these horns differs: often they are located directly on top of the eye socket but with YPM 1831 they originate at the rear edge of the orbit. Likewise, there is a variation in the form of the nose horn. YPM 1831 and to a lesser extent YPM 1830 have a straight upright nasal horn but MOR 981, ANSP 15192 and especially MOR 1122 at most possess a low bump. The frill too differs. ANSP 15192 and YPM 1830 have a shield curving upwards at the rear, but the frill of YPM 1831 is nearly flat, though this could be an artefact of restoration. 

The frill of YPM 1831 is also heart-shaped, with a clear midline notch, whereas the rear edge of the other specimens is straight. The frill proportions are quite variable: with YPM 1831 the length-width ratio is 1.26 but MOR 981 has a shield 2.28 times longer than wide. The number of epiparietals is difficult to assess as most fossils seem to have lost them. MOR 981 and MOR 1122 have ten and twelve epiparietals respectively. YPM 1831 has been restored with a fontanelle in the skull roof, which possibly is authentic. Farke also concluded that the degree of variability did not exceed that shown by related genera.

Farke stressed that, apart from the frill, no systematic differences could be found between Torosaurus and Triceratops. All Torosaurus specimens are similar in that they lack a truly long nasal horn and a horizontal arterial groove at the front base of that horn, but Triceratops fossils with the same combination of traits are not uncommon. 

In 2008, Hunt concluded that T. utahensis, contrary to T. latus but similar to Triceratops, possessed a midline epiparietal.