Category: Fossil Fridays
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New Paper: Predation Scars Reveal Declines in Crab Populations Since the Pleistocene
I’m pleased to share our new open access paper, “Predation scars reveal declines in crab populations since the Pleistocene.” This is the 4th chapter of my PhD and basis of my current postdoc at the University of Victoria, so I’m excited to see it out! Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.810069 Here’s a Twitter thread I…
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Fossil Friday #13 – Tunicates
If you have even had the chance to see or feel a tunicate, you’ll know they’re weird little creatures. At first glance, the tunicate resembles a sponge, with an exhalent and inhalent opening. They’re often found in similar environments, encrusting rocks, ships, and docks. Like sponges, many species of tunicates are also colonial, colourful, and…
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Fossil Friday #12 – The Black Turban Snail (AKA the Greatest Snail There Ever Was)
I’ve been rather quiet on my blog this past year, in part due to an intense workload down in California, studying for my candidacy exam (I passed, phew), the usual suite of conferences and writing, and of course, life. But I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking and reflection on how to be a…
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Fossil Friday #11 – Crinoids: the Ocean’s Feather Dusters!
The modern ocean is full of scary, disgusting, bizarre, awesome, and adorable organisms (multiply that by several thousand times, and you can cover prehistoric oceans too). While crinoids might not strike terror into your heart, they are pretty strange animals, which are often mistaken for plants at first glance (the name crinoid means “sea lily”).…
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Fossil Friday #10 – Bryozoans!
Bryozoans are the coolest little animals you’ve never heard of. And when I say little, I mean really little. As I tell my students, if you aren’t using a microscope, you’re missing the point. You can’t really see anything without a scope. Otherwise know as “moss animals”, these tiny little critters are mostly colonial, and…
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Fossil Friday #9 – Stromatoporoids vs. Stromatolites
One of the hardest sets of terminology and fossils/structures for students to remember is stromatoporoids and stromatolites. Not only are the names painfully similar, but they also look very similar, until you get your nose next to them. Both can be massive (tens to hundreds of metres), both appear finely laminated, and both can be…
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Fossil Friday #8 – Science Literacy Week
It’s Science Literacy Week here in Canada, so in celebration, this week’s Fossil Friday post is a short compilation of some great books and reading resources for anyone interested in palaeontology, ecology, evolution, and even the Canadian Rockies. Here’s a list of some of my favourite natural science related books: (1) A Natural History of…
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Fossil Friday #6 – Predation and Drill Holes
Predation is a pretty big topic in palaeontology, but not as straight forward as you might expect. We all have this image in our head of the T. rex from Jurassic Park feasting on another dinosaur (or perhaps the lawyer on the toilet), but where does that information come from? Unlike in Jurassic Park, humans were never…
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Fossil Friday #5 – Parker Ridge: Columbia Icefield Parkway
I’ve been on the go for most of August, with outreach commitments, holidays, and field work in the States, so I’ve missed a few Fossil Fridays. But even while on holidays, I was documenting some neat stuff that I discovered. Our family went on a road trip through the Canadian Rockies (which I highly recommend), starting…
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Fossil Friday #4 – Ammolite: Alberta’s Fossil Gemstone
If you think diamonds are the most beautiful of the gemstones, you have clearly never seen ammolite. Ammolite is an iridescent, opal-like gem that comes in an amazing range of vibrant colours that cover the complete visible spectrum. The only fossil that can be commercially mined and sold in Canada, ammolite is made from the…
Kristina Barclay, Ph.D. 