Tag: fossil
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Fossil Friday #58: Clam Clam from Chowder Flatts
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #58. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Clowder Flatts was a Mazon Creek fossil…
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Mazon Monday #61: Video for May Paleontology Meeting – “A Historical Perspective on Collecting Mazon Creek and Pit 11” by Peter Kruty
We are very excited to post the video of Peter Kruty’s presentation for the May 2021 Paleontology Meeting. The title of his talk was “A historical Perspective on Collecting Mazon Creek and Pit 11”. It was a very interesting presentation which was sure to bring back memories for long-time Mazon Creek collectors and instill a…
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Fossil Friday #57: Cyperites bicarinatus
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #57. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we have a few…
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Mazon Monday #60: Annularia inflata
This is Mazon Monday post #60. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– This week, we are looking at a species of Annularia. Annularia is actually the foliage of a plant called Calamites. Calamites is classified as a Sphenopsid, which is a primitive vascular plant characterized by jointed ribbed stems and small…
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Fossil Friday #56: Braceville Mazon Creek Fossils
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #56. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This weekend, May 15th and 16th, 2021,…
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Smithsonian: An Ode to the World’s Most Average Dinosaurs
Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the appreciation for the average dinosaur – a duckbilled dinosaur like Edmontosaurus. To truly understand the dinosaurs, one needs to look past the flashy and embrace the average as that is where the true clues to what life was like back in the Mesozoic. Out of all these impressive…
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Mazon Monday #59: Cyclopteris orbicularis
This is Mazon Monday post #59. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– This week, we visit an interesting plant fossil called Cyclopteris orbicularis, which is a circular leaf associated with the seed ferns Laveineopteris, Neuropteris, Reticulopteris, Odontopteris, and Macroneuropteris. The Cyclopteris leaves are attached to the lower parts of the…
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Fossil Friday #55: Cyclopteris trichomanoides
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #55. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we visit another Mazon Creek plant…
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Mazon Monday #58: Arthropleura sp.
This is Mazon Monday post #58. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– Arthropleura is a genus of extinct millipedes. Their size ranged from about 0.3 meters to about 2.5 meters long. They are the largest known land invertebrates. Fossils are known from North America and Scotland, and are thought to…
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Fossil Friday #54: Assortment of Mississippian Fossils – Anna, IL
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #54. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! —————————————————– This week we have some fossils…
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Mazon Monday #57: Alethopteris serlii
This is Mazon Monday post #57. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– If you’ve seen one, you know that Alethopteris serlii can have breathtaking beauty. Whether from the Mazon River or one of the other more terrestrial localities, like its sister taxa Alethopteris sullivantii, it is generally bold in preservation. …
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Paleo Nerds #32: The Hot Blooded Dinosaur Revolutionary with Bob Bakker
The podcast Paleo Nerds has the last show the their second season up. Their guest is “Dinosaur Heretic” Bob Bakker. Bob is always interesting! I heard him in person at Paleofest a number of years ago and really enjoyed it. We saved the best for last! Would you like to spend over an hour with…
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Fossil Friday #53: Kankakeea grundyi
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #53. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! A Mazon Creek fossil from Pit 11…
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Mazon Monday #56: Didontogaster cordylina
This is Mazon Monday post #56. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– The first format descriptions of the Polychaete worms of the Mazon Creek biota didn’t happen until 1979. One of the first was Didontogaster cordylina, commonly known as the tummy tooth worm. D. cordylina was described by Ida Thompson…
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NYT: How Many Tyrannosaurus Rexes Ever Lived on Earth? Here’s a New Clue
The New York Tmes has a story about how many Tyrannosaurus rex ever lived. Actually, this story showed up in numerous places.. SciTechDaily, USA Today, NBC, etc. Apparently, it’s big news that about 2.5 billion total T rex roamed the Earth during the time their species existed! The original paper appeared in the journal Science.…
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Fossil Friday #52: Fossil Wood
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #52. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Fossil wood can be very different from…
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Video: ESCONI March 2021 General Meeting – “The Big Hill Lagerstätte”
The ESCONI March 2021 General Meeting was held on March 12, 2021 at 8:00. The program was by Dr. James Lamsdell of West Virginia University. Dr. Lamsdell studies Paleozoic arthropods such as eurypterids and xiphosurans (horseshoe crabs and their relatives). He recently published on the fauna of the Ordovician “Big Hill” Lagerstatte in Upper Michigan. …
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Mazon Monday #55: Neuropteris inflata
This is Mazon Monday post #55. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. For this week, we have a somewhat uncommon form of Neuropteris… Neuropteris inflata. These leaves look very similar to Macroneuropteris scheuchzerii. And, could be taken for a large specimen. However, these are however different than M. scheuchzerii and are…
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Smithsonian: Tiny Fossils, Big Insight; How We Can Use Fossil Pollen to Understand Earth’s Climate History
Smithsonian Magazine has a piece about fossil pollen. Microscopic fossil of pollen millions of years old gives insight into the climate many years ago. The natural world has always fascinated me, starting with the days of my youth exploring the bushland surrounding my childhood home, collecting flowers and rocks and being curious about their growth…
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Fossil Friday #51: Clam-clam
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #51. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have a couple specimens of…
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Trilobite Tuesday #34: 450-million-year-old sea creatures had a leg up on breathing
Science Daily has a story about trilobite gills. A paper in Science Advances looked at the limbs of trilobites and found that the biramous legs of the trilobites Triarthrus eatoni and Olenoides serratus functioned as gills in a manner similar to the gills of horseshoe crabs. A new study has found the first evidence of…
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Mazon Monday #54: Octomedusa pieckorum
This is Mazon Monday post #54. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Octomedusa piekorum was described in 1968 in a paper by Ralph Gordon Johnson and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr. Both worked at the Field Museum of Natural History. The paper, “The Essex Fauna and Medusae”, was published in the Museum’s…
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Fossil Friday #50: Diplazites unita
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #50. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have a real treat. It…
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Mazon Monday #53: Diplazites unita
This is Mazon Monday post #53. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. This week, we are going to take a look at a fairly common fern fossil of the Mazon Creek biota. That fern is Diplazites unita. We featured D. unita back in Fossil Friday #35 with specimens from ESCONI member…
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Fossil Friday #49: Insects from the Eocene, Green River Formation, Colorado
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #49. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today’s interesting contribution comes from ESCONI 1st…
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Mazon Monday #52: Acanthotelson stimpsoni
This week, we are going to look at a syncarid shrimp called Acanthotelson stimpsoni. It’s one of the most common shrimp found amongst the Braidwood fauna. We had a very nice one from the Mazon River a few weeks ago for Fossil Friday #42. A. stimpsoni was described in 1865 by F.B. Meek and A.…
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Fossil Friday #48: Neuropteris jacksonii
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #48. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we have a rare…
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CBC: Bloodsucking-fish fossils overturn once-popular theory about our evolution
CBC Technology & Science has a story about fossil lampreys. New baby lamprey fossils found in South Africa have shed some light on the early evolution of vertebrates. The fossils date to the Devonian Period about 360 million years ago. Incredibly, there were hatchlings included with some of the specimens of the Priscomyzon. Babies are…
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Phys.org: ‘Pompeii of prehistoric plants’ unlocks evolutionary secret: study
Phys.org has a story about some Pennsylvanian fossil plants from China. The species of plants, Paratingia wuhaia, which belong to a group called Noeggerathiales, were highly successful. They survived from about 325 million years ago in the Pennsylvanian Period until the Permian Mass Extinction about 251 million years ago. At one time, they were thought…
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Mazon Monday #51: Book – Leaves and Stems From Fossil Forests
This is Mazon Monday post #51. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Before George Langford wrote his books, which were first published by Esconi Associates in 1958, Raymond E. Janssen wrote two books about Mazon Creek that saw widespread use as reference materiel for identification of fossils. The first book “Leaves…
