Tag: fossil
-
Hidden Secret in the Field Museum’s Silurian Diorama
The Field Museum has a very nice Silurian marine diorama, which includes crinoids, cephalopods, corals, trilobites, and more from the Silurian period. It’s meant to represent what the Chicago area looked like during the Silurian Period. Much of the insight comes from the the fossils found in Thornton Quarry. There is a little secret with…
-
Mazon Monday #296: Jim Turnbull in Pit 11
This is Mazon Monday post #296. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Jim Turnbull, namesake for Anthracomedusa turnbulli (see Mazon Monday #278), worked for Abbott Labs for many years. Abbott has/had an internal newsletter called “AbbotTopics”. In the October 8th, 1965 edition, Jim is the subject of an article titled “Prehistoric Insect…
-
Discovery of First Fossil Hand Linked to P. Boisei Suggests the Bygone Human Relative Could Have Used Tools
Smithsonian Magazine has a story about tool use in our ancient cousins. A recent discovery of the first hand and foot bones on Paranthropus boisei has shed light on whether the species was able to use tools. The research was published in the journal Nature. “The authors make a compelling case that this individual would…
-
NPR: Scientists thought this fossil was a teen T. rex. Turns out it’s a new tyrannosaur
NPR has a story about Nanotyrannus lamcensis and why it’s a separate species from Tyrannosaurus rex. When the “Dueling Dinosaurs” fossil, which consists of two entangled dinorsaur skeletons, was discovered in 2006, it launched a quite a bit of debate as to whether the tyrannosaur was a juvenile T. rex or a new species of…
-
Fossil Friday #291: Carboniferous Fish in Black Shale
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #291. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This week’s Fossil Friday is a detailed Carboniferous fish fossil…
-
ESCONI November 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting – November 15th, 2025 at 7:30 PM via Zoom – “Gonioceras: A Most Unusual Cephalopod”
The November 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting will be held on November 15th, 2025 at 7:30 PM via Zoom. John Cataloni will be presenting “Gonioceras: A Most Unusual Cephalopod”. The diversity of nautiloid shell shapes in the Upper Ordovician of central Laurentia is remarkable. However, one shape is often missing from lists of shell shapes…
-
SciAm: Fossilized Skin on Dinosaur ‘Mummies’ Isn’t Skin at All
Scientific American has an interesting article about dinosaur “mummies”. In 1908, Charles Sternberg found the “first dinosaur mummy”. It was an Edmontosaurus dinosaur with what looked like fossilized flesh and skin. It was found in the sandstone rocks of the Lance Formation in eastern Wyoming. New research shows that the “skin” is actually a clay mold,…
-
Mazon Monday #295: Ida Thompson collecting in Pit 11 in 1968
This is Mazon Monday post #295. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Michele Micetich, curator of the Carbon Hill School Museum, provided the photos in this post. The photos are part of the Tom Testa collection at the museum. On the back of the photos, there are notes written by Ida Thompson…
-
WPR: A portal into underwater, prehistoric Wisconsin found in the heart of Waukesha County
Wisconsin Public Day has an article about fossils from Waukesha County, including a the oldest known leech in the fossil record. The fossil deposit is commonly referred to as the Waukesha Lagerstätte. A few years ago, researchers found the world’s oldest fossilized scorpion at the site. The Waukesha Biota, also known as the Waukesha Lagerstätte,…
-
Fossil Friday #290: Cyclopteris orbicularis
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #290. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! We have a beautiful Cyclopteris orbicularis from Knob Noster for…
-
ESCONI November 2025 General Meeting – November 14th, 2025 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Mammals of Illinois’ Ice Ages”
The November 2025 General Meeting will be held on Friday, November 14th, 2025 at 8:00 via Zoom. Melissa Pardi, Curator of Geology at the Illinois State Museum, will be presenting “Mammals of Illinois’ Ice Ages”. Did you know that Illinois used to have elephants? During the last ice age, North America was home to a…
-
Mazon Monday #294: Montceau-les-Mines
This is Mazon Monday post #294. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Montceau-les-Mines is a commune located in the Saône-et-Loire department of the Bourgogne–Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It lies southwest of the city of Dijon and today has a population of just under 20,000 people. The town was officially established on…
-
PBS Eons: When We Left The Water (By Accident)
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about when tetrapods moved from the water onto land… It’s beginning to look like our success on land, and that of all tetrapods, from frogs to dogs to dinosaurs, was just a lucky side-effect of fish trying to stay fish.
-
Fossil Friday #289: Asolanus camptotaenia bark from the Mazon River
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #289. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Recently, George Witaszek sent us photos of a rare Mazon…
-
Will County Forest Preserve: Silurian Trilobite Souvenirs
Event details ***Please note this program is being offered virtually via Zoom.*** Join Donald G. Mikulic for a fascinating look at the trilobite fossils left behind by the Silurian Sea that was once right here in Will County! Mikulic was a senior paleontologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and served as the curator of…
-
Mazon Monday #293: Mazon Creek Project Slides
This is Mazon Monday post #293. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The Mazon Creek Project was a program sponsored by Northeastern Illinois University. Founded in the 1960s, by the late Eugene Richardson Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago Illinois. It was originally an attempt to encourage more…
-
Video for ESCONI October 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting – “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”
The October 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting will be held on October 18th, 2025 at 7:30 via Zoom. The topic is “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”. It will be presented byShellie Luallin. Shellie Luallin will be presenting “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”. 3D models increasingly appear in the digital realm – in TV…
-
Fossil Friday #288: Danville Roachoid Wing
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #288. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Andrew Young sent us photos of a beautiful Roachoid wing…
-
Mazon Monday #292: Mazon Creek Fossil Day 2025
This is Mazon Monday post #292. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. We had a nice turnout at the Mazon Creek Fossil Day event in the Coal City library a few weeks ago. There were multiple displays by members and people brought in some of their finds for identification. Last week’s Fossil…
-
Fossil Friday #287: Palaeoxyris multiplicatum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #287. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Hunter Nettles brought an absolutely breathtaking specimen of Palaeoxyris multiplicatum…
-
Happy National Fossil 2025!
Every year the National Park Service picks a park for National Fossil Day. For 2025, it’s the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (JODA). There are many ways to celebrate the day… see this link. Today, the badlands, sagebrush steppe, and riparian habitats of the John Day River Basin of eastern and central Oregon support diverse…
-
ESCONI October 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting – October 18th, 2025 at 7:30 PM via Zoom – “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”
The October 2025 Paleontology Study Group Meeting will be held on October 18th, 2025 at 7:30 via Zoom. The topic is “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”. It will be presented by Shellie Luallin. Shellie Luallin will be presenting “Creating 3D Digital Models for Paleontology”. 3D models increasingly appear in the digital realm – in…
-
Mazon Monday #291: Dithyrocaris sp.
This is Mazon Monday post #291. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Dithyrocaris sp. is a genus of crustacean from the Carboniferous. The Mazon Creek fossil biota includes one undescribed species, although there are other described species from other fossil localities – Bear Gulch, Montana (Dithyrocaris rolfei). Danville, IL (Dithyrocaris carbonarius), Cane…
-
Fossil Friday #286: Rhabdoderma exiguum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #286. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week’s Fossil Friday, we have a Rhabdoderma exiguum.…
-
Reminder: 2025 Mazon Creek Fossil Day, October 11th, 2025 at the Coal City Library
The 2025 Mazon Creek Fossil Day will be held on October 11th, 2025 at the Coal City Library from 10 AM to 3 PM. See you there! Previous events
-
Mazon Monday #290: Danville Spoil Pile Trip Report for September 2025
This is Mazon Monday post #290. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. There was lots of fun on the field trip to the Danville Spoil Pile on Saturday, September 27th, 2025. The day was hot and dry with a clear sky and temperatures in the 80s… summer like weather in late September…
-
‘Shockingly Beautiful’ Fossil Reveals Oldest Dome-Headed Dinosaur
The New York Times has a fascinating look at beautiful pachycephalosaur specimen from Mongolia. The animal was recently described in a paper in the journal Nature. Zavacephale rinpoche was found in the Gobi Desert by Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University. The name means “root” and “jewel” in Tibetan, which is a…
-
‘Rare’ ancestor reveals how huge flightless birds made it to faraway lands
LiveScience has a story that looks a paper about flightless birds and how they may have dispersed across multiple continents. The paper “Quantitative analysis of stem-palaeognath flight capabilities sheds light on ratite dispersal and flight loss” was published in the journal Biology Letters. Ostriches, emus, rheas and other large, flightless birds (paleognaths) are closely related,…
-
Fossil Friday #285: Palaeoxyris lewisi
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #285. 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 Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! We have a beautiful Palaeoxyris lewisi shark egg case…
-
Digging Wyoming: People Flock To Glenrock To Dig for Dinosaurs In The Dark
Want to dig for dinosaurs? Well… there a place near Glenrock, Wyoming that might be perfect for a vacation next year! Cowboy State Daily has a nice article about it. A plethora of paleontological discoveries continues to shed light on the world of Converse County 67 million years ago. Most of that light is coming…
