What's New?

Olenoides. © Royal Ontario Museum. Photo Jean-Bernard Caron
Burgess Shale
Hugh

Trilobite sex

Trilobite species Olenoides serratus, has been well studied since 1909 and is one of the most fully understood trilobites in the fossil record, due to the exceptional preservation of soft tissues (labile tissue) at the Burgess Shale. Now after over 100 years of studying the species, and half a billion

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Gyaltsenglossus senis, shown as it would appear as it moved on the bottom of the ocean as it used its’ tentacles for feeding from the water above, while the background shows how it would feed with its’ base attached to the sea floor extended for upwards for feeding. The fossil on the right is a complete specimen of Gyaltsenglossus senis (ROMIP 65606.1) showing full length of the proboscis with the six feeding arms at the top. Illustration by Emily S. Damstra. Both images © Royal Ontario Museum
Burgess Shale
Hugh

A 506 million year old hemichordate worm with tentacles

Gyaltsenglossus senis, is a newly described hemichordate from the Burgess Shale. It provides evidence on how the anatomies of the two main groups of hemichordates – enteropneusta and pterobranchia – are related.   The enteropneusta and pterobranchia differ in body shape and in ecological function. However, DNA analysis of present day

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Ecological reconstruction of Kylinxia zhangi. (Artwork by D.-Y. Huang & H. Zeng)
Chengjiang
Hugh

Five-eyes!? Kylinxia zhangi, a new Opabinia-like fossil

Kylinxia zhangi is a newly described euarthropod with five-eyes. It is was discovered in a Cambrian aged deposit in Chengjiang, China, and was recently described in the journal Nature. Kylinxia looks remarkably like a cross between two Burgess Shale animals, Opabinia regalis and Anomalocaris canadensis. The Burgess Shale is currently

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Illustation: Z.H. YAO & D.J. FU. Artists rendering of the Qingjiang biota showing characteristic early Cambrian taxa from the Lagerstatte
Burgess Shale
Hugh

Tropical Fossils: The Burgess Shale Is Not Alone!

Tropical Fossils? The Burgess Shale fossils are found in the Canadian Rockies at a latitude of 51 North. However, the fossilized animals lived and died in the tropics. This change in latitude over time is the result of the slow action of Plate Tectonics. For the last 508 Million years

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Monarch Mine and Mill, Field, BC (Sep 1935)
Burgess Shale
Hugh

A Mine in Yoho National Park?

A mine. In a National Park. Inside a mountain. Not what you would expect but for over sixty years, zinc and lead where mined from within Mount Stephen and Mount Field in Yoho National Park. These mines were the only successful metal mines in the Canadian Rockies.  Railway construction workers chanced

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Sidneyia fossil with Sidneyia model
Burgess Shale
Hugh

The Cambrian Explosion and the Burgess Shale

Cambrian Explosion The early Cambrian period marks one of the most spectacular evolutionary events in the history of life – The Cambrian Explosion. This was an explosion of life. Within ten million years, a very short period geologically, a host of hard-body and soft-body animals appeared in the fossil record. Trilobites,

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