Fossil Friday – traces on a mammoth rib

Organisms don’t exist in a vacuum. The whole concept of an ecosystem emphasizes the interactions between an organism and its environment, including with other organisms. A large organism like a mammoth can have wide-ranging effects on numerous other organisms, even after its death.

Fossil Friday – Back from Field Work

The first part of the Western Science Center’s summer field season with Zuni Dinosaur Institute for the Geosciences and the Southwest Paleontological Society is now over, and that means lots of new fossils have been brought to the museum!

Fossil Friday – Camelops tooth

Today’s Fossil Friday specimen comes from the Pleistocene camel Camelops hesternus, a taxon we’ve featured several times on this blog. But this specimen is special because of where it was found – in Joshua Tree National Park.

Fossil Friday – Miocene horses

Hello! I’m Brittney Stoneburg, the Marketing and Events Specialist for the Western Science Center. While my job mostly entails communications and outreach at the museum, I’ve spent the last year dipping my toes into research!

A Scaphohippus dentary

Fossil Friday – ceratopsid illium

Last week for Fossil Friday, I posted the sacrum of a ceratopsid, a large horned dinosaur related to Triceratops. The sacrum is a series of fused vertebrae to which the hip bones attach. Today, I want to show you one of those hip bones from the same ceratopsid individual.

Fossil Friday – ceratopsian sacrum

Horned dinosaurs were one of the most successful groups of dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous of western North America. Known as ceratopsids, these rhino- to elephant-sized beasts brandished horns, spikes, and frills on their massive skulls.

Fossil Friday – fern

Over the last year or so, I’ve posted many bones from large herbivorous dinosaurs that lived in New Mexico around 79 million years ago, such as duck-billed hadrosaurs, horned ceratopsids, and the armored Invictarx.

Fossil Friday – Mistaken Identity

On March 8 Fossil Friday, I posted an 80-million-year-old dinosaur bone from New Mexico, which I identified as a tibia (shin bone). At the time, it was only partially prepped, and since then, WSC volunteer Joe Reavis has been working tirelessly to remove the remaining mudstone.

Fossil Friday – Paralia sulcata

“Max’s Minions” is the informal name for WSC’s junior research volunteer program. The Minions perform a variety of lab duties for us, including 3D scanning, molding and casting, skinning carcasses for our dermestid colony, preparing fossils, and other tasks. Several of them are also working on their own research projects.

Fossil Friday – abelone

Last week Cogstone Resource Management (http://www.cogstone.com) delivered a collection of Pleistocene deposits from Ventura County to the Western Science Center. This included a number of both vertebrate and invertebrate fossils.