Natural History
Monthly Archive: December Natu
Saskatchewan’s newest dinosaur has ROM connection
Today, Caleb Brown and colleagues announced the discovery of Canada’s newest dinosaur, Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis – the first new dinosaur species to be discovered in Saskatchewan since 1926. The new dinosaur is named after the historic District of Assiniboia, where it was found. The small-bodied, two-legged plant-eater lived alongside the famed Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, at the very end of the age of dinosaurs.
Back in the lab – trying to make heads or tails of it all.
After three days of successful fieldwork on the chilly Grand Rapids Uplands, we return – toting a fresh batch of fossils – to The Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. This is the home turf of my colleague, Graham Young, and almost a second home for me.
Southern Alberta field collection 2011 has arrived!
Marked field jackets containing horned dinosaur bones from the McPheeter’s bonebed (MBB) and the South Side Ceratopsian (SSC).
NASA’s Continued Curiosity for Life on Mars
By Brent Hyde, Minerology Technician
Did life ever exist on the red planet? This is a question NASA has been trying to answer for more than 40 years. In the next couple of years, NASA hopes to get some answers.
On the Rocks Again — in which a pair of intrepid palaeontologists head for the hinterland.
Ah, the romance of fieldwork. There’s nothing quite like waiting for the morning sun to rise high enough to illuminate a cold, wet outcrop, so that one can spend the next 8 or 9 hours kneeling in mud and splitting razor-sharp rock slabs. But we have hot coffee in the thermos, dry gloves in the pack, and — hopefully — there are some new fossils to be found!
Bugs are moving in (not bed bugs this time)
Question: It’s fall, why are all these bugs coming into my home? I’ve never seen them before!
Western conifer seed bug; copyright ROM images
Is Burton Pipistrelle a Budding Superhero?
Burton & Isabelle Pipistrelle out of the bat cave, by Denise Dias, Illustrated by Tara Winterhalt
The Butterflies of Toronto
To educate and foster appreciation for these much-loved colourful insects, the City of Toronto, in partnership with the ROM and Livegreen Toronto, has published a new book, Butterflies of Toronto: A Guide to their Remarkable World. With hundreds of full-colour photographs, this new publication shares the local history of butterflies and details on where they live in Toronto. It is part of a Biodiversity Series being produced by the City to commemorate the Year of Biodiversity 2010.
How Do I Identify a Space Rock?
Originally published in ROM Magazine, Fall 2010.
I found a blackened rock that I think might be a meteorite. How can I tell for sure?
