mastodon 4.7.3This is the official account for the Alberta Palaeontological Society. We are a volunteer organization dedicated to connecting professional and avocational palaeontologists and promoting the study of palaeontolgy in Alberta.
While Alberta is better known for its vertebrate fossils, we have plant fossils as well! These are the fossils of the Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia. These plants would have thrived in the Late Cretaceous swamps and deltas that made up the western part of Southern Alberta and provided abundant food for the herds of dinosaurs that made their home in this region. Notably, there's a living species of this genus!
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossilfriday #fossils #plants #alberta
Happy Fossil Friday! This fossil is the feeding appendage of Anomalocaris canadensis. When originally discovered it was thought to be the headless body of a shrimp, but was later discovered to be part of one of the Middle Cambrian’s largest predators.
This fossil was found at the Mt. Stephen trilobite beds in Yoho National Park. This site features spectacular soft-body preservation and an enormous quantity of trilobites.
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossilfriday #fossils #anomalocaris #bc
This week’s Fossil Friday is a tooth of Sandalodus, a Carboniferous shark. This animal was swimming in the tropical seas that covered Alberta roughly 350 million years ago. At that time, much of Alberta lay under a warm, shallow sea - more like the Bahamas today than the prairies we know now!
This specimen was found near Bragg Creek in southern Alberta. It is APS 1985.020 and was collected by Geoffrey Barrett.
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossilfriday #fossil #shark #alberta
Last Saturday we had our first field trip of the year! Dr. Chris Jass and Katherine Bramble led us around the collections at the Royal Alberta Museum, showing us the parts of the collection that the public generally doesn't get to see. Along the way we learned about Ice Age mammals, becoming a palaeontologist, and the role of the gravel industry to palaeontology.
Interested in other field trips? https://albertapaleo.org/events/fieldtrips
#palaeontology #paleontology #quaternary #fossils #mammals #alberta
Another exciting palaeo event this week!
Wednesday, July 15, 2026, 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.: Dino Day @ Legend Art Gallery, 519 7 Street South, Lethbridge, AB (Devil's Coulee Dinosaur Heritage Museum & Legend Art Gallery)
For more information: see https://albertapaleo.org/events/calendar
This week’s Fossil Friday is the preserved cast of a late Cretaceous crayfish, Eryma ornatus, found in Southern Alberta.
It was found by Lawrence Halmrast and is APS 1990.011. Photo credit Howard Allen.
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossils #crayfish #alberta #fossilfriday
This week’s Fossil Friday is a Saurornitholestes tooth from the Dinosaur Park Formation. Saurornitholestes was a small theropod, closely related to Velociraptor, that would have stood about 60 cm tall and measured roughly 1.5 m long in life.
The serrations on this tooth helped it cut more efficiently into the flesh of its prey. This specimen, APS 1986.003, was found west of Iddesleigh by Donald Sabo.
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossilfriday #fossils #dinosaurs #alberta
For this Fossil Friday we have the claw bone (ungual phalanx) from a small theropod from the Dinosaur Park Formation in southern Alberta. It’s not clear exactly what species this bone is from but some candidates are Troodon and Saurornitholestes. In life this bone would have been covered in a sheath of keratin, making it much larger!
This specimen was found by Hope Johnson and is APS 2006.071. Photo credit Howard Allen.
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossils #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #alberta
This week’s Fossil Friday was found by Hope Johnston award winner and longtime APS member Harvey Negrich. This is a Late Cretaceous scaphitoid ammonite embedded in ironstone from southern Alberta!
This specimen is APS 1984.03 and the scale bar is 1cm. Image credit Howard Allen.
The penultimate video from Paleo 2026 is now posted! Kano Sasaguchi explains how a new imaging method, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), provides new insights into insect fossils!
Another video from Paleo 2026 has been posted! Dr. Jon Noad explains different often-overlooked trace fossils and uses comparison with living traces to show how these fossils are more numerous than we think - we just need to know what to look for.
Another video posted! This time it's Dr. Leslie Eliuk discussing Canadian fossil reefs which you can reach by car.
This was the main presentation at our May 8 monthly meeting. These meetings are free and open to the public!
Another talk from Paleo 2026 posted! This one is Tako Koning discussing the Driftwood Shale, a beautifully preserved Eocene ecosystem.
The final video of Paleo 2026 has been posted! Dr. Emily Bamforth, curator of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, presents the history of Triceratops and how Canadian specimens have been vital in learning about them!
#palaeontology #paleontology #fossils #alberta #dinosaurs #triceratops
Our last monthly meeting before we break for the summer is happening this Friday! We'll be learning about easily accessible fossil reef locations with Dr. Leslie Eliuk.
Friday, May 8, 7:30 - 9pm: May Monthly Meeting: May 2026 @ Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta (Alberta Palaeontological Society)
For more information: see https://albertapaleo.org/events/calendar
