Woman on beach finds fossil from unknown animal likely older than dinosaurs

[Nittersing]

https://wapo.st/3CTGFdO (gift article, no paywall)

High school teacher Lisa St. Coeur Cormier was strolling with her dog near her home on Canada’s Prince Edward Island when something caught her eye.

She often finds sea glass when she’s walking Sammy, but this day she thought she spotted a branch or tree root poking out of the sand.

“I saw something about two feet long with a strange shape,” said Cormier, 36, who lives in Charlottetown. “When I looked closer, I realized there was a rib cage. And around that, there was a spine and a skull.”

Cormier, who used to be a middle school science teacher, immediately knew it was a fossil. But she never imagined how rare and old, or the excitement that would develop from her discovery that day, Aug. 22.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916

[Bayard]

1. Way cool!

[grumpyduck]

2. Oooooo nooooo...

It's a Predator!

[hauckeye]

3. Wow! Just finished the book "Remarkable Creatures "

The subject is two female fossil hunters in the early 1800’s in England. Really amazing!

[HillbillyDaoist]

20. Thanks for the book referral!

[eppur_se_muova]

21. Nonfiction? If so I'm assuming one was Mary Anning; who was the other ? nt

[hauckeye]

22. It's a novelization about Mary Anning. The other woman is Elizabeth Philpot.

I learned about the book because they were reading it on NPR in their "Chapter a Day" segment.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. Oh yes, they were longtime friends IIRC.

I'm not sure Mary Anning needs more fictionalizing -- her older biographies were not particularly reliable, and only recently has she seen a proper biography. She has been a particularly popular subject of children's books, which give simplified, 'Disneyfied' versions of her life which do her little justice.

More thoroughly researched, scholarly biographical treatments -- admittedly, not what everyone is seeking -- can be found here:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fossil_Hunter/4sUgAQAAIAAJ?hl=en

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/mary-anning-17991847-of-lyme-the-greatest-fossilist-the-world-ever-knew/58D173F8F79721068E7007FADE70F727

The latter is a free download.

Unfortunately, there is bound to be some quite detailed, occasionally tedious, discussion of the religious situation in England at that time, as these strongly circumscribed her opportunities in public and intellectual life.

[Towlie]

4. It's the claw of a six-fingered thesausus, a creature known by many other names.

 
?

[yowzayowzayowza]

5. lol

Easily amused.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Can't Be

Scientists have known for decades that a thesaurus was a dinosaur with a huge vocabulary!

[Brother Buzz]

6. She gets to name the specimen, no?

And my guess the name will be include Sammy name.

[Throck]

7. Mitch McConnell's wisdom teeth?

[bluevoter4life]

16. Close

Looks more like his spine.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Can't wait for someone to construct the shape through drawings.

[Nevilledog]

10. That's not always accurate, tho

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. Hope they didn't destroy other fossils by digging down around that one so quickly.

[honest.abe]

11. I think I know what it is

[bringthePaine]

13. 👍🤣

[CaptainTruth]

14. That is cool! Thanks for posting.

[JoeOtterbein]

15. K n R ! Thanks for posting!

And for gifting the coolest article of the week!

[Trueblue1968]

17. "It will probably take a year to figure out exactly what this is," Calder said. "We're not 100 perce

“It will probably take a year to figure out exactly what this is,” Calder said. “We’re not 100 percent sure that it’s a reptile.”

Calder said the fossilized creature was probably similar in appearance to a Gila monster.

[Hekate]

18. How great is that! Recommend the whole article at link.

[H2O Man]

19. Recommended.

Way, way cool!