Heidi Henderson

Fossil Huntress — Palaeo Sommelièr

Canada

Fossil Huntress Podcast / ARCHEA Blog / Clinical Researcher / Science Educator

Palaeontology / First Nations / Natural History / Conservation & Stewardship

Portfolio
Science 2.0
Ichthyosaurs Of The Blue Lias

This well-preserved partial ichthyosaur was found in the Blue Lias shales by Lewis Winchester-Ellis. The vertebrae you see are from the tail section of this marine reptile. The find includes stomach contents which tell us a little about how this particular fellow liked to dine.

Fossilhuntress
FOSSIL PREPARATION: MAMMOTH TEETH

Mammoths were were herbivore grazers native to Africa, Europe, Asia and North America. They lived out their long lives, 60-80 years, on the mammoth steppe, a periglacial landscape with lush grass vegetation. Mammoths used their well-designed teeth to graze on grasses, leaves, trees, shrubs and moss. Theirs was not a pretty end.

ARCHEA
PLEISTOCENE SOCKEYE SALMON

Salmon permeate First Nations mythology and have been a prized food source for thousands of years — fresh, dried, boiled, steamed or smoked — the bones carefully returned to the river or sea to continue the lifecycle of these immortal beings. In the Kwak'wala language of the Kwakiutl First Nations of the Pacific Northwest — or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala — sockeye salmon are known as ma̱łik. For the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, people of the confluence, of the Interior...

ARCHEA
PLESIOSAURS OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST

The Stegocephalian, Elpistostege watsoni is an extinct genus of finned tetrapodomorphs that lived during the Late Givetian to Early Frasnian of the Late Devonian — 382 million years ago. Elpistostege watsoni — perhaps the sister taxon of all other tetrapods — was first described in 1938 by British palaeontologist and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Thomas Stanley Westoll. Westoll's research interests were wide-ranging. He was a vertebrate palaeontologist and geologist...

Fossilhuntress
APODEROCERAS, YOUR GRACE

This stunning specimen with her regal ridges (and small anomaly) is an Apoderoceras ammonite. Apoderoceras are an extinct genus of cephalopod, an active predatory mollusk belonging to the subclass Ammonoidea. Apoderoceras is, in fact, a wonderful example of sexual dimorphism within ammonites as the macroconch (putative female) shell grew to diameters in excess of 40 cm - many times larger than the diameters of the microconch (putative male) shell.