Spiny legged 308-million-year-old arachnid discovered in the #MazonCreek locality
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-spiny-legged-million-year-arachnid.html paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/remarkable-spiny-arachnid-from-the-pennsylvanian-mazon-creek-lagerstatte-illinois/0E1B32BAFCAEA067018EF9BF349F8B81

"More than 300 million years ago, all sorts of #arachnids crawled around the #Carboniferous coal #forests of North America and Europe. These included familiar ones... But there were also quite bizarre arachnids belonging to now #extinct groups. Even among these strange species now lost to time, one might have stood out for its up-armored legs"

310-million-year-old #fossil blobs might not be #jellyfish after all
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/310-million-year-old-fossil-jellyfish-anemone

An abundant #SeaAnemone from the #Carboniferous #MazonCreek Lagerstӓtte, USA https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spp2.1479

An ancient #animal called #Essexella may have been a type of burrowing #sea #anemone with a barrel-shaped body, not a jellyfish as some #scientists thought.

We're making a dichotomous key to ID #plants from a couple specific rock formations in the #paleo collection. Very technical language. *nods*

(This is just an initial outline. The final will actually be broadly usable by undergrads and include pictures.)

#MazonCreek #StanleyCemetary #botany #paleobotany #ItsCorn #Pennsylvanian #Carboniferous #lycopsid