Daniel Ksepka

Happy #InternationalPolarBearDay from my favorite bear, Charlie! He was the centerpiece of our exhibition On Thin Ice: Alaska's Warming Wilderness. Can't wait for the next time we can display this beautiful bear at the Bruce Museum.

@JaimeHeadden One weird thing about the fossil is that the skull, neck, wings, and feet are all preserved in life position but the trunk and upper legs are missing. We hypothesize this is an example of the “stick ‘n’ peel” model of preservation. Lots of new data from one little bird!

And it was only about as big as a pigeon! Here is nice size comparison by @JaimeHeadden showing Rhynchaeites mcfaddeni and a modern Glossy Ibis.

Just in time for #FossilFriday, meet Rhynchaeites mcfaddeni, a little fossil ibis from the Green River Formation. The holotype looks delightfully like a hieroglyph! Published today in Journal of Paleontology shorturl.at/qTUVi

Don't forgot your fossil friends on Penguin Awareness Day. Here's the skull of Eudyptes warhami, an extinct crested penguin from the Chatham Islands. Its such an interesting species that it's features on a NZ coin! Read more here: fossilpenguins.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/anc…

Happy Penguin Awareness Day! Here's a throwback to our 2023 exhibition Penguins, Past and Present. We are celebrating at the Bruce Museum today with a special 10 question Penguin Round at tonight's Bruce Museum Trivia. Meet us at 6pm for pizza, drinks, and prizes!

Our little buddy Eudyptula wilsonae made BBC's @WildlifeMag 10 Cutest Prehistoric Animals Ever! shorturl.at/svdjo Reconstruction of this fossil fluffball by @GiovaFavazzi Here's the original paper by @NZfauna, @TennysonAlan, Felix Marx & myself: shorturl.at/BSGYF

For #MineralMonday, take a peek at our lovely canvasite. This is one of my favorite pieces in our Tiny Treasures case. The blue coloring comes from vanadium, but what makes this mineral so special to me is have the clusters look soft like fluffy little cotton balls!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for Centuriavis lioae, a 10 million year old fossil relative of turkeys. It was a lot of fun describing this stunning specimen with Catherine Early, Kate Dzikiewicz, and Amy Balanoff. The fossil is named after our amazing colleague Suzanne Lio.

Come at me bro! Did you know ants can ward off elephants that attack their acacia tree homes? Learn how ants and plants work form mutualistic relationships in Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives at the Bruce Museum. On view through May 17th.

Our little birdy made the cover of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Amazing how a bird sank to the bottom of Fossil Lake 51 million years ago and ended up entombed in sediments that perfectly match the background color/texture of the journal. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

At the end of the exhibition you can stop and enjoy fascinating (and sometimes hilarious) clips by Adrian Smith. I highly encourage you to check out his AntLab channel, I promise this footage of trap-jaw ants will brighten your Friday. youtube.com/watch?v=H2okI6…

Ant architecture is on full diplay, with a 20x life size field ant nest crafted by the one and only Sean Murtha and 9 aluminum nest casts from the inventor of the poured aluminum technique himself, Walter Tschinkel. These are works of art!

Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives is officially open to the public at the Bruce Museum! Enter the tunnel and you will first meet "Buckley", our five foot long scaled-up Dinoponera ant. (Buckley is named after her creator, Dan Buckley)

Thousands of species interact with ants, as predators, prey, or mutualists. Headlining the list are the anteater and aardvark of course. These life-like specimens are on loan from the Yale Peabody Museum.

Get ready to enter the tunnel and explore the realm of natures tiny dynamos. Ants: Tiny Creatures, Big Lives opens November 13th at the Bruce Museum!