History, Natural History & the Arts
The Warren County Historical Society is welcoming back to the county a giant mammoth tooth found in Queensbury before the Civil War.
The prehistoric elephant roamed Warren County some 13,000 years ago when the county was more tundra-like with sedges and lichens in a very cold environment left by the retreating ice sheet on its way back North. [Read more…] about Some History Of The Warren County Mammoth Tooth Going On View November 5th
In the latest episode of A New York Minute in History, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts dig into the 19th Century discovery of a mastodon skeleton in Orange County.
The “Orange County Mastodon” was one of the earliest, if not the first, complete mastodon skeletons discovered in the U.S. These large fossils captured the attention of many Americans who were determined to dispel the myth of American degeneracy. [Read more…] about The Orange County Mastodon & America’s ‘Founding Fossils’
Whether one has owned a pet cat, dog, chinchilla or what-have-you, or merely admired the grace and beauty of a horse or deer, most of us develop positive links with at least one four-legged animal. But for everyone except maybe scientists, warm and fuzzy feelings evaporate when you move up to critters with a thousand or more legs.
Insects, all of which have six legs, seldom elicit an oxytocin feel-good rush. I mean it’s unusual for folks to get doe-eyed over a mosquito, yellow jacket or cucumber beetle. On the whole, though, insects are nowhere near as creepy as eight-legged beasties. The term arachnid, I’m pretty sure, is Latin for “things with too many legs for my comfort level.” It includes ticks, which can transmit around a dozen serious illnesses to humans, as well as spiders. These latter, of which we seem to have an innate fear, are equal parts by weight of legs, eyes and hairs, by my estimation at least. [Read more…] about Counting on Arthropods
When did homo sapiens arise? Maybe 2 million years ago?
Nobody really knows exactly when we became “human,” but most of the rocks on our Lake Ontario beaches are at least a hundred times older than our species.
This is what the geologists mean by “deep time.” [Read more…] about Deep Time: Lake Ontario’s Lucky Stones & Fossils