A few weeks old, but worth noting: World’s oldest flying insect fossil. A beautiful resting trace from a Carboniferous insect that landed with its limbs sprawled out like a mayfly; found in Massachusetts by a geology student at Tufts University.

Moving back in time, Chris Nedin kicks off his new Ediacaran blog with a compelling Cambrian tale of how flexible trilobites avoided unlucky breaks in The Spandrels of San Marco and the Anomalocaris Paradigm.

Speaking of the Cambrian, scientists are furthering their insight into the exceptional preservation of the famous Burgess Shale fossils, according to this article.

And  The Life of Madygen provides a brief introduction to the Triassic titanopterans, an extinct group of insects, related to grasshoppers and crickets, but with wingspans reaching half-a-meter across!

A photo and a closeup of the astounding Chengjiang “Chained Arthropods”
Photos by Derek Siveter from the University of Oxford Media Release.

The researchers who reported on these fossils in this week’s issue of Science suspect that these ancient “conga lines” might reflect some sort of migratory behavior.

• Reference: Hou, X.-G., Siveter, D. J., Aldridge, R. J., and Siveter, D. J. 2008. Collective Behavior in an Early Cambrian Arthropod. Science: 322: 5899, p. 224. doi: 10.1126/science.1162794
• Web Coverage:
  • University of Oxford press release
  • Science News: New Arthropod Species Really Stuck Together
  • National Geographic: “Daisy Chains” of Fossil Creatures Found in China
  • Catalogue of Organisms: Chain Chain Chain

While looking it over, and with any number of gift-shopping seasons fast approaching, I thought it might be handy to use the HMNH Paleo-Pop Shop page to help promote other purveyors of paleontology-themed items around the web, at least until I scrape together the funds to come up with some more custom Hairy Museum merchandise. I’ve listed a few worthy shops, but I’m sure there are many more out there, so pass along any recommendations in the comments or directly to me at paleopopshop [at] hmnh.org.

At this point, my only rules are: 1. There should be a way to order (or at least browse) store merchandise online, 2. There should be a significant portion of paleontology or natural history themed merchandise, and 3. I’d just as soon bypass any ethical issues surrounding the sale of fossils, so no shops selling actual fossil material will be included.

Other than that, feel free to plug yourself, your friends, or anything else you’d like to see!