It’s Summer time! Long, hot days of fun in the sun, perhaps relaxing on the beach or a nearby pool…

These cute critters know how to stay cool in the sun. I hope they bring a smile to your day!

Hermit crabs have been around even before the Jurassic period. Snails have been around for even longer, of course, but some crabs liked the shells of ammonites much better. They were relatives of squid that could hide inside their hard shells. This one has not only taken the shell of a Kachpurites ammonite, but made a nice snack of it as well. Calamari anyone?

Hadrosaurus is famously known as the original “duck-bill dinosaur” from Late Cretaceous North America. The first fossil was a critter that went for a swim in a river, a great way to keep cool on a hot day…and preserve its bones in case that river was flooded and swimming wasn’t so great an idea after all. It floated downstream all the way to the ocean before it got buried and its bones fossilized to rock.

Isodontosaurus was an ancient relative of iguanas from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. It liked its summers hot in the shifting sand dunes, keeping a close eye out to avoid any prowling Velociraptors.

Ichthyosaurus was not a fish, dolphin, shark, or dinosaur, but it loved to swim in its ocean home of Early Jurassic Europe. These marine reptiles spent their whole lives at sea, and some fossils show the shape of their fins, a last meal, or even a baby being born just like dolphins today!

Juravenator lived on an island in Late Jurassic Germany, which was an archipelago of islands in a beautiful shallow sea at the time. This little critter was just a baby when it went for a swim, but its fossil perfectly preserves everything (Jurassic Park style), even some fuzzy feathers and scales!

Jellyfish are some of the world’s oldest living creatures, and many of them don’t look very different than they do today. This one is Paraurelia, from the seas of Late Jurassic France.

And the Critter of the Month is…

Thud.

Alfred looked up, head cocked to one side so that one yellow eye focused on a shimmering red box against the concrete wall of his paddock. He sat heavily on his haunches, watching the glinting snowflakes in the sunshine, and blinked in surprise when it moved.

Like an alligator shifting its scaly bulk, Alfred rose up on his strong hind legs and stepped forward, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. A sweet, coppery tang filled his sinuses, and a gurgle almost like a purr escaped the soft scales of his throat. He held his three-clawed hands close to his body as he approached the treasure, waiting in the shadow of a ginkgo tree. When the box did not move, he nudged it gently with the tip of his golden snout.

The red box jumped. Alfred snapped at it with lightning jaws, but they closed on nothing but air. His target rose above his head, and he heard excited voices. With all his strength he threw his body into the air. His teeth closed and ripped into a thing that crumpled. His claws raked into the frail shell as he landed heavily back to the ground, no prize could escape those curved talons.

With all the ferocity of a child on Christmas morning his claws and teeth ripped the bright wrapping paper and tore into the cardboard box. Laughter distracted him, and he looked up to the platform that stood outside the wall. Faces he recognized looked down at him, human faces, shining with smiles and the laughter in their high voices.

Alfred returned his attention to the box. With surprising gentleness for an animal of his size and strength, he hooked the teeth of his lower jaw under the string wrapped around the box. Carefully he lifted his tattered prize, and carried it high and proud back to his private fern grove.

See you July 1st for the next Critter of the Month!

This swimmer likes a game of hide and seek, can you find her? 🙂

Share your guess in the comments! She’ll be one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂