Marcus Brandel

For #MammothMonday the OG mammoth molar from the small Midwestern town of New Ulm. Found in 1912 - 17 year prior to August Hummel's LostBones #7 discovery.

🐘🐂🦥🐴🐪🐟 New #LostBones #MammothMonday article! This one recounts the discovery of a ten-pound mammoth molar found west of New Ulm, MN. Donated to the UofM and disappearing for nearly a century. A Mighty Beast follows my seven-year search for the tooth. marcusbrandel.substack.com/p/lost-bones...

A good job if you can get it! ;)

🐂🔥#HolloweenMonth #FossilFriday This moth, I uncovered another piece of the story from Melrose, Minnesota: a 1967 college bulletin documenting more of the Bison occidentalis remains on display at UMD shortly after their discovery. The bones may be lost—the story isn't. marcusbrandel.substack.com

Work In Progress 2026 #CitizenScience #Equus #YearOfTheFireHorse #FossilFriday @ucirvine.bsky.social #KCCAMS

Happy #FossilFriday! We spent the weekend at the annual show of the Minnesota Mineral Club, and boy did we bring a lot from the Science Museum of #Minnesota! A 24 foot table display of #dinosaurs 🦖, #crocodiles 🐊, Giant Beavers 🦫, shelly sea creatures, and even 2 billion-year-old bacteria traces!

#MuseumSpotlight for #FossilFriday: Bison and other remains at the Jackson County Historical Society collected during Des Moines River investigations for a Gustavus Adolphus College and Bates College. The museum maintains, specimens, site photos, and two scientific posters. Visit www.jchsmn.org

Happy #FossilFriday! Had an amazing week taking part in BeaverCON in Minneapolis this year! I presented on the Giant Beaver as our state fossil and learned SO much 🦫! We even brought a bunch of #beaver fossils from the Science Museum of Minnesota to the @bellmuseum.bsky.social for a Dam Good Night!

For #ArcheologyMonth this mossy decrepit Alces alces (North American moose) skull stole the show for me last weekend during a public tour at the 106 Group’s St. Paul office. 106 Group is a cultural resource management (CRM) firm doing heritage work in the MN. For more: 106group.com #LostBones

Happy #FossilFriday! This week we did CROCtoberfest at @badweatherbrew.bsky.social We brought cool #fossil #crocodiles from the Science Museum of Minnesota, there were live #alligators, I gave a talk on my croc research from #Germany and we even got to hold a lil’ gator. Good times and good brews! 🐊

🐂For #FossilFriday I’m #CountingBones. The bison pelvis is one of the biggest bones in the skeleton — but in the Midwest museum and institutional collections I've visited, it almost never survives whole. Out of 41 county and city institutions, only 10, all partial. More: marcusbrandel.substack.com

Stop by, say hi, and have a beverage of your choice!

Sometimes I think about how the padded feet of modern camels are actually a reversion from the hooves most artiodactyls today have. Some fossil camelids, like Stenomylus on the right, had unguligrade feet, but all camelids since the Pliocene were digitigrade.

In 2007, workers in a quarry found the end of a tusk. They dug some more & thought they'd found a mammoth. Although the fossil was offered to the local university, no one was interested. No one, that is, until Peter Houde heard about it. #proboscideans mostlymammoths.wordpress.com/2026/09/14/t...

🐴🦥🐘🐪 #CitizenScience #FossilFriday — Horse incisor & molar from Brown County More Ice Age finds keep turning up — horse, mammoth pieces, and pelvis fragments from local gravels. Three molars are already headed for radiocarbon dating. New stories, updates, and more: marcusbrandel.substack.com

Lost Bones #7 is up! In 1929, a nearly ten-pound mammoth molar was discovered west of my hometown New Ulm, Minnesota. Donated to the University of Minnesota—then disappeared into nearly a century of museum transfers. Follows my 7-year search for the tooth: marcusbrandel.substack.com/p/lost-bones

Happy #FossilFriday! Come check out the Science Museum of Minnesota’s exhibit Ultimate Dinosaurs at the Minnesota State Fair, it’s up the whole time at the North End Event Center! It features 16 Dino skeletons from the southern hemisphere and SO much more!

For #FossilFriday — dinosaurs headline the Minnesota State Fair, but an Ice Age predator is also on display! These 26,900-year-old Homotherium serum fossils from Tyson Spring Cave were found beginning in 2008, they provided the first record of this scimitar-toothed cat in Minnesota.

🐂 #MinnesotaMuseum #FossilFriday 🐘🦥🐴🐪 Today I’m spotlighting the Redwood County Museum. If you’re a naturalist — and a lover of #LostBones — this one’s for you. A collection of mounted mammals and birds, plus a lineup of skulls including a nicely crusty bison skull. redwoodcountyhistoricalsociety

Happy #FossilFriday! Why’d the Giant Beaver lose its head? Because it’s going to the Minnesota State Fair! Our actual Giant Beaver skeleton is traveling to the North End Event Center, in the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit, celebrating it officially becoming our State Fossil. Come see it for yourself! 🦫

#FossilFriday 3.6-billion-year-old gneiss bedrock at Granite Falls Minnesota, created a landscape ideal for collecting sediment layers and preserving bones. Yellow Medicine County Historical Society holds a collection of bison remains from the area, some from a famous bison kill: the Peterson Site.

🦌 #FossilFriday — Megaloceros giganteus, specimen USNM 7051. Masterfully mounted at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History its ~3.6‑meter antlers supported by a structural steel carriage #pleistocene #megalocerosgiganteus #citizenscience Skull mount photos credit: NMNH/Loren Ybarrondo

Latest update is now on Substack. marcusbrandel.substack.com/p/lost-bones...

Happy #FossilFriday! The outreach continues! Today I presented for a summer youth program hosted at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota. We covered lots of dinos, Ice Age beasts, the state fossil and a titanic snake. Such a great crowd!

🐯🐾🦥🐴🐘🐪 For #FossilFriday, a fantastic mount from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Fossils. The Smilodon on display — specimen v10928 — is a composite skeleton sourced from the La Brea Tar Pits, CA. #pleistocene #smilodonfatalis #citizenscience Skull photo credit NMNH

🐂🦥🐴🐘🐪🐟🍃 A surprisingly common bone in small city and county museum collections across the Midwest — and one that’s often left unidentified — is the sternum. Fo bison It’s usually found disarticulated into its individual segments, called sternebrae. Read more: marcusbrandel.substack.com

Happy #FossilFriday! This past week the paleo team from the Science Museum of Minnesota was at TWO breweries talking science! First up was Bad Weather Brewing for their Summer Block Party then Indeed Brewing last night to do a talk & table on #dinosaurs (and other ancient life). Great times! 🦖🍻

An Eremotherium #FossilFriday. This remarkable giant ground sloth, Eremotherium laurillardi, stands at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Remounted on a new steel armature during the renovation of the Hall of Fossils–Deep Time in 2019, it reportedly reaches to a height of 13 feet.

It's a follow-up #FossilFriday The mysterious bone fragment I posted about last year has an ID! After examination by the Science Museum of Minnesota, as suspected, the specimen has been confirmed as a mastodon tooth cusp. If you would you have recognized it let me know. #citezenscience #mammut

For #Fossil Friday, meet "Junior." On loan to the new Bison: Standing Strong Smithsonian exhibit in Washington, DC. Junior is a massive Bison latifrons skull. Marie L. Hopkins, Idaho's first female paleontologist, excavated Junior in 1951. #womenwhodig #pleistocene #bison doi.org/10.2307/1375...

Happy #FossilFriday! Check out some recent finds from fieldwork in #NorthDakota! A claw, tooth, and osteoderms (armor plates) of Borealosuchus + some turtle shell. These are all about 60 million years old from life’s recovery phase after the big extinction that ended the Age of the Dinosaurs.

substack.com/@marcusbrand...

Lost Bones #6 (Bears Repeating) 🐻 For #FossilFriday 🐂🦥🐴🐪🐟 a new #LostBones article out on Substack! This one is a deep dive into brown bear (Ursus arctos) and giant short-faced bears (Arctodus simus) in the Midwest and Surrounding areas. Please share the story! open.substack.com/pub/marcusbr...

Huge deal all! @pbseons.bsky.social has made a SIX episode series around the Permian and it is a delight. Coming soon! 📺 🍿 There will be familiar faces.

#FossilFriday The final tooth—12 of 12—is SMM P2024.5.1, a lower molar found at Mississippi Gateway Regional Park (Brooklyn Park, MN) in 2023. Twelve 3D printed reproductions of the molars are also underway and are now receiving their final paint touches. #Equus #RadiocarbonDating

🐂 🐴🐪 #FossilFriday Still one of my favorite mounts! 9K years ago, a group of Bison occidentalis wandered into what’s St, Paul MN. In 1955, at Mississippi St. & Maryland road crews found them resting beneath a peat layer. Today the remains form specimen P68.54.1 at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

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#FossilFriday specimen SMM P2025.8.6 (MNH 779) comes from Nicollet County near St. Peter, Minnesota’s almost‑capital. #11 of 12 in the state’s Ice Age horse project heading to UC Irvine’s W. M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility (KCCAMS) for radiocarbon dating this summer.

Amazing animals!

Huge day for reptile evolution. We FINALLY find strong morpho-/paleontological support for Pantestudines with Archosauria. WOO! 🐢 + 🐊🦩 Eunotosaurus is firmly down on the reptile stem. "Eu-not-a-turtle" amirite?? Phylo tests ALL prior candidates for turtle origins in one deeply satisfying work.

NORTH DAKOTA'S BIGGEST HELL PIG: Our brand new exhibit, a Hell Pig from right here in Dickinson! The past few months we've been piecing this together, and today we got it finished! #fossil #fossils #paleontology #hellpig #entelodont #FossilFriday #NorthDakota #dickinson

Did you know - camels originated and evolved in North America?! 🐪 But back then, they were smaller and had no humps! Wanna learn more? Head to bit.ly/oligocene-camel & tune in next week for another #FossilFriday from the Paleo Research Institute www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/vc/ #Paleontology

Happy #FossilFriday! Today a team from the Science Museum of Minnesota went to Garden City Elementary school in Brooklyn Center, #Minnesota to talk about the fun & interesting science careers at the museum. I, of course, brought some fun #fossils to share. Great to talk to so many kids!

#FossilFriday 🐘🦥🐴Happened upon a fantastic life‑sized mastodon with its juvenile at the Boonshoft Museum’s Entering the Ice Age exhibit in Dayton, OH recently. Great for paleo‑curious kids—plus a great mammal and historical exhibits as well as giant sloth and short‑faced bear replicas. boonshoft.org

🐂 #LostBones #FossilFriday 🐟️🐘🦥🐴🐪 I'm back out #CountingBones. At the Winnebago Area Museum — bison and horse remains from two Blue Earth sites. Shout‑out: this museum has been entirely volunteer‑run for 50 years. 🏦Museum: www.winnebagoareamuseum.org 🔄Project: marcusbrandel.substack.com/about

Happy #FossilFriday! This week, the paleo team from the Science Museum of Minnesota was at Beaver Fest, at lovely Carleton College in Northfield, #Minnesota. It was our 3rd year there but the first with the Giant Beaver as Minnesota’s official state fossil. Such a good time!

Among the tiniest theropod teeth I’ve seen from this not-to-be-identified locality! Familiar to anyone? We’ve got our ideas. #FossilFriday 🦖 🦷

🐴🐘🐪 This tooth survived the end of the Ice Age in a gravel pit. 🦷 Found 5 miles east of Montevideo, this lower horse molar may have belonged to one of the last Equus roaming Minnesota. Follow the whole 12 tooth journey in Lost Bones #4 thru the link in my bio. #LostBones #FossilFriday #Equus

Happy #FossilFriday! Last night the Science Museum of Minnesota had its big Science Celebration night. We of course brought out lots of cool #fossils, including from our recent fieldwork and the new state fossil. Thanks to all who came and helped out to make the evening a success!

Fire, Bone, and Silicone — Skeletal Mount in Progress The full bison skeletal build is officially taking shape at the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History. Smmnh smmnh.com Walter Varcoe equineskeletons.com Lost Bones marcusbrandel.substack.com #LostBoses #CitizenScience #FossilFriday