The January 24 session of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology’s 2019 Speaker Series is a presentation by Dr. Karen Samonds from Northern Illinois University entitled, “The Origins and Evolution of Madagascar’s Modern Vertebrates.”

Madagascar is one of the earth’s biodiversity hotspots with some of the most unique species of animals on the planet. However, these pale in comparison to the diversity of animals that existed on the island in the prehistoric past. Madagascar has a dramatic geological and tectonic history that has greatly shaped today’s plants and animals. The details of how, when, and from where the ancestors of the present-day animals arrived still remain poorly known.

Madagascar has been isolated from all other landmasses for nearly 90 million years, well before the arrival of most of the ancestors of animals currently living there. If these animals were not stranded when the island separated, how did it acquire its unusual animals and plants, especially those with close relatives in distant landmasses?

The Cenozoic Period fossil record (66 million years ago to the present) remains our best source of information about the origins of these groups of animals, but much of this fossil record is missing. Recent palaeontological surveys have produced the first collection of Cenozoic vertebrates from Madagascar, including fishes, sharks, crocodylians, turtles, sea cows, dolphins, and, most significantly, the recent discovery of land-dwelling animals.

Dr. Samond will discuss how fossil discoveries in Madagascar shed light on the island’s evolutionary history, and how the remaining species can be preserved.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Speaker Series talks are free and open to the public. The series is held every Thursday until April 26 at 11:00 a.m. in the Museum auditorium. Speaker Series talks are also available on the Museum’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/c/RoyalTyrrellMuseumofPalaeontology.

As 2019 begins, the Special Areas Board is hard at work getting ready for the busy year ahead. Some key initiatives for the first part of the year include policy work related to public lands, economic development and business retention tools, road committee meetings and intermunicipal collaboration.

Much of the planned work in 2019 is a direct result of direction from the Special Areas Advisory Council. New committees comprised of Advisory Councillors and administrative staff were struck in December to investigate and develop specific policies for the Advisory Council as a whole to review. Over the next few months, these committees will be working on policies for community pastures, abandoned railways, and business investment and retention. In addition to these new committees, Administration will be developing materials to help Advisory Council review the cultivation lease policy at the next Advisory Council meeting planned for this spring.

Recommended by the Advisory Council as a part of the 2019 road program, Special Areas planning to pilot a shoulder pull program over the 2019 construction season. Designed to rehabilitate gravel roadways by re-establishing crown and appropriate surface width, this program should reduce long-term maintenance and expensive reconstruction costs. For the pilot year, the shoulder pull program will be executed both by in-house Special Areas forces and by an external contractor, allowing Administration and Advisory Council to directly compare costs, performance, and overall quality of the final product. This new program, along with the 2019 proposed road program, is being discussed by road committees throughout the Special Areas over the next few weeks. The final 2019 road program will be presented to Advisory Council at the spring meeting for approval. Some recent changes to provincial legislation are also driving part of the work in 2019. Intermunicipal collaboration frameworks and development plans are needed for the Special Areas Board and our municipal neighbours; in all, this means more than 15 different frameworks to develop. The Emergency Management Amendment Act, which came into force in November 2018, has meant changes to emergency management planning and documents for municipalities, including updating emergency plans, training, and regional collaboration. This work will continue over the next year, with stakeholder engagement and consultation planned throughout the process.

The next meeting of the Special Areas Advisory Council is planned for April 4 & 5, 2019. The Special Areas Board meets bi-monthly throughout the Special Areas.