Location:
On the Potomac shores, Charles Co., MD
&
The Potomac shores in VA
~56-59 Million Years Old
Late Paleocene, Selandian
Aquia Formation, Piscataway Member
"Dances with Foxes"
The walk to the Potomac river fossil spot in Charles Co. is kind of
long. We usually leave at dark, so we can make it to the fossil spot at sunrise.
During one of the walks, we kept hearing a small creature scurrying around us.
We heard it dart across the path a few feet in front of us, just
to circle us and dart back across a few feet behind us.
This continued for quite some time. Perplexed that it was not afraid of us
and of course, not having a flashlight, we had no clue what it was.
I then got the idea to
randomly snap shots with the digital camera, so that we could see
the creature in the brief flashes.
In one of the flashes, we briefly saw a creature that remakably looked
like a wallaby (This is the 1st image. Can you see the
resemblence?). After being perplexed, I continued to take shots, however,
we couldn't see it through the trees. The
creature remained a mystery.
During fossil collecting (in which no fossils were found) we speculated,
from that one brief flash, what this creature could be. Rumors spread from
a wallaby and/or kangaroo escaped from a zoo, a racoon with deformed front arms,
an opossum with a really big tail, to Snorkels
(anyone remember that cartoon?), and even Spongebob Squarepants himself.
After comming home, I loaded the images
into the computer, and enhanced them. The images clearly revealed a fox. I
was hoping it would be Spongebob.
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