FOSSILS

RECORDS OF PREHISTORIC LIFE

IN THE PHILIPPINES
FOSSILS
RECORDS OF PREHISTORIC LIFE
IN THE PHILIPPINES

Maileen P. Rondal
Jaan Ruy Conrad P. Nogot
Abigael L. Castro
Yloisa C. Magtalas
Jiles Arvin A. Vergara

Edited by
Ana Maria Theresa P. Labrador, PhD.

National Museum of the Philippines

Copyright © 2021 National Museum of the Philippines

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,
without the prior written permission of the National Museum of the
Philippines, except in non-commercial uses permitted by the Intellectual
Property Law.

Paperback: ISBN-978-971-567-043-2
Ebook: ISBN-978-971-567-044-9

Published by:

National Museum of the Philippines

P. Burgos Drive, Rizal Park, Manila, Philippines
inquiry@nationalmuseum.gov.ph
gpd@nationalmuseum.gov.ph
Trunkline: (+632) 8298-1100 loc. 1000
Direct line: (+632) 8527-0306
CONTENTS

iii Contents
v Foreword
vii About the Book

1 What are Fossils

2 Becoming a Fossil
4 Understanding Geologic Time
8 Vicarya horn snails
10 Xenophora sea snails
12 Strombus sea snails
14 Magallanesia canalicuta
16 Glyptoactis philippinensis
18 Macrosolen madlumensis
20 Chemosynthetic clams
22 Giant clams
24 Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes) Ammonites
26 Notosilesitoides philippinensis Ammonite
28 Heteromorph Ammonites
30 Belemnites
32 Nautilus pompilius
34 Crinoids
36 Sea Urchins
38 Corals
40 Megalochelys sondaari
42 Otodus megalodon
44 Istiompax indica
46 Freshwater Fish
48 Elephants
50 Stegodons
54 Nesorhinus philippinensis
56 Celebochoerus cagayanensis
58 Rusa sp.
60 Cebu Tamaraw
62 Fossil Plants
66 Petrified wood
68 Orbitolina
70 Coprolite
72 Ancient Homes and Tracks

iii
FOREWORD

Fossils are fascinating aspects of our life here on earth. As a young boy,
I would often be drawn to fossil exhibitions when visiting natural history
museums. This has made me curious about sites I would later visit while
touring places – if there are fossils around, how old they might be, and what
kind of living beings were around. I have carried this fascination through
even as a manager of the National Museum of the Philippines and have
been privileged to ensure that fossils found in our country are protected
and made accessible by exhibiting and writing about them. This new
handbook, Fossils: Record of prehistoric life in the Philippines adds to our
growing publications inspired by our exhibitions at the National Museum
of Natural History. After reading this, I hope that you will visit our galleries
dedicated to fossils, namely, Life Through Time on the fifth floor and the
Larry and Pat Gotuaco Fossil Collection
on the ground floor.

Jeremy Barns
Director-General

v
ABOUT THE BOOK

Have you ever experienced finding any fossils? Perhaps you may unearth
some in this book!

Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines introduces you

to some of the amazing fossil discoveries in the Philippines. The plants
and animals of our ancient past are represented by specimens from the
National Paleontological Collections, arranged taxonomically. When you
visit the National Museum of Natural History in Manila, you will see them
in a more illustrative form and their stories told in a way that you can
compare their present forms. Fossils are three-dimensional proof of our
ancient world and helps us imagine what life may have been like before
our histories were written.

As a product of the National Museum of the Philippines’ #MuseumFromHome

series, our Fossil Friday features have been intended as a visual introduction
to budding paleontologists that want to learn about our national fossil
collections. The series was partly inspired by our friends at the American
Museum of Natural History but deviated from it by our focus on our own
distinctive fossils. The social media posts became very popular and had a
strong following. Some schoolteachers even thanked us for them as they
downloaded the posts and became one of their teaching tools.

To disseminate further this knowledge in both digital and printed form, we

came out with this book Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines.
We thank Ms. Maileen Rondal and her team for putting this together, as well
as her predecessors, Ms. Precy Ong and Mr. Roberto de Ocampo, who, like
them looked after the National Paleontological and Geological Collections
with diligence and care.

Ana Maria Theresa P. Labrador, Ph.D

Deputy Director-General for Museums

vii
Fossils of broken and disarticulated Jurassic age bivalves and
belemnites in sandstone, Oriental Mindoro
 National Museum of the Philippines

What are Fossils?

Fossils are the remains of ancient plants and animals preserved in rocks
that are at least 10,000 years old. They were once parts of a living organism,
such as shells, bones, teeth, leaves, and flowers from long ago. (called body
fossils). Fossils can also be traces of these organisms (called trace fossils)
like leaf imprints, footprints, burrows, nests, tracks and trails, or even poops.

The word fossil comes from the Latin word fossilis, which means “something
dug up,” because fossils are often found buried in rock formations deep in
the earth.

The study of ancient life based on fossils is called Paleontology (pey-

lee-uh n-tol-uh-jee), and the scientists that studies fossils are called
paleontologists. By studying fossils, they learn about what kind of
plants and animals were present on Earth, how they lived, and what the
environment and climate was like thousands to millions or billions of
years ago. Often times, the science involves going to river valleys, cliffs,
construction sites, or road cuts to find fossils.

1
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Becoming Fossils

The fossil record is incomplete. While others have simply not yet been
unearthed, only a limited number of animals and plants have been
preserved. This is because most remains of organisms that die do not
resist destruction from environmental and biological factors. Organisms
with hard parts like bones, teeth, scales, shells, and wood are more likely to
be preserved because they are more resistant to decay and destruction.
Consequently, organisms without hard parts like worms and jellyfish have
left a meager fossil record.

Where burial is quick and dead organisms are protected from attack by
scavengers and bacteria, chemical decay, and weathering, the probability
of fossilization improves. Organisms that died in the ocean floor, lakes,
deltas, swamps, lowland flood plains, and volcanic areas, where sediment
deposition rather than erosion predominates, have a better chance of
becoming fossils. This is why a vast majority of fossils are preserved in
sedimentary rocks like shale, fine-grained sandstones, and limestones.

Not all fossils, however, are formed by being buried in sediment. In rare
instances, an entire organism becomes fossilized because it gets trapped
in tree sap (amber), mired in tar pit, or frozen very quickly.

Still, even after a fossil is formed, it can be easily destroyed. Fossils may
become flattened beyond recognition when buried by a lot of sediment, or
destroyed when exposed to wind, water, and sun. Fossils could also melt
when the sedimentary rock itself undergoes extreme pressure and heat
and transforms into a metamorphic rock.

2
Cretaceous age fossilized rudist reef in limestone, Cebu
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Understanding Geologic Time

Our Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. That is some unimaginable length
of time. To comprehend this long, complex history, scientists created a
calendar called the Geologic Time Scale. As the name suggests, this is
based on different layers of sedimentary rocks that formed during specific
times in Earth’s history. These rock layers contain a permanent record of
the Earth’s past, including the fossils of plants and animals buried when the
sediments were formed.

The Geologic Time Scale divides Earth’s history into a series of four eons.
Each eon is in turn divided into smaller and smaller units of time. Each
divisions mark major events that highlight changes in climate, geography,
atmosphere, and life.

Beginning with the oldest, the eons are the Hadean (“unseen”), Archean
(“ancient”), Proterozoic (“before complex life”), and Phanerozoic (“visible
life”). The three oldest eons are part of what is called Precambrian time. It
began from Earth’s creation and ended with the appearance of complex
life forms 541 million years ago. It lasted more than 4 billion years, and
represents almost 90 percent of Earth’s history.

The Phanerozoic Eon is the current eon and includes the most detailed
fossil record. From careful study of the layers of rocks and the abundant
fossil record, it is divided into three eras. The oldest is the Paleozoic Era
(“ancient life”), which started with the sudden appearance in the fossil
record of complex marine life and ended about 252 million years ago with
the End Permian mass extinction, the greatest extinction event in Earth
history. Following the Paleozoic Era is the Mesozoic Era (“middle life”),
which covers the rise of the dinosaurs, and their eventual demise at the
End Cretaceous mass extinction. The era also records the first appearance
of the first mammals, birds, and flowering plants, as well as the breaking
apart of the supercontinent Pangaea. The Cenozoic Era (“recent life”), in
which we are now living, only began 66 million years ago. During this era,
plants and animals look most like those on Earth today.

4
Don’t get lost in time!
Use this bookmark as a learning aid as
you go through geologic time. Color
markings at the edge of the pages
indicate the ages of the featured fossils.
Pleistocene age fossilized coral
reef in limestone, La Union
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Vicarya horn snails

Gastropod

Vicarya is a prehistoric horn snail that lived in the Philippines about 23 to

5.3 million years ago. It is an extinct genus of horn snails or mudwhelks. Like
all sea snails, Vicarya had one piece of shell that protected their soft body
from predators. In their case, they had a highly conical spiraled shell with
many triangular protrusions growing around it. They lived on the surface
of brackish-water environments, on mudflats of estuaries and in mangrove
swamps, where they graze on growing grass, herbs, and other algae.
Although they had limited visibility, they are believed to be actively mobile.

The genus has been around since the Early Cretaceous (about 112 to 109
million years ago) until their extinction about 11.6 to 5.3 million years ago. It
has attracted much attention among paleontologist because they represent
stratigraphically important index fossils, which means they are important in
determining the age of rocks. Vicarya fossils are representatives of several
Miocene (23 to 11.6 million years ago) localities throughout the Philippines.

The National Paleontological Collections contain about a hundred Vicarya

fossils. Some even have their color markings preserved. The featured
specimens were collected from the municipalities of Calatrava and Candoni,
and in City of Sipalay in the province of Negros Occidental. Similar fossils
were also discovered in Argao and San Fernando, Cebu, and in Ilagan,
Isabela.

8
 National Museum of the Philippines

Vicarya horn snails

5 cm
9
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Xenophora sea snails

Gastropod

The name Xenophora comes from ancient Greek words that means
“bearing (or carrying) foreigners” because this snail collects shells, small
rocks, dead corals, even bottle caps and coins, and glues them to its shell
as it grows. Using these foreign objects, it creates a radiating, spiral pattern
on its shell surface. Every so often, the effect is more of a jumble of debris
like a miniature undersea mosaic.

Xenophora snails adorn their shell to make it bigger and stronger. The
adornments also provide visual camouflage. Predators lurking from above
may mistake them as just a pile of debris. The objects are also believed to
act as support allowing them to lift their soft body parts up off the seabed
giving them olfactory camouflage. This peculiar activity makes Xenophora
snails as the supreme camouflage artist in the world of shelled-organisms.

Xenophora snails have been around during the time of the infamous
T-Rex, and have survived to this day. In the Philippines, you can find them
in Manila Bay, Sulu Sea, and the shallow waters off Bohol and Cebu. In 1977,
a specimen of Pliocene age (5.33 to 2.58 million years old) was discovered
preserved in calcareous sandstone in Brgy. Tiep, Bani in Pangasinan. In
2020, the National Museum, together with geologists from UP-NIGS and
NMNS-Japan collected several Xenophora shells (featured here) from the
riverbed of Magat River in Ramon, Isabela. It is believed that the creatures
inhabited the area when it was covered by a shallow sea some 8.2 to 5.5
million years ago.

Take a closer look at the featured fossils. Can you pick out the foraminifera
tests and shells of small clams and other sea snails embedded on the
surface of the shells? As its shell grows larger, it can handle larger materials.
Interestingly, the snail likes to arrange the bivalve (clam) shells upside
down, and gastropod (snail) shells with the opening facing up. Aren’t they
quite meticulous!

10
 National Museum of the Philippines

3 cm

11
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Strombus sea snails

Gastropod

Strombus is a genus of medium to large sea snails in the family of true

conches, the Strombidae. Swedish Naturalist Carl Linnaeus named it in 1758.
These sea snails come in many shapes and sizes. Commonly they are called
dog conch snails (Strombus canarium), humpbacked conch snails (Strombus
gibberulus), silver conch snails (Strombus lentiginosus), strawberry conch
snails (Strombus luhuanus), and fighting conch snails (Strombus pugilis).
Strombus shells, however, are distinguished from those of other sea snails by
having a wing-like outer lip with a notch in the edge of the shell aperture. This
notch is called a stromboid notch and allows the animal to extend one of its
two stalked eyes out.

Strombus snails has about 50 recognized living species of various sizes. Its
fossils have been found all over the world in sediments going back to the
age of the dinosaurs - 145 million years ago in the Cretaceous Period. The
Geology and Paleontology Division manages a wide array of Strombus fossil
specimens since 1976 with localities all over the Philippines, specifically from
the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Batangas, Bohol, Bulacan, Cebu, Iloilo, La
Union, Negros Occidental, Quezon, Pangasinan, Zambales. Most are them are
about 16 million years to 1 million years old. The largest among them is the
Strombus maximus from Compostella, Cebu.

Strombus are tropical to subtropical and often unreserved animals, mainly

living in shallow water, on sandy, muddy or rubble bottoms or on marine
grassflats. They are very active and often use their narrow foot and strong
operculum in a leaping locomotion and as a defensive weapon. They are
mostly herbivores, browsing on delicate algae, or swallowing sand and rubbish
to digest the decomposing plant matter. Males are also frequently smaller than
females. Fertilization occurs internally with numerous eggs, laid in gelatinous,
tubular, tangled masses, and hatching as planktonic larvae.

Today, large species of Strombus are commercially fished for food in many
parts of South East Asia. In the Philippines, shells are traditionally used by
fishermen as sinkers for nets while some used them as shellcraft.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

4 5

3
6 7

5 cm

1 Strombus maximus (adult) 5 Strombus gibberulus

2 Strombus maximus (juvenile) 6 Strombus unifasciatus
3 Strombus lentiginosus 6 Strombus pugilis
4 Strombus canarium

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Magallanesia canaliculata
Rudist

Reefs were not always made of corals. About 100 million years ago, they
were built by an unusual group of clams called rudists. Unlike today’s
familiar clams, these clams of the dinosaur age developed strange-looking
shells. One shell was typically larger and attached to the seafloor and the
other, smaller shell acts like a lid similar to trashcans. Other shell forms
resemble ice cream cones, goat’s horns, and croissant breads. Because of
their shell, they became hardly recognizable as clams at all. Nevertheless,
they are quite the record keeper. From their shells, scientists were not only
able to determine that the ocean temperatures were warmer back then
(reaching 40°C), but also discovered from their growth rings that about 70
million years ago, the Earth’s day is 30 minutes shorter and a year had 372
days. Rudists dominated the tropical shallow seas throughout the heyday
of the dinosaurs until its extinction about 66 million years ago. Today, their
fossils are found in limestone formations throughout the Mediterranean,
the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Southeast Asia where sometimes
they constitute major oil reservoirs

In the Philippines, the first reported rudist fossil was discovered in Cebu in 1988.
Fossilized rudist reef was also unearthed in Caramoan in Camarines Sur. In
2013, through a collaborative research between the Mines and Geosciences
Bureau (MGB) and the National Museum of Nature and Science (Tokyo,
Japan), remains of a never-before-seen rudist were uncovered, preserved
in limestones, along the Butuanon River in Barangay Pulangbato, Cebu City.
They named this new species Magallanesia canaliculata after Ferdinand
Magellan, and the notable canals in the inside of the smaller shell (Sano et
al., 2014). According to the paleontologists, like Magellan’s expedition, the
lineage for the Cebu rudist is supposed to have originated in the western
Mediterranean, and then entered and evolved in the equatorial Pacific.
Another fossil of M. canaliculata was also discovered in Takuyo-Daini
Seamount in the Japanese Seamounts, northwest Pacific. The discovery of
these fossils strengthens the evidence that they were probably endemic to
the Pacific, 100 to 113 million years ago.

Sano, S., Iba, Y., Skelton, P. W., Masse, J-P., Aguilar, Y. M., & Kase, T. (2014). The evolution of canaliculate rudists in the light of a new
canaliculate polyconitid rudist from the Albian of the Central Pacific. Paleontology, 57, 951-962.

14
 National Museum of the Philippines

H
O
LO
TY
PE
,N
M
P-
13
76

5 cm

PAR
ATY
PE, N
MP-
137
5

Rudist clams

15
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Glyptoactis philippinensis
Bivalve

Glyptoactis philippinensis is a marine clam that lived in the Philippine

waters about 11.63 – 5.33 million years ago (late Miocene). This clam would
have been found on the bottom of warm, shallow, near-shore waters, feeding
by filtering out plankton or nutrients suspended in the water. It is now extinct.

Interestingly, this belongs to a family of clams commonly known as Little

Heart Clams (Carditidae), named after the form of its small shell. The
shell is equivalve (right and left half-shell called valves are mirror images),
inequilateral (halves of the valve lack symmetry), and nearly triangular with
prominent and well-rounded umbone.

One fascinating characteristic of this clam is that the surface of the shell is
sculptured with 17-18 radial ribs, which disappear on its posterior side when
it becomes an adult. Did you know that this clam also had teeth? These are
called cardinal and lateral teeth. They use them to align the valves as they
close it, protecting them from a predator by making it harder to open their
shell.

Glyptoactis philippinensis fossils can be found excellently preserved in a

sequence of greenish gray, poorly consolidated sandstone and mudstone
belonging to Tartaro Formation in Madlum, San Miguel, Bulacan. The first
fossils of this clam were found near the Tartaro Bridge in San Miguel, Bulacan
in 1981 by Japanese paleontologist Saburo Kanno and his colleagues,
who will later name them after the Philippines (Kanno et al., 1982). In the
meantime, the Geology and Paleontology Division were able to collect the
featured fossils (NMP-0933) in Madlum, San Miguel, Bulacan in 2002.

Kanno, S., O’hara, S., & Caagusan, N. L. (1982). Molluscan fauna from the Tartaro Formation (Upper Miocene) of Central Luzon,
Philippines. Geology and palaeontology of Southeast Asia, 24(232 ), 51 -128.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

3 4 6
5

3 cm

1 radial ribs 4 cardinal teeth

2 umbo 5 posterior abductor muscle scar (pear-shaped)
3 lateral teeth 6 anterior abductor muscle scar (elliptical)

17
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Macrosolen madlumensis
Bivalve

Macrosolen madlumensis is a prehistoric clam that inhabited the earth

from the Eocene to Miocene Epoch (37.71 – 7.246 million years ago). It had
a thin, oval, transversely elongated shell with narrowly rounded frontal
section. The posterior part of the shell is much broader than the anterior
part. The entire shell surface is marked with growth lines while the posterior
half of the radial furrow has concentric wrinkle-like folds. Their shells were
also quite thin and fragile. This is the reason why most specimens recovered
are usually fragmented especially those deposited in loose sediments. They
are believed to be slightly deep burrowers, preferring to live completely
buried within the seafloor. This extinct clam was named after the locality it
was discovered, the Madlum River of San Miguel, Bulacan.

Fossils of M. madlumensis can be found preserved in the 11.63 – 5.33

million year old (late Miocene – early Pliocene; Villanueva et al, 1995)
Tartaro Formation. This formation is a sequence of greenish gray, poorly
consolidated sandstone and mudstone. In addition to M. madlumensis,
the formation also contains an abundant number of fossil gastropods
(snails), pelecypods (clams), scaphopods (tusk shells), and a few coral
fragments, reflecting a shallow, near shore or lagoonal environment.
Kanno and colleagues (1982) describe in detail the molluscan fossils of the
Tartaro Formation, which includes the discovery of 5 other new species of
clams and 2 gastropods. Most of the fossil clams recovered from this area
occur as detached shells although there are quite a few that are intact and
articulated. This suggest that the fossils were transported by some current
from their original home, which is relatively near the present fossil locality.

Featured here are specimens of M. madlumensis (NMP-942, NMP-1346)

collected by the Geology and Paleontology Division in 2002 and 2013. They
were found near the Madlum River in Sitio Pulang Lupa, Brgy. Sibul, San
Miguel, Bulacan. The surrounding siltstone matrix keeps the thin fragile
shell in shape.

Kanno, S., O’hara, S., & Caagusan, N. L. (1982). Molluscan fauna from the Tartaro Formation (Upper Miocene) of Central Luzon,
Philippines. Geology and palaeontology of Southeast Asia, 24(232 ), 51 -128.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

NMP-1346
NMP-1346

NMP-0942

5 cm

M. madlumensis clam
burrying within the seafloor

20
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Chemosynthetic Clams
Bivalve

Wareniconcha and Calyptogena belong to the family of vesicomyid

bivalves (clams) that appeared approximately 42 million years ago (Middle
Eocene). They live in deep-sea volcanic vents or cold seeps, which are
cracks on the ocean floor typically found at tectonic plate boundaries and
where hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid are
released. Instead of a photosynthesis-based nutrition, these clams rely on
bacteria in their gills to convert the carbon compound released from the
vent into food (e.g. sugar) via a process called chemosynthesis.

In the Philippines, fossils of Wareniconcha and Calyptogena are found in

a Pliocene (about 5 million years old) methane-seep carbonate deposit in
the island of Leyte. They were first discovered at Liog-liog Point, Tabango
by a group of Japanese and Filipino paleontologists led by Dr. Tomoki
Kase of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. The clam
Wareniconcha mercenarioides (no. 4 below), is a new species they
found and the first fossil record of Wareniconcha. Compared to the living
species, it is larger (length 11.3 cm, height 10.1 cm, width 5.7 cm), has more
inflated and more rounded shell outline (Kase et al., 2019).

The W. mercenariodes paratype, donated by Dr. Kase in 2018, is currently

being safeguarded by the National Museum of the Philippines. On the
other hand, fossils of the more elongate-elliptical shelled Calyptogena
were found as in-situ, densely packed colonies, and were associated with
other bivalve species Lucinoma and Thyasira. These fossil cold-seep
assemblages in Leyte were the first record in Southeast Asia.

In 2015, the National Museum of the Philippines visited the site and the
nearby municipality of San Isidro, and have collected several Calyptogena
fossils, which are currently on display at the “Life Through Time” exhibition
at your National Museum of Natural History. Discovering more fossils of
chemosynthetic organisms like these clams are important in understanding
deep marine ecosystems, and identifying ancient volcanic-vents or cold
seeps that can be used in reconstructing the past movement of tectonic
plates.

Kase, T., Isaji, S., Aguilar, Y. M., & Kiel, S. (2019). A large new Wareniconcha (Bivalvia: Vesicomyidae) from a Pliocene methane seep
deposit in Leyte, Philippines. The Nautilus, 133(1), 26-30.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

2
3

5 cm

1,2 Calyptogenia sp.

3 Calyptogenia colonies
4 Wareniconcha mercenarioides (PARATYPE)

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Giant Clams
Bivalve

Locally known as kabibe, kima, taklobo, manglut, or saliot, giant clams

(Tridacnidae) are a family of large saltwater clams that live in warm, shallow
waters on coral reefs. They first appeared about 23 million years ago in the
Early Miocene. Living species are commonly found in the tropical coral reef
of the Indo-West Pacific seas. Although fossil evidence in Northern Europe,
Florida, and Austral Islands shows that they once had a greater distribution
in the past.

Giant clams are indeed giants as the largest species, Tridacna gigas, can
grow to 1.3 meters wide and weigh up to 250 kilograms. They achieve their
impressive size by filter feeding and consuming the sugars and proteins
produced by billions of symbiotic algae (called zooxanthellae) living in
their mantle. As they grow, they loss their ability to move and just fasten
themselves to a spot on the reef, where they sit for the rest of their life.

Here in the Philippines, 7 of the 9 living species thrive, and numerous

fossils have been reported throughout the archipelago. The fossil
T. gigas featured here was discovered in 2014 by the National Museum in
a limestone formation in Pamilacan Island, Bohol. T. gigas’ shell is thick,
heavy, with 4 to 5 large, inward, vertical folds, and lacks scutes (shelf-like
structure). This clam lived about 3.6 to 1.8 million years ago, when the island
was then part of the sea. You can still see the fossilized coral reef around it
that served as the animal’s home. Through the shape, chemistry, and daily
growth increments in their shell, similar to tree rings, fossil giant clams like
this one allowed researchers to accurately investigate past environmental
changes.

Today, both living and fossil giant clams are threatened by widespread
overexploitation. The increased interest in clam pearls in recent years have
only intensified this. In the Philippines, taking, selling and consumption
of giant clams are prohibited under the Philippine Fisheries Code 1998
(RA 8550). Fossils are also considered as Important Cultural Properties,
pursuant to “Cultural Properties Preservation and Protection Act” (RA 4846
as amended by PD 374), and likewise, protected by law.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

SIZE RELATIVE TO 5-FT WOMAN

Tridacna gigas

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes) Ammonites

Cephalopod

Ammonites (am-uh-nahyts) were squid-like sea creatures that existed

before and all the way through the age of dinosaurs. They were carnivores
that lived inside ribbed coiled shells. While they may look like chambered
nautiluses, their closest living relatives are squids, octopuses, and
cuttlefishes.

Many different forms of ammonites occurred only at certain time

periods. Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes) only appeared around 160 million
years ago in the Late Jurassic (Middle Oxfordian). Its shell is shaped like a
coiled snake with fine dense ribs that gradually changes to more distant,
coarse ribs. This ammonite form was widespread in warm to temperate
shallow saltwater environments worldwide.

In February 2011, a team from the National Museum of the Philippines,

Mines and Geosciences Bureau, and the National Museum of Nature and
Science (Japan) discovered two fossils of this form in the municipality of
Mansalay in Oriental Mindoro. The original shells were already lost. What
remained are impressions of their interior called an internal mold. These
were formed from hardened mud that filled up the inside of the shell, and
were left behind when the shell was dissolved. The specimens belonged
to the Mansalay Formation. Since the creature only lived during the Late
Jurassic, these fossils acted as markers in time (index fossil), helping
geologists identify the age of the rock formation. These specimens are
two of the oldest megafossils found in the Philippines, and among the few
remnants of Jurassic fauna in the country.

Sato, T., Kase, T., Shigeta, Y., De Ocampo, R., Ong, P. A., Aguilar Y. M., & Mago, W. (2012). Newly collected Jurassic ammonites from the
Mansalay Formation, Mindoro Island, Philippines. Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Series C, 38, 63-73.

24
 National Museum of the Philippines

NMP-1403

Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes) sp.

5 cm

NMP-1089

Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes)
cf. laevipickeringius

Perisphinctes (Liosphinctes)

25
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Notosilesitoides philippinensis Ammonites

Cephalopod

Along the Comagaycay River in San Andres, Catanduanes, a group of

ammonite fossils was discovered in 1982. The remains of these squid-like
creatures were collected by a group of paleontologists and geologists from
the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Tokyo University.

A total of nine (9) ammonite species were identified, preserved in fine-

grained sandstone presumably belonging to the Yop Formation. The age
of the ammonite-bearing sandstone is estimated to be Aptian-early Albian
(about 125-113 million years old). Among the ammonites discovered is a
new species they called Notosilesitoides philippinensis (Matsukawa et
al., 2012).

This particular ammonite was first discovered here in the country and the
researchers chose to name it after the Philippines. This ammonite has a
really small shell, is polygyral (many whorls) and has an evolute whorl,
resembling a coiled snake, with ribs that bifurcate or branches into two.
Three specimens of this species were recovered. One of these individuals
is assigned as the holotype (NMP-1124). All the ammonite fossils from
this site were turned over by the original researchers to the Geology and
Paleontology Division right after the publication of the study.

A holotype is the single specimen selected by the taxonomist as reference

point in describing a new species. Therefore, it is the most important
specimen of any species. By virtue of RA 10066 otherwise known as
the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, the National Museum of the
Philippines is the official repository of holotype specimens of fossils and
extant flora and fauna collected in the Philippines.

Matsukawa, M., Sendon, S. V., Mateer, F. T., Sato, T., & Obata, I. (2012). Early Cretaceous ammonite fauna of Catanduanes Island,
Philippines. Cretaceous Research, 37, 261-271.

26
 National Museum of the Philippines

4
12
P-1
NM
122
P-1
NM

1 cm

N. philippinensis.

27
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Heteromorph Ammonites
Cephalopod

Heteromorph (different shaped) ammonites are an extinct group of

externally shelled cephalopods with unusual shell shape. They were
particularly abundant and diverse during the Cretaceous period (145-
66 million years ago). Compared to most ammonites, they do not have
tightly coiled shell. They show a remarkable change of shell shape as they
approach adult (mature) stage. Juvenile or immature ammonites could
develop any type of shell coiling, including the planispiral shell typical of
“regular” ammonites. As they reach maturity, they uncoil the last whorl of
their shells to form a U-shaped body chamber. A variety of irregular shape
could develop among heteromorphs. Some resemble a paper clip, an
elephant’s trunk, while other shells could uncoil into a completely straight
line.

It is interesting to imagine how these shapes would have given heteromorphs

an evolutionary advantage since they made them poor swimmers. This
leads paleontologists to think that many either drifted in the open ocean
like today’s jellyfishes, or crawled along the sea floor, like their living relative,
the octopuses. The shell shape may have also contributed to the fragility
of the shell. As such, complete heteromorph ammonites in the fossil record
are rarer compared to the tightly coiled ammonites.

In 2009 and 2010, several ammonite fossils, including the heteromorph

ammonites were collected in Catanduanes by a team from the National
Museum of the Philippines, the Mines and Geoscience Bureau, and the
National Museum of Nature and Science (Japan). These fossils were first
reported by Mr. Oseas Alberto, a local who accidentally found the fossils
while on a trek at the Silungan ng Higante in San Andres, Catanduanes. These
fossils were preserved in sandstone of the Yop Formation, formed about
100 million years ago (Upper Albian). Examples of heteromorph ammonites
collected include the Pseudhelicoceras sp. (NMP-1070), Hamitoides sp.
(NMP-1069b), and Hamites sp. (NMP-1011). As with the Jurassic ammonites
of Mindoro, only the mold of the original shell is preserved for most of the
ammonites found here.

28
 National Museum of the Philippines

Pseudhelicoceras sp. (NMP-1070)

Hamites sp.
(NMP-1011)

Hamitoides sp. (NMP-1069b)

5 cm
29
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Belemnites
Cephalopod

Belemnites (bel-uhm-nahyts) are members of an extinct group of

cephalopods (animals related to today’s squid, cuttlefish, and octopus) that
lived from the early Late Triassic (about 237 million years ago) through to
the end of the Cretaceous (66 million years ago). Unlike their living relatives,
belemnites possessed a hard internal skeleton at their tail end called a
rostrum (plural: rostra; encircled here). This bullet-shaped feature acted
as counterbalance for the head and arms during swimming. The name
‘Belemnite’ is actually derived from the Greek word “belemnon” that means
javelin or dart due to the resemblance in the shape of the rostrum. Because
the soft body of the animal is rarely preserved, it’s usually just the rostrum
that’s fossilized.

In addition to the rostrum, belemnites had ten arms and did not possess
a pair of tentacles Each arm was equipped with 30-50 curved hooks for
grabbing crustaceans, other cephalopods, and fishes. If threatened, they
could squirt a cloud of ink into the water to aid their escape. But, belemnites
themselves were prey for larger marine creatures, like sharks, ichthyosaurs,
and other marine reptiles, as they have been found with rostra in their
stomachs.

The National Geological and Paleontological Collection contains a number

of belemnite rostra collected from the provinces of Catanduanes and
Oriental Mindoro. Specimens of the belemnite species, Neohibolites sp.
(NMP-1017 and NMP-1042) were collected on April 8, 2009 and March 15,
2010 at Silungan ng Higante, San Andres, Catanduanes. These specimens
are estimated to be 100 million years old. On the other hand, specimens of
the belemnite, Hibolithes sp. (NMP-1079) were collected on February 17,
2011 at So. Colasi, Cabalwa, Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro, and are Jurassic in
age (over 150 million years old).

For several years now, geologists and paleontologists have used fossil
belemnites, not only to determine the age of rocks, but also to understand
the environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, productivity) in the past.

30
 National Museum of the Philippines

Neohibolites sp.
NMP-1017

2
-1 04
N MP

Hibolites sp.

2 cm

Belemnite

31
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Nautilus pompilius
Cephalopod

Nautilus pompilius or emperor nautilus (nawt-l-uhs, also called pearly

nautilus) are distant relatives of octopuses and squids. They possess
an external coiled hard shell which has many interior compartments or
chambers. These chambers provide buoyancy and aid in the mobility of
the organism. The shells could grow up to 22 cm in diameter. The shell color
patterns may vary but they commonly appear as brown to reddish brown
flame-like stripes. They are deep-water organisms. They mostly swim in
the continental shelf or slope part of the ocean at depths of up to 750m.
They are found in the Indo-West Pacific region including the Philippines,
Papua New Guinea, and Northwest Australia. They are scavengers and
their diet consist mainly of crustaceans and fishes. Currently, nautiluses are
not classified as endangered nor threatened species by the IUCN however,
there have been increasing calls to ban the commercial trade of nautilus
shells. The large and beautifully colored shells of nautiluses are popularly
sold as souvenir items or jewelry and home accessories.

Nautiluses are often called living fossils because their appearance remains
unchanged for the last 500 million years. They are the only surviving species
of the shelled cephalopods which were present in the earth’s oceans during
the Paleozoic (~541 million years) and Mesozoic (~252 million years). They
even survived through the 5 major global extinction events. In contrast, the
ammonites which closely resemble the nautiluses, went extinct about 66
million years ago.

In the Philippines, the fossil of a Nautilus pompilius was first discovered in

Tambac Bay, Bolinao, Pangasinan. The same area where the fossil black
marlin was also discovered 25 years prior to the nautilus. The fossil is a
moderately preserved shell consisting of the last two chambers of the
phragmocone and the entire body chamber portion. The fossil (NMP-491b)
was collected by the Geology and Paleontology Division in 1979 from a
bioturbated, unconsolidated, sandy siltstone outcrop.

Well preserved mollusk fossils are also found in the same outcrop.
Microfossil analysis of the siltstone suggest an early Pleistocene age (about
2.58-0.77 million years old). The discovery of this fossil proved important as
it complements the Plio-Pleistocene gap of the nautilus in the fossil record.

Castro, A. L., Fernando, A. G. S., Peleo-Alampay, A. M., Javellana, G. R. S., Marquez, D. J. D., & Nogot, J. R. C. P. (2020). Rare occurrence
of Nautilus sp. fossils from Batangas, Philippines. Philippine Journal of Science, 149(3), 495-501.
Wani, R., De Ocampo, R., Aguilar, Y., Zepeda, M., Kurihara, Y., Hagino, K., Hayashi, H., & Kase, T. (2008). First discovery of fossil
Nautilus pompilius Linnaeus, 1758 (Nautilidae, Cephalopoda) from Pangasinan northwestern Philippines. Paleontological Research,
12(1), 89–95.
32
 National Museum of the Philippines

Lateral View Apertural View

5 cm
SIZE RELATIVE TO 5-FT WOMAN

Nautilus pompilius

33
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Crinoids
Echinoderm

Crinoids (cry’-noids), also known as sea lilies, live in the world’s oceans
since the Ordovician Period, over 230 million years before the dinosaurs.
They make look like flowers, but they are actually some of Earth’s earliest
animals. Starfishes, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers are their closest
relatives.

Crinoids are filter feeders. Their feathery tentacles sieve the passing
seawater for microscopic organism as food. A stem made of many stacked
discs supports the head, while a root system at the base, called
a holdfast, is used to anchor themselves to the seabed.

Complete fossil crinoids are rare. When the soft tissue that holds its body
together decay, the skeleton typically scatters into several pieces. The most
common crinoid fossils are the stem pieces. In May 31, 1965, the Geology
and Paleontology Division of the National Museum of the Philippines
discovered two crinoid stems (NMP-110a) preserved in shale in Siange,
Bongabong in Oriental Mindoro. The specimens are 1.2 cm and 1.4 cm long,
and considered Jurassic in age (over 150 million years old). A few crinoid
stems (NMP-1714) were also found in Manual, Mansalay, another town in
Oriental Mindoro, last December 11, 2016. The specimens are embedded in
a boulder, together with other fossils of rugose corals and foraminifera of
Permian age (about 275 million years old). Crinoid fossils like these indicate
that rocks containing their remains were formed in a marine environment.

Crinoids are considered as living fossils since these ancient animals can still
be found in the oceans today. Although most crinoids died out during the
Permian Mass Extinction, one group of crinoids survived and gave rise to
over 600 species still living today. In the Philippine waters, living specimens
were obtained from the northern seaboard of Aurora Province, the Verde
Island Passage, and the Sulu Sea at depths of 160 to 1,330 meters.

34
 National Museum of the Philippines

0a
11
P-
M
N
Crinoid stems in shale (arrows) from Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro.
10 centavos coin =17 mm diameter

anal tube

arms

pinnule

calyx (cup)
NMP-1714

stem

holdfast

Crinoid anatomy Crinoid stems in boulder from Mansalay,

Oriental Mindoro. 1 Peso coin = 23 mm
diameter.

35
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Sea Urchins
Echinoderm

In England, hundreds of fossil sea urchins were found encircling the skeletal
remains of a young woman and a child in a gravesite dating back to
the Bronze Age. In other prehistoric burial sites, a single fossil urchin was
observed in pouch bags together with the skeletal remains. Such practice
meant that fossil sea urchins attained a high degree of spiritual importance
in the past. The people of Denmark and England call them thunderstones
and thought they were given by Thor, the Norse god of thunder, and are
meant to protect them from evil. But why fossil sea urchins in particular?
Many believe it is because of the distinctive five-pointed star pattern on the
fossils. Can you see this star pattern in the featured fossils?

Sea urchins are marine invertebrates that first appeared during to the Late
Ordovician Period (450 million years ago). They belong to the Echinoderm
group, together with the starfishes and the sand dollars. Like other
echinoderms, they possess a five-sided radial symmetry, which is reflected
in the star pattern, easily seen in dried or fossilized sea urchin. Sea urchins
are preserved in the fossil record through their calcareous skeleton called
tests and through their spines. When the urchin dies, the spines fall off
the tests and may fossilize separately. The tests come in many different
forms and shape. The globular-shaped ones are called regular urchins
and are usually found lying in the seabed. The flattened and sometimes
heart-shaped ones are called irregular sea urchins. They burrow into the
sediment and prefer the calm and low-energy part of the oceans. These
characteristics help geologists interpret the ancient environment of the
rocks where the fossil sea urchins were found.

Fossil sea urchins from the National Geological and Paleontological

Collections consists of club-shaped spines and tests of both regular and
irregular forms. These specimens were collected by the Geology and
Paleontology Division from Isabela, Pangasinan, Zambales, Batangas,
Sorsogon, Leyte, Camarines Sur, and Cebu. The first fossil urchin collected
was a test of a regular sea urchin (NMP-201; no. 5) from Balamban, Cebu
in 1973. It was discovered by geologist Inocentes Paniza of the National
Museum. Fossil sea urchins collected from Batangas were found in an
outcrop of the Calatagan Formation. The age of this formation is late
Miocene-early Pliocene (11.63 – 5.33 million years old).

36
 National Museum of the Philippines

1 3 4 5

7 8

5 cm

1-2 sea urchin spines 7-9 irregular urchin tests

3-6 regular urchin tests 7 Pericosmus sp.
8 Taimanawa sp.

37
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Corals
Cnidarian

Ever wonder why you sometimes find corals several kilometers away from
the ocean, or even in mountaintops? Those corals are most likely fossils,
and they are an excellent reminder that the land was once under the sea.

Corals are often confused with rocks due to their tough exoskeletons.
Sometimes, they are mistaken for underwater plants, particularly the gently
swaying soft corals. But in fact they are actually made up of thousands of
tiny animals called polyps. These polyps are invertebrates (animals without
backbones) called cnidarians like their close cousins – the sea anemones
and jellyfish. The polyp uses calcium carbonate ions from seawater to
build the hard exoskeleton that will protect their soft and delicate body.
This exoskeleton is usually preserved as fossils, and eventually forms part
of the rock called limestone.

It is very common to find fossil corals in the Philippines, especially in

limestone area, because the archipelago was born from the sea. The oldest
fossil coral discovered in the country is Gshelia sp., a rugose coral found in
the province of Mindoro and is about 300 million years old (Pennsylvanian).
That’s even older than the dinosaurs! The coral was contained in a clast of
highly indurated sandy, dark gray mudstone near the base of the Punso
Conglomerate. You can also find fossil corals that date back to the dinosaur
age in the Caramoan Peninsula, Cebu, Palawan, and Mindoro.

Corals, however, have been around on Earth much longer than that. They
first appeared about 541 million years ago in the Cambrian Period. More
interestingly, they are known to be very sensitive to changes in climate. The
elemental composition of their exoskeletons can vary with temperature,
salinity, cloud cover, river discharge, upwelling, and ocean circulation. This
make corals an excellent natural archive of the Earth’s sea level, salinity
and temperature at different times in history, allowing scientists to study
the Earth’s past climate trends. This sensitivity, however, also makes them
vulnerable to dramatic changes in their environment, which led them
to experience a number of extinction events throughout their lengthy
existence. With our present climate undergoing a rapid global warming
event, driven by increased greenhouse gases mainly from human activities,
it is believed that corals are likely to disappear by the year 2100.

Easton, W. H., & Melendres, M. (1964). A Paleozoic coral from Mindoro. Journal of Paleontology, 38, 412-414.

38
 National Museum of the Philippines

1 2

5 6

7 8

10

1 Porites sp. 6 brain coral

2 Acropora sp. 7 fossil coral
3 Galaxea fascicularis (Octopus coral) 8 Flabellum sp.
4 Pavona sp. 9 Fungia sp.
5 Favia sp. 10 coral colony

39
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Megalochelys sondaari
Luzon Giant Tortoise

Reptiles are four-legged vertebrates (having backbones) that are covered

in scales, bony plates, or combination of both. They breathe air only
through their lungs, and most of them lay eggs on land. They are cold-
blooded, which means their metabolism depends on the temperature of
their environment. Reptiles include the dinosaurs that lived hundreds of
million years ago. In the ancient past, the Philippines was also inhabited by
a giant reptile - the Luzon Giant Tortoise.

Known by its scientific name Megalochelys sondaari, the Luzon Giant

Tortoise inhabited the island of Luzon from the Early Pleistocene (2.58
million years ago) until about 1.7 million years ago. Its carapace (top of
the shell) was about 70 to 90 cm in length. The first remains found of this
giant reptile were pieces of the carapace discovered at Espinosa Ranch,
Liwan, Kalinga-Apayao (now Rizal, Kalinga) in 1971, and in San Juan, Tuao,
Cagayan in 1976. Back then, its identity was still unknown, until 1989 when
several fossilized bones were unearthed in Tres Hermanas, Antipolo City,
Rizal by German geologist Dr. Walter Schoell and Filipina geologist Dr.
Alyssa Peleo-Alampay from the National Institute of Geological Sciences,
University of the Philippines, Diliman. The fossils include humeri (long bone
of the upper arm), femurs (thigh bone), coracoids, phalanges (singular:
phalanx, digital bones of the feet), and shell fragments. These fossils were
first described in the genus Manouria by Karl and Staesche (2007), but
was later transferred to the genus Megalochelys (Rhodin et al., 2015).
Megalochelys tortoises lived across Asia, and were among the largest
Testudines (turtles and tortoises). The carapace of the largest species
Megalochelys atlas from India, Myanmar and Thailand could reach over
two meters in length.

It is believed that the local extinction of giant Megalochelys tortoises from

various islands in the Indo-Autralian archipelago is linked to the migratory
arrival of the early hominin, Homo erectus, and their subsequent
overexploitation of the animal. Today, many species of turtles and tortoises
could also disappear forever because habitat loss, the illegal pet trade, and
extensive consumption for food and traditional medicine.

Karl, H. V., & Staesche, U. (2007). Fossile Riesen-Landschildkröten von den Philippinen und ihre paläogeographische Bedeutung (Fossil
Giant Land Tortoises from the Philippines and their paleogeographic importance). Geologischesahrbuch, 98, 171–197.
Rhodin, A. G. J., Thomson, S., Georgalis, G. L., Karl, H. V., Danilov, I. G., Takahashi, A., de la Fuente, M. S., Bourque, J. R., Massimo
D., Bour, R., Iverson, J. B., Shaffer, H. B., & van Dijk, P. P. (2015). Turtles and tortoises of the world during the rise and
global spread of humanity: First checklist and review of extinct Pleistocene and Holocene chelonians. Chelonian Research
Monographs, 5(8), 000e.1–66.

40
 National Museum of the Philippines

2 4
3

10 cm
SIZE RELATIVE TO 5-FT WOMAN

1 shafts of femur
M. atlas 2 fragments of carapace
3 phalanx of the front limb
4 coracoid
5 right humerus
6 femur

M. sondaari
41
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Otodus megalodon
Giant Shark

Megalodon (means “giant tooth”) is an extinct species of sharks that

appeared about 20 million years ago. They are considered not only the
biggest shark but also the largest fish to have ever existed. They were
estimated to grow to up to 15-18 meters in length, which is bigger than our
standard buses!

Similar to sharks today, megalodon had skeletons mostly made of cartilage

– the flexible material in our noses and ears. Cartilage rarely survives
fossilization. That is why almost all their discovered fossils in all continents
except Antarctica are teeth. And most of what we know about megalodons
like their diet and size are only based on the size and appearance of the
fossil tooth.

In the Philippines, several fossilized megalodon teeth have been discovered

and some are on display in the “Life Through Time” Gallery of the National
Museum of Natural History. In 2001, a number of these teeth were
unearthed in Pangasinan during an archeological excavation, the largest
of which measures 9 x 10 cm. Two other specimens were discovered from
late Pliocene (3.6 to 2.6 million years ago) deposits of the Lower Ilagan
Formation in Gattaran, Cagayan and measure 11 x 12 cm and 8 x 8 cm.
And more recently, the second megalodon tooth in Maribojoc, Bohol was
unearthed and it is 7.6 x 6.5 cm. The first one, measuring 10.5 x 6.5 cm, was
donated to the National Museum of the Philippines by Venjo Busalla in 2018.

The exact reason for the megalodon’s disappearance about 2.6 million
years ago is still unknown. Two possible reasons may have caused their
eventual demise. One is attributed to cooling global climate that prompted
the migration of whales (their primary prey) towards colder Antarctic
waters where they could not go. Another is the evolution and diversification
of new breeds of competitors like the smaller and nimbler great white shark.

Cooper, J. A., Pimiento, C., Ferrón, H. G., & Benton, M. J. (2020). Body dimensions of the extinct giant shark Otodus megalodon: A 2D
reconstruction. Scientific Reports, 10, 14596.

42
 National Museum of the Philippines

5 cm

SIZE RELATIVE TO HUMAN

43
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Istiompax indica
Black marlin

Black marlins (also called short-nosed swordfish or silver marlin) are

a commercial or recreational type of fish that inhabit the tropical and
subtropical waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are large, fast-
swimming, growing to about 5m and weigh as much as 700kg. Classified as
billfish or istiophorids, they belong to a group of predatory fish with spear-
like bills used for catching and slashing prey. Considered apex predators,
black marlins (Istiompax indica formerly Makaira indica) usually feed on
other large fish such as tuna, mackerel, and swordfish. Black marlins have
non-retractable fins, in contrast to other marlin species. In Philippines’ seas,
black marlins are uncommon. Most of what is in the market are imported
from abroad.

The fossil of black marlin (NMP-253, featured here) found in Tambac Island,
Pangasinan is a record-setting fossil at the time it was published in 1983
by Harry Fierstine and Bruce Welton. It was the first report of a bony fish
fossil in the Philippines, the first billfish fossil to be described in Asia, and the
first living species of billfish to be positively identified in the fossil record.
This fossil has a nearly complete articulated head with pectoral and pelvic
girdles and fins. Interestingly, a portion of the spine of a “swallowed prey”,
presumably a small fish, can also be seen embedded near the throat region
of the fossil.

Recovered from a silty sandstone layer, this fossil was also surrounded by
large amounts of volcanic ash. The excellently preserved condition of the
fossil could be attributed to its rapid burial in an ash fall. Based on studies
of fossil foraminifera found with the specimen, this black marlin is believed
to be about 2.58 to 1.8 million years old (Early Pleistocene). The estimated
length of the animal, from the tip of the lower jaw to the tip of the tail, is
at least 350 centimeters, and its weight is over 455 kilograms. Its male,
however, seldom grow more than 270 centimeters long, which suggests
that this black marlin is female.

Fierstein, H. L., & Welton, B. (1983). A black marlin, Makaira indica, from the Early Pleistocene of the Philippines and the zoogeography
of Istiophorid billfishes. Bulletin of Marine Science, 33(3), 718-728.

44
 National Museum of the Philippines

5
3

40 cm

SIZE RELATIVE TO 5-FT WOMAN

1-5 right side of throat region
1 pectoral fin
2 branchiostegal rays
3 breast scales
4 swallowed prey
5 anterior process of cleithrum
6 bone fragments
7 neurocranium (skull part)

45
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Freshwater Fish

Fish vertebrae (NMP-0244) were recovered in Taguig in 1974 by Filipino

archeologist and former NMP Assistant Director Alfredo E. Evangelista.
They range from 2.3 to 3.15 cm in diameter and up to a centimeter in
thickness. These circular bones once formed the spine (backbone) of the
fish. Although the identity of the fish are not yet known, the size of the
vertebra in this case can give us an idea of their size. Meanwhile, fossilized
remains of small fish have been collected in Antipolo, Rizal in 2014 by the
NMP Geology and Paleontology Division. These rust-colored skeletons were
discovered after splitting the tuff beds exposed in Cogeo. Features in the
rocks (well-sorted, fine-grained sediments having pronounced horizontal
bedding, etc.) indicates that the fish settled to the bottom of an ancient
lake. A whole-body specimen, which also the largest among the batch,
suggests a length (head to tail) of just over 8.5 cm.

The rocks where the vertebrae and small fish were recovered belong to the
Guadalupe Formation. This formation, which also underlies Metro Manila,
was named for the tuff sequence exposed along Pasig River in Guadalupe,
Makati City. The fish are believed to have lived between 2.58 million to 12,
000 years ago (Pleistocene) because of the presence of other vertebrate
fossils like stegodons, elephants and deers found in the formation.

How did these fish became fossils? Usually, the bodies of dead animals and
other living things are completely destroyed by decay or eaten by other
scavenging animals. The fossilized small fish in particular probably survived
those two scenarios by being buried by heavy ash fall brought by volcanic
eruptions during those times. Overtime, the soft body parts decomposed
leaving only the fish’s skeletons. Minerals from the water seeping through
the sediments gradually replaced the bony materials. The mineralized
skeleton hardened and turned into stone. Eventually, sediments deposited
on top of the previously laid out volcanic or tuffaceous materials. As new
layers of sediments build up, the skeleton may be squashed flat. The weight
and pressure of the layers above caused the volcanic ash surrounding the
fossil to turn into rock called tuff.

More work are still needed to identify these freshwater fish, and
paleontologists will have to have luck on their side to discover more
exceptionally preserved specimens to understand the dynamics of fish
fauna through time.

46
 National Museum of the Philippines

1 fish vertebrae
2 fossil fish in tuff

4 cm

47
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Elephants

As the world’s largest living land mammal, elephants are a sight to behold.
For most Filipinos, Mali the Manila Zoo’s elephant is their first and only
encounter with the animal. But do you know that these gentle giants once
roamed the Philippines about 750 thousand years ago? Or that there was
at least one species with a shoulder height of only 1.2 meters?

Remains of ancient elephants have been discovered in Cagayan Valley,

Pangasinan, Rizal, and Iloilo. Most of them are molars, tusk and bone
fragments, belonging to large elephant species Palaeoxodon sp., Elephas
namadicus, Elephas cf. namadicus, and Elephas sp. Based from the
molar size, the size of these elephants is similar to that of the living Asian
elephant (Elephas maximus), found today in India, Nepal, and Southeast
Asia. Most of the fossils, however, are typically fragmented and do not
allow further identification.

It seems, however, that not all Philippine elephants were giants. In 1911,
a small lower molar, estimated at 9.5 cm in length, was reported in
Cabarruyan Island (also known as Anda Island) in Pangasinan. This is the
first fossil elephant found in Luzon. It belonged to a new extinct species,
Elephas beyeri, named after Henry Otley Beyer, the Father of Philippine
Anthropology. Based from the molar, E. beyeri is believed to be a species
of dwarf elephant, having a shoulder height of only 1.2 meters. Compare
this to the shoulder height of carabaos (1.5 to 1.8 meters). The cause of its
dwarfism is suggested to be a response to the limited natural resources in
a small environment, like the Luzon Island.

The Philippine elephants have long been extinct, and now we are in the brink
of seeing their last living relative, the Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)
for the last time. Unlike the African elephants (Loxodonta africana
and Loxodonta cyclotis), which came out of endangerment, the Asian
elephants continue to decline in population. Poaching, trophy hunting, and
habitat destruction continue to threaten this species. You can help preserve
them by not buying ivory products, and supporting the organizations that
are actively committed to elephant preservation.
De Vos, J. & Bautista, A. P. (2002). An update on the vertebrate fossils from the Philippines. National Museum Papers, 11(1), 62-105.
Lopez, S. L. (1971). Notes on the occurrence of fossil elephants and stegodonts in Solana, Cagayan, Northern Luzon, Philippines. Journal
of the Geological Society of the Philippines, 25(4), 1-8.
Lopez, S. L. (1972). Geology and Paleontology of Liwan Plain: Contributions to the Pleistocene Geology of Cagayan Valley. Seminar on SE
Asian Prehistory and Archaeology. Manila, Philippines.
Mathisen, M.E. (1981). Plio-Pleistocene Geology of the Central Cagayan Valley Northern Luzon Philippines (Doctorate Dissertation).
Iowa State University, USA.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

1 bone fragments
2 molar
3 tusk fragment

Elephas sp.
10 cm

49
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Stegodons

Stegodons (meaning “roofed tooth”) belong to the now extinct family

Stegodontidae of order Proboscidae, where the elephant family also
belongs. They were widespread and diverse all throughout Africa and Asia
from 11.6 million years ago to late Pleistocene with unconfirmed accounts
of survival until about 4,000 years ago. Although they look very close to
the two groups of living elephants today, they are actually separated by at
least 5 million years of evolution.

The most distinct difference between stegodons and the elephants can
be seen in their molars. Compared to elephants that have a series of high-
crowned enamel plates, stegodon molars consist of a series of low, roof-
shaped ridges that are well-suited for chewing leaves and branches of
trees and shrubs. Stegodons also have longer tusks that could grow almost
as long as its whole body. These tusks even grow so close together that
there wasn’t enough space for its trunk to lie in between that they had to
lean their trunk sideways.

In the Philippines, scientists identified four (4) species of stegodons, namely:

Stegodon cf. trigonocephalus, Stegodon cf. sinensis, Stegodon
luzonensis and Stegodon mindanensis, the last two being endemic.
Stegodon mindanensis is the first large fossil mammal to be scientifically
reported in the Philippines. It was first collected by Karl Semper in 1860
in the Agusan River Valley, Mindanao. This species is a dwarf stegodon,
weighing only about 400 kg.

Similar to modern elephants, stegodons were likely to be capable swimmers

as shown by the widespread encounters of their fossils in the islands of
Luzon (in Cagayan, Kalinga, Rizal, and Pangasinan), Panay and Mindanao,
and the neighboring islands of Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia. The exact
reason of their demise, however, is still unknown. Changing climates,
unfavorable geographical conditions, competition with other species and
probably human interaction may have been a factor for their eventual
extinction.

De Vos, J. & Bautista, A. P. (2002). An update on the vertebrate fossils from the Philippines. National Museum Papers, 11(1), 62-105.
Lopez, S. L. (1971). Notes on the occurrence of fossil elephants and stegodonts in Solana, Cagayan, Northern Luzon, Philippines. Journal
of the Geological Society of the Philippines, 25(4), 1-8.
Lopez, S. L. (1972). Geology and Paleontology of Liwan Plain: Contributions to the Pleistocene Geology of Cagayan Valley. Seminar on SE
Asian Prehistory and Archaeology. Manila, Philippines.
Mathisen, M.E. (1981). Plio-Pleistocene Geology of the Central Cagayan Valley Northern Luzon Philippines (Doctorate Dissertation).
Iowa State University, USA.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

5
1 molar (tooth)
2-3 jaw bone with attached molar
4 humerus (upper bone of forelimb)
5 manus (front foot)

Stegodon sp. 20 cm

51
 53
TO 5-FT WOMAN
SIZE RELATIVE
Stegodon tusk from Solana, Cagayan
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Nesorhinus philippinensis
Rhinocerus

Rhinoceros or “rhinos” are large mammals, known for the giant horn (or
horns) that grow from their snouts. These “horns” are not actually true
horns because they are composed of keratin, a fibrous protein found in our
hair and fingernails. Today, there are only five living species of rhinoceros.
The black rhino and white rhino in Africa, and the greater one-horned rhino,
Javan rhino, and Sumatran rhino in Asia. But did you know that there was
once a small, endemic species living in the Philippines?

This species is called Nesorhinus philippinensis (formerly Rhinocerus

philippinensis). The first fossils of this extinct herbivore were teeth and
bones discovered in 1936 in Laya, Cagayan. They were identified as a
new species based on features found in the premolars. On May 13, 1965, a
portion of right upper jaw with two well-preserved molars and one broken
one (featured here) was unearthed in Fort Bonifacio in Metro Manila. It was
preserved under thick, compacted volcanic ash deposit of the Guadalupe
Formation. Since then, more than a hundred fossils were recovered
particularly in Cagayan Valley. One of them is a tibia (featured here) – one
of the animal’s lower leg bone. This tibia is small, comparable with the Black
and Sumatran rhinoceros. Measurements of the molars and postcranial
materials confirmed that the rhinoceros was small in size.

In 2013, a team of international and local researchers led by Dr. Thomas

Ingicco from the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle unearthed an
almost complete skeleton in an archeological site in Rizal, Kalinga Province.
The volcanic materials that covered these fossils gave a maximum age of
1 million years while the tooth and sediment was dated around 700,000
years +/- 70,000. Interestingly, these bones have bludgeoned and cutting
marks, which suggests that early humans were in the Philippines 700,000
years ago.

Today, the estimated number of living rhinoceros are down to approximately

30,000. Three of the five species (black, Javan, and Sumatran) are critically
endangered. In addition to habitat destruction, poaching and illegal trade
of rhino horns, which are valued for making ornamental dagger handles
and in traditional medicines have led to their dramatic decline.

Bautista, A. P. (1995). Fossil remains of rhinoceros in the Philippines. National Museum Papers, 5(1), 1-9.
Antoine, P. O., Reyes, M. C., Amano, N., Bautista, A. P., Chang, C. H.,Claude, J., de Vos, J., & Ingicco, T., (2021). A new rhinoceros clade
from the Pleistocene of Asia sheds light on mammal dispersals to the Philippines. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, zlab009.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

Right upper jaw with molars (NMP-0105a)

5 cm

Distal part of the tibia (NMP-0285)

10 cm

Nesorhinus philippinensis

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Celebochoerus cagayanensis
Pig

Some 800,000 years ago (Middle Pleistocene) in the island of Luzon, there
lived a giant species of suid (pigs). Fossil teeth of this animal (featured
here) were discovered by the National Museum of the Philippines’ Geology
and Paleontology Division in Liwan (now Rizal), Kalinga in 1971 and Solana,
Cagayan in 1978. In 2016, a team led by Dr. Thomas Ingicco, a professor
at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, and a NMP
Research Associate, identified the fossils to be from a new species of pigs,
which they named Celebochoerus cagayanensis, after Cagayan Valley.
Prior to this, Celebochoerus, a unique suid having enormous upper tusks,
was known to have only existed during the Pliocene-Pleistocene (about 5.33
million to 12,000 years ago) in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The Philippine species differs from the Sulawesi species Celebochoerus

heekereni in having distal enamel bands on its upper canines. It is believed
that the pig’s ancestors arrived in the Philippines from Taiwan, and eventually
migrated to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. This migration route would
have occurred independently from the better-known Pleistocene (2.58
million to 12,000 years ago) migration route from India into Java.

C. cagayanensis are already extinct, and the geographical expansion

of anoa (dwarf buffalo), babirusa (deer-pigs) and warty pig, which have
produced competition, may have been the cause. Today, however, even
these animal faces extinction. Once such example is C. cagayanensis’
distant cousin – the Visayan warty pig. It can be found in the past throughout
the Visayan Islands but are currently extinct on all but the islands of Panay
and Negros.

Deforestation, hunting for consumption, interbreeding with domestic pigs

and killing for various reasons are the major causes of the sharp decline in
numbers. It is thought that there are only 200 Visayan warty pigs surviving
in their native habitat, which classified them as Critically Endangered (CR)
on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.

Fortunately, there are already efforts to save the Visayan warty pig
through breeding centers established in Panay and Negros, a small step in
increasing their number but a big leap in saving the species from extinction.

Ingicco, T., van den Bergh, G., de Vos, J., Castro, A., Amano, N., & Bautista, A. (2016). A new species of Celebochoerus (Suidae,
Mammalia) from the Philippines and the paleobiogeography of the genus Celebochoerus Hooijer, 1948. Geobios, 49(4), 285-291.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

4 cm

Celebochoerus cagayanensis

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Rusa sp.
Deer

The fossils featured here are antlers (sungay ng usa in Filipino) from Rusa,
a genus of true deers that also include the Philippine brown deer (Rusa
marianna) and Visayan spotted deer (Rusa alfredi), two of the three
endemic deers in the Philippines.

Although the term antler and horn have been used interchangeably, there
are significant differences between the two. Horns are made up of a bone
core covered by keratin, the same material as our fingernails. They are
permanent and continue to grow throughout the animal’s life. Meanwhile,
antlers are composed of solid bone, but are shed and regrown annually in
a branching manner, often taking on complex pattern.

In 1970s, several antlers were discovered in Solana (NMP-0211) and Tuao

(NMP-0369) in the province of Cagayan, while a few were found in Anda,
Pangasinan, and Quezon, Palawan (NMP-0154). These fossils are believed
to be of Pleistocene age. In particular, the specimen NMP-211 from Solana
consists of the burr, a broken brow-time, and a part of the beam with
a length of only 20 cm. This is believed to belong to a small species of
male Rusa since antlers are only grown by male deers. And like those in
modern deers, these were likely used by the prehistoric deers in clashes
over potential mates.

Today, the descendants of these deers are distributed across the Philippines.
Their population, however, is severely fragmented and reduced because
of habitat loss and hunting. The Visayan spotted deer (Rusa alfredi), for
example, is one of the rarest deer in the world. It once roamed the islands of
Cebu, Bohol, Guimaras, Leyte, Masbate, and Samar, but are now only found
in the remaining forest on Panay and Negros islands.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

10 cm

59
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Cebu Tamaraw (Bubalus cebuensis)

and other Bovids

The tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis) is a critically endangered species of

dwarf water buffalo found only on the island of Mindoro, with an estimated
population of just 480. But do you know that an even smaller water buffalo
once lived in the island of Cebu? It is called Bubalus cebuensis or the Cebu
tamaraw.

A partial skeleton of the Cebu tamaraw was discovered by accident by

mining engineer Michael Armas more than 60 years ago while exploring
for phosphate in a tunnel near the municipality of Balamban in island
of Cebu. The fossil includes right and left humeri (arm bone, featured
here), left metatarsal, 2 vertebrae, 2 unguals, and 2 molars. It was only in
2006, however, that these were found to be from a new species of extinct
dwarf buffalo (Croft et al., 2006). Bubalus cebuensis was 25% smaller
than the Mindoro dwarf buffalo (Bubalus mindorensis), standing only
75 centimeters at the shoulder and weighing about 150 to 160 kilograms.
Although its exact age is not yet known, the fossil is believed to be of
Pleistocene in age, between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago, but it is possible
that it is younger.

The Cebu tamaraw is an excellent example of island dwarfism in the family

of Bovidae (buffalos, sheeps, goats, cows). Living in an island with limited
resources and lack of the usual competitors and predators have produced
this dramatic body size changes.

Aside from Bubalus cebuensis, fossil teeth and bone fragments of

unidentified Bubalus species (feature here) were also unearthed in the
provinces of Cagayan and Pangasinan since 1957. They were identified to
be from small buffalos related to Bubalus mindorensis, and may suggests
that the animal were more widespread prehistorically in the island of Luzon.

Croft, D. A., Heaney, L.R., Flynn, J.J., & Bautista, A.P. (2006). Fossil remains of a new, diminutive Bubalus (Artiodactyla: Bovidae: Bovini)
from Cebu Island, Philippines. Journal of Mammalogy, 87(5), 1037–1051.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

1
1 Right upper and lower arm of
Cebu Tamaraw (Bubalus cebuensis)
2 Bovid bone fragments (Bubalus sp.)
3 Bovid teeth (Bubalus sp.)

10 cm
SIZE RELATIVE TO 5-FT WOMAN

Carabao (Bubalus bubalis)

Tamaraw
(Bubalus mindorensis)

Cebu Tamaraw (Bubalus cebuensis)

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Fossil Plants

Fossils of elephants, stegodons, and rhinoceros certainly are spectacular

evidence of the Philippines’ bygone wildlife. But alongside them were the
shrubs, trees, and grasses that provided them both food and habitat, while
making our scientists understand what our environment was like in the past.

The fossils featured here were once flowering plants (angiosperms) that
flourished in the Philippines during the Pleistocene Epoch (2,580,000 to
11,700 years ago). It was during the Pleistocene that the Earth experienced
the most recent episodes of global cooling (Ice Ages). These dramatic shifts
in climate and temperature, as well as the appearance of humans, are
believed to have caused the extinction of the giant animals. On the other
hand, little change has occurred on what vegetation types have thrived in
Philippine soil as most of the fossil plants, like these five featured here, have
all survive to this day.

Fossil plants are important in the reconstruction of ancient ecological

system and climate. They are also fundamental in studying the evolution
and distribution of modern plants. But because they are usually found as
separated leaves or twigs, identification are difficult. Fruits, seeds, and
flowers can also be fossilized, although less commonly.

So how do plants become fossils? Essentially, they must be out of reach

of scavengers and decomposers, like bacteria or fungi that would eat or
destroy them. This happens frequently in estuaries and deltas of rivers
(wawa in Filipino), flood plains, lagoons and lakes. Plants parts like leaves
and twigs fall and sink to the bottom of these bodies of water, and become
buried by clay, silt, sand, or even volcanic ash like some of our examples
here. As sediments pile up, fluids are squeezed out and the lower layers of
sediments become more compressed, eventually turning to solid rock. Any
plant parts contained within them are flattened. This process destroy the
internal structure, leaving only a delicate carbonaceous film that imitates
the original outline of the plant part. Such fossils are called compression
fossils. More often, however, plant fossils are found with only their imprint
remaining. These fossils are called impression fossils. Can you differentiate
which among the five examples are compressions and impressions?

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 National Museum of the Philippines

1 Fossil leaf from Mango Family in tuff

2 Fossil legume leaves and twigs in
lapilli tuff

5 cm

(1) Leaf from Mango Family and (2) an assemblage of legume leaves and twigs
(related to Kakawate) preserved in tuff (compacted volcanic ash) after an
explosive volcanic eruption that happened between 2,580,000 to 11,700 years
ago. The fossils weres discovered in Valenzuela City, Metro Manila, sugesting
that the area was close to an active volcano.

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

This grass leaf, preserved in tuff, was found in

Sta. Lucia Subd., Sumulong-Marcos Hwy.,
Cogeo, Antipolo, Rizal, together with several
fossilized lake fish. The grass was likely blown
away to an ancient lake, where it settled to the
bottom and was burried by ash fall. Elephant
and stegodon fossils found within the vicinity
suggest a Pleistocene age (2.58 million to
11,700 years old)

5 cm

5 cm

Leaf from a flowering tree Dillenia sp. that grew in Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro
2.58 million to 11,700 years ago. The leaf is preserved in calcareous sandstone,
suggesting that the living tree lived close to an estuarine or shallow shelf marine
environment.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

NM
P
-01
57

5 cm

2,580,000 to 11,700 years old fossil leaves believed to be from the Annonaceae
(Guyabano Family) or Myristicaceae (Nutmeg Family) preserved in tuff (compacted
volcanic ash). The fossils was collected from Tatalon, Quezon City and was donated
to the National Museum on November 19, 1969.

65
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Petrified Wood

Petrified wood (from the Greek root Petro meaning “rock” or “stone”;
combined with wood, the term literally means “wood turned into stone”)
is a common kind of fossil plant. It is the result of a tree having turned
completely into stone by the process of permineralization.

So how does wood undergo permineralization? Once in a while, a newly-

deceased tree (or some other kind of woody plant) gets rapidly buried by
mud, silt or volcanic ash. This blanketing material shields the dead tree
from oxygen. Because oxygen is the main driving force behind the decaying
process, the plant begins to decompose far more slowly than it normally
would. Meanwhile, mineral-rich water or mud seeps into the dead tree’s
pores and other openings. As the plant’s internal structure gradually breaks
down, its organic material (wood fibers) gets replaced by silica and other
minerals. Over a period of a few million years, those minerals crystalize.
The slower the process, the more precise the replication is. The end result
is a rock that adopts the shape and structure of the original tree. In some
cases, the replication is so precise that the specific variety of the tree can
be identified. When this occurs in highly wooded area or forest, like in some
parts of the world, the area is called a petrified forest.

What makes a petrified wood colorful? It’s not the wood but the chemistry
of the petrifying groundwater. Chromium, copper and cobalt will give a
blue-green color, while manganese and iron oxides will showcase a pink to
orange and a yellow to red-brown color, respectively. Silicate dioxides will
give the fossil a transparent white to translucent gray color, and carbon, of
course, shades it in deep black color.

The Geology and Paleontology Division manages a wide array of petrified

wood specimens since 1948 with localities all over the Philippines, specifically
from the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Albay, Antique, Bataan, Bohol,
Bulacan, Cagayan, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Cavite, Iloilo, Kalinga,
La Union, Marinduque, Metro Manila, Negros Occidental, Pangasinan, Rizal
and Surigao del Sur. Their ages range from the Middle Miocene to the
Pleistocene, about 15 million years to 10,000 years old.

In 2018, Mr. Lawrence John Gotuaco gifted the nation through the National
Museum of the Philippines (NMP) with 88 pieces of foreign and 8 pieces
of local petrified wood specimens. Mr. Gotuaco, one of our most generous
benefactors, also donated ammonites, minerals and replicas of famous
dinosaur skulls and a leg, all collectively known as the Gotuaco Collections.
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 National Museum of the Philippines

2
1

4
3

5 6

Localities of Petrified Wood Collections

1 Pagatpat (Family Lythraceae) 4 Vitex sp. (Family Lamiaceae)

2 Molave Tree Family 5 Bakawan (Family Rhizophoraceae)
3 Acacia Tree Family 6 Petrified log from Gotuaco Collections

67
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Orbitolina
Foraminifera

Do you know that bacteria, protists, fungi, pollens and spores can also be
fossilized? Because of their microscopic size, they are collectively called
microfossils, and they are just as important as, if not more useful than big
fossils.

Orbitolina is a foraminifera – a single-celled, amoeba-like organism that

makes a tiny shell called a test. This test is flat conical to bowl-shaped,
typically < 2cm in diameter, and is made of calcium carbonate, the same
material that makes up the exoskeleton of many marine animals. They
lived on the seafloor of warm, shallow waters, where they fed on bacteria,
diatoms, and other single-celled organisms. Like the T-rex, Orbitolina only
lived during the Cretaceous Period (145-66 million years ago). But during
this time, they were very abundant and widespread in the ancient seas.
This made them valuable index fossils – fossils that represent a particular
span of geologic time or environment. This means they are important for
determining the age of ancient marine rocks.

Part of the National Geological and Paleontological Collections is an

Orbitolina-bearing limestone (NMP-1463; pictured here). It was collected
in Cabacongan, Caramoan Peninsula in 2015 during a collaborative study
between the National Museum of the Philippines researchers and Japanese
paleontologists. The presence of Orbitolina texana and Orbitolina cf.
conoidea in the rock pointed to late Early to early Late Cretaceous age
(Aptian to Cenomanian or ~125.0 to 93.9 million years old). Their presence
also implied that the area was once a warm, shallow sea. In the Philippines,
Orbitolina has only been reported in Cebu, Catanduanes, and Caramoan
Peninsula.

Microfossils like Orbitolina provide us information about the diversity of

ancient life. They not only help geologists determine the relative ages of
rocks, but also infer past environmental conditions, including the chemistry
of the water in which they once lived, making them crucial in understanding
climate change. They are also used to find petroleum deposits. This goes to
show that big things truly come in small packages!

68
N National Museum of the Philippines
M
P-
14
63

10 cm

Microfossils of Orbitolina spp. (arrows) in Cretaceous age limestone from

Caramoan Peninsulan. 25 centavos coin =20 mm diameter

23
Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Coprolites
Trace Fossil

Fossils do not always represent a body part of an organism. Sometimes,

they can be human footprints, a snail’s track marks, a bird’s nest, or traces
of the roots of plants (rhizoliths). They can also be fossilized poop called
coprolites. These type of fossils are called trace fossils or ichnofossils
(Greek: ikhnos meaning “trace” or “track”) and they are the physical record
of an organism’s biological activities while it was alive. In the case of
coprolites, they can contain clues about the animal’s diet. Was the animal a
meat-eater or a vegetarian?

Among the first collections in the National Geological and Paleontological

Collections are these coprolites (NMP-010) from Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro.
Coprolites contain clues about an animal’s diet. These type of trace fossils
were collected in 1948 by GPD’s first chief geologist, Mr. Inocentes Paniza,
in a rock exposure in Tignoan Creek. These coprolites were found together
with 152-163.5 million year old (Late Jurassic) ammonite fossils. Could these
ancient feces be from ammonites or some other creature in the Jurassic
seas?

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 National Museum of the Philippines

NMP-010

NM
P-0
10

5 cm

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Fossils, Records of Prehistoric Life in the Philippines

Ancient Homes and Tracks

Trace Fossils

Trace fossils are indirect evidence of ancient life. They are essential at
helping us understand some behavior that bones or shells can’t tell us. They
tell us how an organism moves, gives an idea of the size of the organism,
provide clues to their feeding behavior, or tell what kind of environment an
organism lives on. For organisms that do not have hard shells or bones,
like jellyfish, slugs, and worms, these may be the only evidence that they
existed.

The sandy tubes in the rock featured on the right were once deposit-
feeding burrows and open dwellings in the mud that later became filled
with sand. Most are horizontal (parallel to bedding) and branching with
few vertical burrows (circular in cross-section). Crustaceans like burrowing
shrimps and crabs make similar burrows in the sediment today. The NMP-
GPD together with geologists from UP-NIGS and NMNS-Japan collected
this sample from Ilagan, Isabela. It belongs to the 8.2 - 5.5 million years old
Cabagan Formation.

Meanwhile, the winding, ribbon-like feature in the other mudstone is a trace

fossil known as Scolicia. Scolicia is interpreted to record the locomotion
or feeding trace of an ancient sea urchin. This fossil provides insight into
not only the direction the organism took but also its behavior while plowing
through sediments. This specimen was found by Mr. Joel Sarmiento in
Dipujen River of Palanan, Isabela and was donated to the National Museum
in 2017.

However, it is worth noting that one organism can make thousands of

traces in its lifetime, and an entirely different organism may produce
identical tracks. As a result, they are more common than body fossils, but
more enigmatic for scientists to study. They may also hold outstanding
paleontological value. Do you know that the oldest fossils found on Earth
are trace fossils? These are the fossilized traces of cyanobacteria or blue-
green algae called stromatolites, found in the rocks of western Australia,
and dated 3.5 billion years old.

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 National Museum of the Philippines

5 cm

Ancient burrows (arrows) in mudstone

5 cm

Scolicia isp.(sea urchin trace) in mudstone

73
 Contributors
Elisha Gabriel C. Riza
Paolo B. Omana
Edward David L. Francia
Loudel S. Gaciles
Aryssa Orven E. Martin

Acknowledgment
Priscila A. Ong
Roberto SP. De Ocampo
Dr. Michael D. Purugganan

Front cover art (two stegodons and an elephant)

by Roderick Macutay
 National Museum of Natural History
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