The creature
Anatomy, behaviour, diet, and the small details that show how it survived.
findin / a daily gameWhere life lived, and when.
One creature a day. Guess where it lived, and when. The clues are there.
One creature. Two questions.
Where did it live? When did it live? Read the clues and make your case.
WHERE / a placeWHEN / a windowCLUES / read the evidence
Paleogeography
Continents looked different.
Compare today's map with the world as it was.
Field series
Earth through time.
Deep time
Earth before complex life.
Permian
The world before the dinosaurs.
Late Cretaceous
Earth in the age of dinosaurs.
Today
The world as it is.
Three kinds of clues.
The Earth
Where the fossil was found, and what the coastline looked like back then.
PaleozoicMesozoicCenozoic
The clock
You guess a time window, not an exact year.
Life through time
A longer view of life.
Findin moves across the history of life: living animals, Ice Age giants, ancient marine life, dinosaurs.
Present
Quaternary
Cenozoic
Mesozoic
Evidence to answer
How a clue becomes a guess.
Use records, age estimates, and reconstructed maps to make your guess.
- 01
Fossil / occurrence
A fossil or living observation is a record of where a creature was found.
- 02
Habitat
Look for clues in the environment where it lived.
- 03
Age
An age estimate places the find within Earth's history.
- 04
Reconstructed Earth
See what the continents looked like at the time.
- 05
Your guess
You weigh the clues and make the call.
A note on evidence
A locality is not a range.
Records show where a species has been found. They do not reveal its full range, and the record is incomplete.
Known occurrence
Suggested range
No record does not mean absent
The tree of life
See its family tree.
After a round, explore how the creature is related to other species.
Simplified diagram / many groups omitted
Explore the clues.
Stuck? Start here.
Read the body
Teeth, limbs, feathers, armour, shape and size all offer clues. Anatomy can show how an animal lived and what it was adapted to.
Check the habitat
Habitat clues, such as rainforest, reef or grassland, can narrow the search.
Continents move
Over geological time, oceans open, landmasses split, and coastlines change.
Allow for uncertainty
Fossil dates and maps can be uncertain. Use the evidence to make your best estimate.
Sources
The field library.
Data sources, open media, and further reading.
Ready?
Today's creature is waiting.