Montrose Biology

In keeping with our recent obsession with all things paleo, we collaborated with to create an awesome new puzzle focused on 10 famous fossils! This 1000 piece puzzle is difficult, and large, but when I was putting it together I felt like a paleontologist poring over bone fragments in the field. It was cool to pick up a piece and be like “this is for sure the foot bones of a stegosaurus.” We also used the same artist as our “Ecologies: Ancient Areas” deck so the paleo art is accurate and stunning. A note on scientific accuracy: these fossils are from across the world and different time periods, and have different scales. While each is scientifically accurate, in real life the collection itself would never occur in the same place or at these scales. We bring them together just for this puzzle. Check it out! 🦖🦴⛏️

Also available now, Ecologies Junior: Ocean. This tile game uses the same common back as the Ecologies Junior: Forest game, so you can mix and match tiles from both ecosystems, either as a memory game or food web game. Ecologies Junior takes the same premise as the original game and makes it simpler and more accessible for kids as young as 4. It can be competitive or cooperative. 64 sturdy tiles full of ocean life! 🦀🦑🐠

More “Ecologies: Ancient Areas” cards in the wild! Available now from montrosebiology.com 🦖🦕🦣

We see a ton of these American giant millipedes where we live. I was astounded to learn they can live up to 11 years! The way they dig burrows is also fascinating, they grab a chunk of soil with their mandibles and pass it to their first pair of legs, which then passes it on to the next pair of legs, etc., until the little chunk has been grasped by every little leg and is finally tossed out the back by the last pair. I don’t know why but it seems so cute that they handle the soil this way, slowly and methodically. They eat mostly decaying wood and have few predators because of their foul and irritating secretions. They still look cute though 😂 🐛 🌳

Ecologies: Ancient Areas is available now!
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Build food webs in 7 extinct ecosystems.
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Each ancient biome is based on a real geologic formation and the fossils found there.
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A collaboration between a biology teacher and an award winning paleo artist , this game uses authentic science to imagine food webs from across the globe and throughout Earth’s history.
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We explore the following biomes:
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Cambrian Ocean Biome – CAM (burgess shale fossils) 🦐
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Triassic Monsoon Biome – TRI (Ischigualasto fossils)🪲
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Jurassic Riparian biome – JUR (Portugal fossils)🦕
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Cretaceous Forest Biome – CRF (hell creek fossils)🦖
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Cretaceous Desert Biome – CRD (Gobi desert fossils)🪶
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Paleogene Grassland Biome – PAL (chadron formation)🐆
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Pleistocene Tundra Biome – PLE (Yana River Valley)🦣
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Order today at montrosebiology.com

Apologies to everyone for not being able to launch our new game in September as promised! At the last minute, just before launch, Hurricane Helene devastated our area. We are safe, and many places had it much worse, but we were trapped in our neighborhood due to roads being blocked with multiple trees and power lines, with no safe way out. We do not have internet or power, but we do have water, and just gained the ability to get new food because a brave person with a skid steer pushed a bunch of logs out of one of the roads. Our problems pale in comparison to our neighbors just north in Asheville, but I wanted to explain why the game hasn’t launched and why orders are slow to be processed. We appreciate all your support and will launch as soon as possible! We’re hopeful that in the next week or so the majority of debris will be clear and power will be restored. Thank you as always, stay safe out there! -Matt

The zebra longwing butterfly lives mostly in South and Central America, but populations do exist in Texas and Florida. They even occasionally come here to South Carolina during the warmer months. The amazing thing about zebra longwings is that they don’t only feed on nectar. They also feed on pollen. You might not think this is a big deal but the nutrients in the pollen allows them to live for several months, while most butterflies only live for several weeks. The pollen also allows them to produce toxins that make them distasteful to predators. All this means they are extremely long lived for butterflies and have few predators. Another interesting fact: they roost together at night in conglomerations of many adult individuals and return to the same roost each night! Super cool butterfly and the first time I’ve seen one in person. 🌸🦋🌺

Will you regrow the forest, or help the desert spread? Drylands is a 2 player strategy game set in Africa’s Sahel region. First you decide where the mountains and rivers will be, then you compete to fill the board with your pieces. Hand-drawn art by .duk.art.ventures 🐪☀️🐘🌳 montrosebiology.com

Found this large aggregation of isopods milling about in the leaf litter. My only guess is there was some s**t or other decomposing material that was rich in some nutrient they needed, but from a glance there didn’t seem to be anything left if it was there, just a ton of these little guys hanging out and socializing 😆 🍡🪲 #ダンゴムシ

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Dakotaraptor, another Hell Creek favorite! Coming this Fall 🦖☄️🍁

Our first time adding humans to a deck. I think did a wonderful job with this group of humans silhouetted against an expansive view of Pleistocene territory. Watch out for those lions! 🦁🍽️☠️

We’re not a pottery company, but our family does love a good stoneware mug. When I learned about the great work is doing, and learned that we could collaborate with them to create this handmade butterfly mug for us, I decided to go ahead and do it! The mug features a unique Ulysses Butterfly logo and is handmade in the United States by women fleeing homelessness, domestic abuse, and sex-trafficking. These mugs are created in small batches and each one will be slightly different so please allow for small variations in color, texture, etc. Prodigal Pottery uses 100% of their proceeds to support the women they employ and provide salaries and life-changing benefits. This mug is only available on our website: montrosebiology.com

One of my favorite things about Spring is the return of green anoles. These territorial lizards have a huge personality and males will wander along fence posts displaying their “dewlap,” which is like a flattened throat pouch that is bright red and can double the size of their head and neck region. These lizards can change color, but only in the range of brown to green. Females often have a white stripe on their back and males will develop black spots behind their eyes when fighting, most likely as an intimidation tactic. They are native and fairly widespread here in the southern United States. When the males turn green it is such a vibrant and rich hue, I’m always stopped in my tracks! 🌿🦎🍂

So far “leaf litter” has been a favorite among internal playtesters. It basically acts as every producer in the game smashed into one card. 🍃🤯🍁

Everyone knows about Triceratops, but did you know that Triceratops belongs to a larger group of extinct animals known as ceratopsians? These “horn-faced” dinosaurs come in all kinds of sizes and configurations, with Triceratops probably being the most famous. Here are some models of ancient ceratopsians… I think Nasutoceratops is my personal favorite! Which is your favorite?
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Photo 1: Nasutoceratops
Photo 2: Triceratops (cow colors)
Photo 3: Pentaceratops
Photo 4: Torosaurus and baby
Photo 5: Styracosaurus
Photo 6: Regaliceratops
Photo 7: Sinoceratops
Photo 8: Pachyrhinosaurus
Photo 9: Protoceratops
Photo 10: Triceratops (JP style)
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This Luna moth landed on our garden shed and started laying eggs. Usually they lay eggs directly on host trees like sweet gum, walnut, hickory, or birch, but for some reason this female laid a couple dozen eggs on this structure. There is a walnut tree nearby so maybe the larva will make their way there after hatching? Such a large and beautiful moth! I was surprised to see it active and laying eggs in the middle of the day. The adults do not eat after they hatch from their cocoons, they only breed and lay eggs until they die in about 10 days. The long tail has been proven to throw bats off their echolocation game. Bats are the main predators when this moth is flying (usually at night). The eggs should hatch in about a week and I’ll be watching to see if and how they make it to a host plant! 🌱🦋 🐛

Take a look at this Triassic cutie from Argentina! Hyperodapedon is often depicted in toys and art as having two exposed buck teeth, but further research suggests these were covered by a keratin sheath. Long thought to be a strict herbivore, a paper in 2022 presents evidence that Hyperodapedon had a highly sensitive sensory array in its snout and jaw, and may have actually fed along the waters edge using its powerful snapping bite to eat not only many types of plants and macroalgae, but also invertebrates and bivalves. Whether it was rooting around for mollusks, tubers, or both, it certainly was an adorable looking chonky boi. 🌿🍽️🐚

I feel very lucky that Eastern box turtles roam my unfenced yard. I grew up on the west coast and often saw pond turtles, but never anything terrestrial besides the occasional neighbor’s pet tortoise. Eastern box turtles have a hinged plastron, which allows them to fully shut themselves off to the outside world when they close the flap, instead of merely tucking their limbs in. That’s where the “box” name comes from, it’s like they close the lid of a box. They’re omnivores and slow, long lived foragers. Even though they are in the pond turtle family, they act more like tortoises and spend most of their time wandering their terrestrial territory or bruminating over winter. 🐌🐢☘️

Triceratops card from “Ecologies: Ancient Areas.” One of my OG favorite dinosaurs since watching Jurassic Park in theaters as a kid and imagining myself as one of the vets helping the sick triceratops in the park 😂 🦕🩺

Yellow garden spiders always scare people with their bright colors and impressive size, but they are really very gentle. They do not want to bite you and will run away if disturbed. The only time they bite is if they have no other choice, for example if you were to grab one and hold onto it. Even then, the bite is about as painful as a bee sting and not dangerous unless you are highly allergic. At the end of the season they lay a large egg sac that admittedly looks extremely spooky, but it’s just the spider ensuring the next generation. This spider lived in my garden and eventually climbed to the top of an old corn stalk where she created a protective enclosure for her eggs. (Swipe to see the eggs) Now that the weather is warming up they should be hatching soon! 🕷️🕸️🌽

Work continues on our paleo deck “Ecologies: Ancient Areas.” Just a heads up that there are going to be a lot more “paleo” themed post around here the next few months. You have been warned! 😂

I’m often asked to put “carnivorous” plants in the game, and everyone seems a little sad when I tell them that plants like the Venus flytrap, or the pitcher plants shown here, don’t actually “eat” bugs. They get no calories from them. What they are doing is killing them for fertilizer. These plants are usually found in soils with little to no nitrogen, so trapping insects acts as a mechanism to get nitrogen and other trace minerals that act as fertilizer. No energy is transferred from the insect to the plant. Some plants make nectar for rodents, who stay and drink the nectar while defecating, which fertilizes the plant. It’s all about the nitrogen (and phosphorus). 🌱🪤🪰

Went for a Thanksgiving walk in the woods today and came across this beautiful little salamander. Seems to be a “Blue ridge two-lined salamander” based on the surprisingly bright yellow markings and bold black lines. Most of the two-lined salamanders are pretty brown, so I was taken aback by this bright yellow. As a kid I would find salamanders under every other log I checked, but they have become harder and harder to find these days, so it was a special moment! 🦎 🍂 🪵

We’ve updated our cover art for Bizarre Biomes. It still features kingfishers, but now shows a parent feeding fledglings instead of a single adult feeding. We also updated the kingfisher card to match our recent enamel pin offering. We sometimes play with the art a little between print runs as we fall in love with new illustrations, so if you have a deck of ours from the original print run or from a couple years ago, you have at least a few cards that will never be made again (I should stress this is just about the art, we haven’t added or removed different species, just updated the illustrations). 🪲🐟🐦