We find that the Brightseat snails are indicative of overlapping influence from both northern and southern Danian zoogeographic provinces, though its composition appears more closely allied with faunas from Greenland and northwestern Europe.

The Brightseat gastropod fauna is well suited for transatlantic comparison, and is intermediate in geographic position between other well-studied assemblages including those from the Gulf Coastal Plain, western Greenland, and northwestern Europe.

This monograph describes 52 gastropods, including 25 new species/subspecies, from the Brightseat Formation of Maryland, which represents the earliest Paleocene sediments which crop out in this region of the northern Atlantic Coastal Plain.

You’ve heard of elf on a shelf… but what about John Oliver on a PRI Tully Monster?

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I do not… I just stumbled across it. Can’t seem to find a definitive answer online either. But if some critical mass of gastropod enthusiasts have decided to endorse such an annual holiday, who am I to argue?!