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Showing results for tags 'Bathysalenia skylari'.
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A New Texas Echinoid Species
JohnJ posted a topic in Partners in Paleontology - Member Contributions to Science
Back in July of 2009, I was crawling around an Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Formation (late Turonian) site that was exposed by recent excavations. There were many amazingly preserved marcasite / pyrite encrusted ammonites and other fauna to be found. However, one of 'gems' of that site was a beautiful, tiny regular echinoid. I was fascinated with it and I made additional discoveries that I wrote about in an article on The Fossil Forum. (early images) In trying to establish an identification, I checked with several experienced Texas collectors and none of them recognized it. When that happens, you really start to get your hopes up you may have found something new to paleontology. Then, I saw a similar echinoid on London's Natural History Museum website, The Echinoid Directory. Ahhh! Finally, I figured out that the genus must be a Bathysalenia ...but, there was no species listed for North America and my find had some distinct differences. This ID was tentatively confirmed by a few other echinoid experts and a new search began. (holotype - early images and actual size @ 1440 x 900 screen resolution) It still took almost another year of personal research and networking to find someone able to take on the project of the little urchin. Again, I must mention that Alex Osso (thank you, my friend) was very patient, offered good advice and was helpful in facilitating paleo connections. Ultimately, he introduced me to paleontologist, John W. M. Jagt. This surprised and thrilled me because I was familiar with some of his work on mosasaurs (another of my favorite fossils.) His interest was due to his prior research on Turonian aged fauna of Europe. Over the next four years, the article had many "starts" and "stops", since it was a personal project. However, we stayed in touch and the work continued when possible. During this process, I decided to name this fossil after one of my older nephews. He accompanied my late Dad and me on many outdoor adventures when he was younger. So, I'm really excited to introduce a new species of echinoid from the Eagle Ford Formation of Texas: Bathysalenia skylari n. sp. This is the first record of the genus in North America and the first regular echinoid in the Eagle Ford Formation. The holotype and one paratype have been contributed to the University of Texas Non-vertebrate Paleontology Lab. Another paratype has been donated to the Maastricht Natural History Museum (where John Jagt is the Curator of Paleontology.) (specimen #7 and #13) Bathysalenia skylari, a new late Turonian (Late Cretaceous) saleniid echinoid from central Texas, USA Abstract: "A new species of saleniid is recorded from the so-called ‘Eagle Ford Condensed Zone’ with typical elements of the late Turonian Prionocyclus hyatti cephalopod Zone, which rests unconformably on the South Bosque Marl (Collignoniceras woollgari cephalopod Zone) in the Georgetown area, Williamson County (central Texas). It is easily distinguished from both extinct (late Albian - early Paleocene) and extant congeners by a comparatively low test, wide ambulacral zones with large (near-)horizontal pore pairs, a large peristome with conspicuous gill slits and a highly ornamented apical disc with a relatively small suranal plate. The new species constitutes the first record of the genus Bathysalenia from North America."- 51 replies
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- Bathysalenia skylari
- Eagle Ford Formation
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