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Hi everyone, We recently stumbled across this interesting specimen while combing through some rocks of the Verulam Formation (Upper Ordovician), just north of Manitoulin Island in Ontario. We initially thought trilobite, however we are now unsure, as there are over 30 segments of the thorax and they appear to be curved up towards the cephalon as opposed to down towards the pygidium. Any help is appreciated!

I was able to fit in some prospecting for new sites while the missus had a week off from work. Obviously I couldn’t monopolize all the vacation as the main purpose was to visit a relative and lounge on a beach. Regularly accessible and productive Ordovician sites in Ontario are few and far between, mostly relegated these days to the biannual trip to the quarry in Bowmanville, or to the creeks around the greater Toronto area (GTA). Trilobite collecting in Ontario is massively curtailed by a confluence of factors sadly common in so many other areas: development, quarries that no longer permit access (even to clubs), laws governing protected areas, and over-collecting. We have a rich abundance of trilobites in Ontario, just as in New York, but accessible sites remain a problem. This means defaulting to the traditional method of prospecting new potential areas, and even putting a hard shoulder into shovelling a lot of soil to expose bedrock. This means smaller areas that are more easily exhausted. A pic of our haul from the two spots:

Made the trip over the weekend. Will post more when I get home. I will start out with this find. Large edrioasteroid species sophusella incondita found at JD Quarry in Ontario Canada Sunday morning. 9/24/17. Ordovician.

Contrary to what some people may suspect I actually collected other things besides cystoids and echinoderms this past summer. Here is a trilobite that I am quite fond of that was found back in July. It was found in a blast of Ordovician Verulam. Took me a good 1/2 hour to get it cut out. It was in a very large slab that was a bit awkwardly positioned and I could not move it by myself. Both of my regular collecting buddies had already packed it in for the day so I was on my own to figure out how to get it out. Definitely worth the effort. It prepped up quite nicely in my humble opinion and best yet it was mine and not someone elses. Seemed to be always working on other peoples stuff this season. Just the two left rear most pleura were partially missing on this one. Have been debating whether or not to restore them. On the positive side it is 7 cm in length, so a very decent size. I suspect that this one is going to end up in my personal collection. As they say it is a keeper. For those of you that do not recognize this bug it is a Failleana indeterminata which are definitely a rarity in this locality. I have only ever seen in person one other prone complete specimen found here and that one sold for quite a bit of money. Personally I think this one is nicer. Alas found in July, prepped in September and October this one is not a candidate for IFOTM.

It is the last hurrah for me before the school year begins and I'm back riding the lectern. As some of you already know, I am due at a very special quarry near Lake Simcoe to collect with our intrepid @Malcolmt after his jaw-dropping Astrocystites finds. This space will record some of my journey there, and of course our time in the quarry. We made our way out from London going north by northeast this morning and took the back roads. Those of you who have traveled the Grey Highlands and Blue Mountains area know how breathtaking the scenery can be. We found ourselves in Craigleith by about 2 pm. As some will know, the Craigleith and surrounding areas along the lake are full of Whitby Fm shale from the Ordovician, similar to that which one may find in Ottawa's Billings group. They are full of Pseudogygites latimarginatus moults. Of course, it is not legal to collect at the provincial park. The first is a display piece of a full Pseudogygites.

Well I was out hunting the Ordovician on Saturday and as it turns out I had a pretty awesome day. I found a plate with 5 flexicalymene trilos on it all essentially complete , a cyclocystoid complete with central plates, a partial piece of a cleiocrinus, a pleurocystites, a complete prone ceraurus with at least 5 small crinoid calyx on the plate, a bit mangled enrolled isotelus, a calyptalaux . You can see that fossils when they are found in the field are often nothing special to look at. Note that in the field I always circle what I am interested in with black sharpie marker (never leave home without one ) Many times I look at what I brought home weeks later and it really helps to know what caused me t carry it back to the car with me...... I also write the location and the date on the back because it is often weeks or months before I get to looking at them after getting home. However what got me excited was the rock 2nd from the top of this group but one that had just the faintest sign that it had something that looked like an echinoderm in it. Not much to look at and barely noticeable in the filed.All the pictures that follow are of approximately the same orientation as the original unprepped picture. Here it is under better light and closer up. After a while prepping I realized that I had something special Getting even more special Starting to look quite cool All done and the first ever Edriophus levis (Bather) for me and it is essentially complete. It is about 1 1/2 inches across. There were a few found a few years back but this is the first I have seen in quite a while. Not exactly common......`These are quite rare and are found in both the Bob Caygeon and the verulam formations of Ontario. Note that the arms curve clockwise which is one of the distinguishing features , Lebitodiscus curves counterclockwise. It would also appear that the arms go further down the sides than Foerstedicus. The anus is composed of 9 to 15 triangular plates which you can see broken up on this specimen. Really had no clue what it was when I found it in the field. I thought it was going to most likely be a crinoid calyx... Was a very nice surprise. As you can see from the last picture the specimen is sitting free on its original matrix. The reverse has also been prepped and is hollow with some plates visible. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the underside yet. Maybe will try to do when I get a chance. But have a lot of really neat material under prep right now ... have spent 10 hours a day prepping material in the last few days ... If I can keep up the pace for a few weeks I can start to get my head above water.......

Well every now and then you get lucky and don't even realize it. Was out collecting on Sunday and found what I thought was a few exposed spines of a meadowtownella trilobote. To my surprise when I got home and prepped it , turned out to be something totally different.. Trilo was prepped using 200 mesh dolomite at 20 PSI with a .015 nozzel. Prep time about 15 minutes, very fragile but no consolidant , glue or restoration. Drumroll... as I have never found this species before at this location or anywhere else..... This was found on the surface of a good thousand pound slab in a recent blast pile from the upper part of the verulam exposure at this quarry. Thankfully I had lugged my diamond saw down to the bottom of the pit otherwise this fella would have ended up in the crusher. My buddy Northern Sharks was at the quarry hunting the upper level and never made it down to the bottom (a long trek). I had commented to him over email that I had had a so-so day getting 5 or 6 trilos but nothing spectacular. Now that this is prepped I have changed my mind... I now rate it as a pretty good day. (also found a couple of isotelus, a couple of ceraurus, a very nice syringocrinus and a flexi) I believe it to be an inverted and essentially complete Hypodicranotus striatulus (Walcott) (perhaps pirahna will jump in here with his expertise Notice the partial hypostome whose shape is quite indicative of this species. In fact I may actually have another hypostone in a hash plate matrix that I found a few years ago in the same general that I thought came from a septapsis Trilo is 21mm long by 15.3mm wide

Here is a highly inflated 3-dimensional Homocystites sp that was found this past Saturday May 14 on a very cold rainy day. The only bright note to the weather was that the wet matrix made it a bit easier to see the fossils. This is from the Ordovician Verulam formation and was found in a new blast pile from the previous 7 days. The homocystites typically found is Homocystits anatiformis which is found in the Cobourg formation. This species is typically a little smaller and is under review as potentially being a different species. Homocystites has an ovate theca and a fairly long stem (most missing in this specimen). It has a distinct pattern of radiating ridges on the plates that are very geometric in shape. It was prepped in about 5 minutes using low PSI (10) and dolomite in the 200 to 325 mesh range. No airscribing was needed. There is no restoration or repairs. The specimen is 36 mm long with a 27 mm theca (body) It is 11 mm wide and about 5 mm extends out of the matrix . I am considering finishing off the prep by completely exposing the specimen 360 degrees around, essentially making it a free standing on its stem specimen. I have seen a few prepped this way over the years and they are focal points in people display collections. What do you folks think should I take the chance and go for it.

I actually had an amazing day hunting in the Verulam formation near Lake Simcoe, Ontario, Canada on Sunday April 12th with my friend J. Even with his rock saw it took me three trips from the bottom of the pit to lug the rocks out. I figure about 200 pounds of rocks came home with me.The weather was perfect (18 degrees celcius but there is still ice and snow in areas ) I got to the site about 8:00AM and stayed till 5 PM. Two hour drive each way so I was beat by the time I got home. Also was a little worse for wear as I got a finger trapped between two heavy slabs. Throbbed for the whole day. Currently at this location the only way to find anything decent is to split rock. Not a lot of new material has been uncovered since last season. But if you spend the time splitting you will find some pretty decent material. By splitting I literally mean splitting several hundred pound boulders (a shaley limestone). I found 3 ceraurus, 2 syringocrinus and about 20 (yes I said 20) homocystites. Here is one that I prepped this morning using Low PSI with dolomite and a .010 nozzle. Prep time about 2 hours. I also found about 5 crinoids that appear to be complete but it will be hard to tell what they are until they are prepped. I though this was a pretty spectacular association (4 trilo species and a well centered cystite) Considering that all I saw was the homocystites tail outline in the matrix, I think I got very lucky and the prep came out decent. Based on the 20 homocystites found the preservation on this one is typical. I will try to take a group picture once they are all prepped. 1 Homocystites (about 75 mm in length if was not curled) 1 almost complete ceraurus (about 15 mm long) (missing one of pygidium spines) overlapping the homocystites 2 inverted calyptaulax cephaplons 1 achetella cephalon 1 isotelus inverted partial

Got tired of prepping cystoids this morning so took a quick diversion to prep this little guy found on Sunday April 12, 2015 in the verulam formation near Lake Simcoe. Total length about 75 mm with a 10 mm calyx. Prepped under a scope with low PSI dolomite .010 nozzle, prep time about 20 minutes. Matrix was a crumbly shale which was field stabilized with cyanoacrylate. I believe it to be a praecupulocrinus but then again I am not the crinoid expert by any means so please jump in.....

Here is one for you knowledgeable folks. The fossil does not actually belong to me .The individual who found this specimen is a very experienced collector and has never seen this one before in either the verulam or the BobCaygeon. It was found last season in either the bottom of the verulam formation or the top of the BobCaygeon Ordovician formation near Brechin, Ontario Canada. We are generally calling this a cystoid or a crinoid. Some thoughts so far are (in order of our thinking) Balacrinus sp archeocrinus lacunosus Neoarcheocrinus Rare cystite Jump in with your thoughts

Continuing from my last post, Sunday had me up bright and early heading towards Gamebridge, Ontario and the exposures of the Ordovician aged Verulam formation. I met Malcolmt at the quarry and we spent the better part of the day searching some recent blast debris as well as the "honey hole" area that he and Kevin had found all their goodies last year. Sadly, much of the material that they were searching last year has gone to the crusher now so the pickings were thin. I did manage to find a nice enrolled Flexi which Malcolm said he could clean up. I was worried it was incomplete but Malcolm says it came out pretty nice. We then went down to the third level to look through some of the weathered piles where some local collectors often find good stuff. Malcolm managed to find a Starfish in some black shale but I had to content myself to the large Prasopora colonies and brachiopod plates that I love from this quarry. Some of the finds: A typical large Prasopora bryozoan colony (sometimes called "gumdrops") This is a cool fossil of a Prasopora colony that grew on a gastropod shell (Hormotoma sp.). The shell is long gone but the mold is still there thanks to the bryozoans. Actually, Gastropod molds were very common that day. Here is a new genera for me that I need to ID yet. Trilobite cephalons were fairly common too. On this hashplate there is a cephalon from a Thaleops (or Nanillaenus) A couple of Cerarus type cephalons that need to be cleaned off a little. And of course there were some Flexicalymenes Then there is this mystery specimen. It looks echinodermish to me, any ideas? My feet were really aching from climbing around on slopes at Arkona and rock piles at Gamebridge so I called it an early day. I need to get in better field shape! Monday I drove back into the US and had an fairly uneventful border crossing. The guard who questioned me was asking about some of the rocks and fossils I had and their ages. He was amazed when I told him some were from 450mya and others were from 390mya. He pointed out that I had more than the limit of Canadian beer I should have (I had 2 1/2 cases whereas I can bring just one back with no fees) but he sent me on my way with no further fuss. This was a very good thing as I had some buckets with loose "dirt" from Arkona. In reality they were eroded rock but I've had issues in the past telling them that so I just say "rocks" now. I spent the rest of the day at the Penn Dixie site which was in preparations for their "Dig with the experts" the following weekend. The club that runs the site (The Hamburg Natural History Society, Inc.) had brought in an excavator to help expose and lift blocks of the Smoke Creek trilobite beds as well as improve some of the site drainage. I wasn't allowed into the prepped area but I could go anywhere else on the site and search the large mounds of stripped overburden and leftover split pieces that surrounded the pit. A view of the area: It was on those piles around the edges that I made my best finds. First was a two inch long Phacops rana lateral poking out of the face of a rock. It should prep out nicely. Next is a piece of what I believe is bone from a fish. The jury is still out and maybe some additional prep work will reveal more. Other than that it was the typical Trilobites and Brachiopods that captured my attention. Some of the Phacops rana I found.... Here is one that Carmine left behind but I brought home. A rare pygidium of Dipleura sp. shows a lot of dots but the shell is smooth. I'm used to finding them with no shell and the dots are columns infilled with mud. This is one of two monster Greenops sp. pygidiums that Carmine and I found. And then there are the brachiopods.... A couple of Spirifer consobrinus This is a rarity: a clean, undistorted and articulated Mediospirifer audaculus Then there is the common, but ridiculously difficult to extract intact, brachiopod Protoleptostrophia perlana I found this nearly flat Paleozygopleura sp. when a rock split. As I was field trimming the piece the whole gastropod popped off! Last but not least is this Pelecypod that I think is a Palaeoneilo sp. Towards the end of the day a gentleman named Phil came into the site. He was out on a business trip to the area from California and had wanted to visit the Penn Dixie site. I showed him around and helped him find some stuff to split which he was overjoyed with. Phil remarked that they don't find these kinds of fossils in California where he is. He gets to Sharktooth Hill and the Cambrian Trilo localities but stuff like horn corals, brachiopods and Devonian trilobites are harder to come by. He spent and hour or so splitting some left over pieces of the Smoke Creek Trilobite bed and picking up brachiopods from the Bay View coral layer. Before he left I gave him a couple of large horn corals that I'd found at Hungry Hollow in Canada since Penn Dixie does not have many large intact examples available. I wrapped my finds up and headed to the hotel. Tuesday I was to meet with Carmine (Xonenine) at Smoke Creek to hunt the type locality for the bed that everyone is after at Penn Dixie. Mother Nature, however, had other ideas as she pushed some heavy downpours and thunderstorms over the area and the creek was too flooded and fast moving to work in. You couldn't even see the rocks in the stream bed because of all the brown silt the flood waters were carrying. Instead we headed back to Penn Dixie to try our hand at exposing the Smoke Creek Bed ourselves in one of the drainage ditches. By the time we got to the site the rain was letting up some but there was stil plenty of water draining off. We actually got lucky as other parts of NY were hammered with the same rains and severe flooding occurred wiping out homes and businesses. Carmine and I set to work at a section we thought would be productive. It was heavily weathered so the shale was very easy to remove and search but no trilobites. We worked until we got down to the Bay View coral bed where I was happy to collect Brachs. Carmine decided to check out another spot that he'd worked before and had better luck while I continued playing in the mud. In the meantime Jerry, the site manager, showed up with a busload of kids from a local school. They stayed over in another area of the site picking up corals and brachiopods and then left after an hour or so. Around lunchtime we walked back up to the cars to find that Carmine's divers side window had fallen off it's track and was lost to the interior of the car door. This was bad for him as he still needed the car for a few more days until he got a replacement. We decided to work another couple of hours before Carmine had to leave so he could take his car door apart to fix the window. Despite the setback, Carmine was as happy as anyone I've ever met to just collect fossils. It was good to spend time in the field with him again and watch him dismantle a rock layer in search of Trilobites. We exchanged some Coral fossils (mine were from Arkona and his were from locally with a few cut and polished sections) and he was on his way. I hope that he was able to get things fixed enough until he picked up his next car. I'm almost done and some of the best is yet to come while collecting with Mikeymigs but I will save that for the next post... Thanks for reading! -Dave