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L.S., It has been almost four years since I found an unidentified arachnid fossil in the Westphalian D (Late Carboniferous) of the Piesberg quarry near Osnabrück, Germany. The little critter received a warm welcome here on TFF, being awarded the July 2019 IPFOTM and later even given the honour of 2019 IPFOTY. At the time, I was happy to announce that the specimen had gone to dr. Jason Dunlop of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin (an expert on fossil arachnids) for further study. Today, I'm thrilled to give another update! Yesterday, the detailed study by dr. Dunlop culminated in a really nice open-access publication in PalZ, which can be downloaded HERE. The Piesberg-fossil turns out to be a new species and the first "true spider" from the Palaeozoic of Germany (so a spider from the order Araneae as opposed to early spider-lookalike arachnid groups such as the trigonotarbids or phalangiotarbids). The fossil (now a holotype) has been donated to the Museum für Naturkunde, where it is conserved under repository number MB.A. 4298. This has been a great experience, as I learned a great deal about arachnids and spiders and spinnerets along the way. Hope you'll enjoy reading dr. Dunlop's paper as much as I did! Kind regards, Tim Reconstruction of Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki Dunlop 2023 Reference: Dunlop, J.A. (2023) The first Palaeozoic spider (Arachnida: Araneae) from Germany, PalZ, published online 16 July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-023-00657-7

L.S., Since animal fossils are definitely not my strongsuit, I would like to call upon the incredible collective knowledge here at TFF and ask your help with the identification of the fish remains shown below. This specimen comes from the Westphalian D (Pennsylvanian, Carboniferous) of the Piesberg quarry near Wallenhorst, Germany. The shape of the scales reminds me of images of rhizodont (?) fish scales, but this could very well be a superficial resemblance only... Penny for your thoughts? Kind regards, Tim

If you have ever collected fish from the classic vertebrate locality near Linton, Ohio or have obtained fish specimens from there, I would like to share some of what I have learned about the type of fish called paleoniscoids (also spelled palaeoniscoids) that occur there. Paleoniscoid fish have thick, rhomboidal scales made of dentine-type bone with a surface of hard enamel-like material called ganoin and on the external surface of the ganoin there are pits and fine canals. They resemble (body-wise) what most people think of commonly as a “fish-shape” except they have “armor-like” scales. They are set apart from the chondrichthyans (sharks), the dipnoans (lungfish) and the coelacanths, which also occur in the Linton cannel. The Linton paleoniscoids can be divided into two family groups, the elonichthyids (1 species) and the haplolepids (6 species). I’ve attached a pdf file called “1. Identifying Linton Paleoniscoid Fish” which describes the fishes for species identification. I tried to keep the terminology minimal, but to describe the differences some was necessary. To aid in identifying haplolepid species, I have put together an illustration called “Linton Haplolepids”. The accompanying jpegs show the illustration and most of the different paleoniscoid types. Because I no longer have any specimens (see pdf file: “2. My Linton Collection and Recollections”), I cannot provide photos of two of the species. I hope this information will be useful and bring about more interest in learning about and collecting in coal measure deposits wherever they occur. 1a Identifying Linton Paleoniscoid Fish.pdf 2 My Linton Collection and Recollections.pdf