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What came first: birds or bird like tracks? @Auspex Birdlike tracks predate birds by 50 million years. https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-bird-like-footprints-in-africa-predate-the-existence-of-birds https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293021 Abrahams M, Bordy EM (2023) The oldest fossil bird-like footprints from the upper Triassic of southern Africa. PLoS ONE 18(11): e0293021. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0293021

My youngest needed to make some measurments at my other property so I decided to go with him. I needed to find a certain fossil in my fossil shed. Didn't find it. I did find some other rather interesting stuff though. I call this stuff 'chicken scratch'. This is actually a nice one. Some get so messy its hard to tell what is what. This is actually a common gastropod but a very rare gastropod at the same time. We locals called them 'moonines'. Here you can see that it was murdered by another gastropod!!! Here you can see how the operculum is still in place. This is what makes this snail rare. I used to find hundreds of these but only this one I found with the trap door. I was looking for my german box of fossils but could only find this. Now im wondering where my german box is? A close up of brittle star slab Another close up but a different area. Ive also found another complete one that is not uncovered yet.

I would like some help identifying some trace fossils. These are all from the same site from the "Soldier Summit Fossil Track Horizon" area in the Eocene Green River Formation. My grandson and I collected these for his science fair project, so any insight is welcome. Fossil A is obviously a tail feather. It's length is 55mm. Fossil B has shore-bird tracks, but please notice the insect track in the right side. What kind of insect could have made this? Fossil C and D are different sides of the same rock. For side C, I initially thought that this might be bird tracks, but I they don't look anything like the classic pattern in the sample B. Fossil D is covered with fine lines, perhaps some worm tracks? Close-ups E and F zoom in on these tracks. Close-up E shows a mottled pattern on the left, perhaps an alge mat? On the left, a wavy track. I don't know how a worm could create this pattern. Close-up F shows fine lines.