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Greetings from Central North Carolina! My name is Tony, and I've been a little bit of a fossil fan all my life, but really got deep into it over the last year. I live right in the heart of NC, not so very far from the Deep River Triassic basins. I've lurked here for a little while, but I've finally gotten around to making a post here to introduce myself. My grandfather was interested in geology and paleontology as a small hobby, which in turn got me into it. I picked up a few common fossils from gift shops and the like (my fist fossil was a Cucullaea gigantea from an elementary school activity), but I never actually found anything myself aside from the occasional fragmented echinoid or Exogyra costata at Holden Beach. I was always looking for an intact echinoid, not knowing much about them at that time (although my brother found an intact one after a major storm 11 years ago, which went forgotten until recently). That all changed last April when we went for our annual Holden Beach trip, and I discovered that they had dredged up a treasure trove of fossils. The rest is history after that; I've gone back numerous times over the last year to collect what I can. Although the numerous Hardouinia mortonis were really cool, my obsession for echinoids didn't truly manifest until I started searching around online for other kinds. A couple of acquisitions from online sources later, and I got the bug for them. For a class of animals to remain relatively unchanged for so many millions of years, it's truly fascinating to me! They're definitely the main focus of my collecting, and I've obtained quite a few specimens from both North Carolina, and all over the world. However, I love fossils as a whole, and collect just about anything I can find. I've recently gained a greater appreciation for belemnites, and have gone to Green's Mill Run several times to collect some Belemnitella americana. I've joined up with the North Carolina Fossil Club since January, and have been having a blast with it so far. Since then my knowledge of North Carolina fossils, and fossils as a whole, has steadily increased. As I type this, I'm currently taking a break from trying to identify some Castle Hayne echinoids I obtained from a long time collector, although I admit I might need some outside help fairly soon. (The Eurhodia are particularly tricky!) I'm a little sad that most of the wonderful quarries in the costal region of North Carolina are closed to collecting, but I hope one day that we will be able to visit them once more. I'll eventually make a separate post to show off some of my favorite finds from over the last year, but I do want to go ahead and share a "group photo" of some of my favorite Hardouinia mortonis I've picked up from Holden Beach within the last year. All in all I can't deny that they're my favorite echinoid, although the Californian Dendraster gibbsii are probably a close second. I'm looking forward to checking out more of the forums and interacting with you all. Nice to meet everyone!

I’ve found two of these in a gravel area in my front apartment area I remember buying the bags at a popular hardware store, I was told they are Echinoids, at first I thought they must have been something I collected and threw there but these are not common in my part of California. As far as I know. Any idea what species these are and where they might have originated? I’m tempted to buy another bag.