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Last year, to celebrate finishing my undergraduate degree, my girlfriend and I went on a long (9,000+ mile) road trip around the western US and at long last (a little over a year since their discovery) the last of the fossils we found are out of the refrigerator and I’ve finally gotten all of them photographed. Here are some of the highlights and best fossils we found. A rough map of the route of the trip While the trip wasn’t entirely fossil centric we wanted to hunt at a few cool spots along the way. We chose to visit 5 fossil locations, the first of which was Clarkia Fossil Bowl in Idaho, a fantastic location for Miocene age leaves (Langhian Stage, ~15Mya) tucked behind a motocross track. These poor fossils have been through it all in the year between when they were found and when I finally got them dry. They’ve been soaked several times, gone mouldy twice, frozen at least once and flown across the Atlantic Ocean, all before spending the last 8 months in the refrigerator. Amazingly all but two of them survived perfectly including one of my favourite finds, a tiny flower. A maple leaf (genus Acer) still partly covered in matrix but with the stem intact. At some point I hope to get this one prepared. The best leaf find of the trip, with beautiful red coloration and mottling from fungus. A partial leaf, with beautiful vein preservation. The next spot was the American Fossil quarry in Kemmerer Wyoming to look for Eocene fish (Green River Formation, Ypresian Stage, ~53-48Mya). Splitting though the material left out by the quarry we found a few fish, primarily Knightia and Diplomystus. The best Knightia, including the best fish of the day with its head still partly covered. Some of the Diplomystus. The first needs some repair as it broke through the tail. The second has a counterpart as well and I’m hoping to frame it soon. And a mystery fish, I don’t know what species this is, it could just be Knightia or Diplomystus but it doesn’t look like the others we found. The star find came close to the end of the time at the quarry, a section of a puddle layer packed full of Knightia, at least a dozen fish piled on top of each other. The quarry manager was kind enough to let me take the blocks without splitting them thinner since the material is full of fractures and likely would not have survived. The layer as it split in the quarry (US size 13 hiking boot acting as a rough scale). The three pieces I managed to recover. The blocks are currently in a storage unit in Washington until I can figure out how to get them prepared. I am hoping the first two pieces can be reunited and the part and counterpart can be mounted side by side but I’m unsure about how to accomplish this. If anyone who prepares Green River fish has any ideas please let me know. The third locality we visited was Westgard pass in Inyo California, hunting for Cambrian archaeocyathids (Poleta Formation, Cambrian Stage 3, ~ 520Mya). We were only there a short time as there was a lot of driving to do that day, but I still managed to find one example in cross section. My girlfriend was more lucky, finding four examples. These are our favourites, particularly the third, which exhibits some dimensionality in addition to the cross-section. I’m absolutely thrilled to find anything Cambrian, and to make things even better the fossil locality is just down the road from the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to living trees more than 4,000 years old and one of my favourite spots on the whole trip. We also visited Capitola Beach to search for rolled cetacean bone. I found two examples with one clearly showing the cancellous internal bone texture. To cap off the trip I wanted to do a fossil hunt in my home state of Washington. Since I still don’t know where to go to look for the elusive Pulalius crab, we decided to search the West Twin River site for shrimp concretions (Pysht Fomration, Oligocene, ~22-33Mya). We found over a dozen of these containing partial shrimp. I think they are all Callianopsis clallamensis since this is a common species at this locality. The first concretion that I found after identifying the right material. Another shrimp nodule containing a large section of claw. The head of a shrimp. Two non-crustaceans, a gastropod internal mould and a beautiful white bivalve in a small concretion. A mystery concretion with something eroding out from both ends. And last, one of the strangest concretions I have ever seen. The outside is hardened but the inside is a soft clay consistency with several bits of shrimp shell, completely the opposite of the hard in the middle concretions I’m used to. In all, it was a fantastic trip. I would love to go back to all the sites we visited, and there is so much more to explore next time I’m stateside. I’m looking forward to getting out hunting again. Stay tuned for the next big trip to celebrate finishing our masters. Benton

Hi, I found this yesterday in the Bois Blanc Formation, and am wondering if it could be a shrimp tail. It looks very similar! Thank you!

I searched a new stream outside of the normal haunts and found some oddly packed matrix orange brown and granular in coloring, where I found some gastropods I posted last week. This time, I found scattered orange flat pieces that looked like crab arms and when I broke one chunk of matrix open, the flat piece was accompanied by this bottom portion of claw. Anyone have any idea what species this may be? Ghost shrimp? It wasn't in the usual NJ Cretaceous streams so I am not sure what formation it might have been in. @The Jersey Devil (Sorry for some images did the best I could with focus on such small stuff)

Found this in south Sweden. Looks to me like a shrimp of some sort. Anyone recognize what kind? Thanks for the look!!

I'm wondering if anyone can identify some mazon creek fossils the first 3 I think are shrimp or molts The 4th I was told was a "dragonfly body" I'm not sure what to think about that and am wondering if there is anything identifiable as an insect Finally it's not an arthropod, but just a curious color difference I'd like help with

Hey all! Just bought this piece at a rock shop here in Chicago. It was sold to me as a shrimp, the shop owner was pretty confident in this, but I'm pretty sure it's a fern instead. Not disappointed since I just appreciate the composition here, it's a super pretty one, kind of off-beat. Can anybody help ID the exact fauna? Thanks so much!

Corolla NC beach. I danced and jumped for joy, no regrets. Shrimp? Age? Anything you can figure out? I am blown away, as we get crab pieces, coral and sea Robin skull plates .. but nothing like this in 30 years.

@GeschWhat @Carl It has been cold, but the shrimp (callianassid) coprolite burrows I find have been relatively plentiful (more than decent sized shark teeth) with recent strong north winds and low tides. One puzzle to me is the variation in diameter of the burrows. Carl, our expert, believes the coprolites just sank and deposited in burrows (at another site I have found a few steinkerns with similar, sparser deposits. ) All of the burrows I have found on the Rapp beach have been cylindrical, or possibly pieces of cylinders (of course, this could be bias in my collecting, but I examine lots of stuff!) Usually the coprolite deposits are thicker on one side (the bottom?) of the burrow. If the burrows are truly made by the callianassids (Carl says no, others may argue) I expect the coprolites in the big burrows to be bigger than those in the smaller burrows. I have collected enough to get a tentative answer, but need to align by brightness for comparison photos (some burrows and coprolites are very light, some are dark). Here is what I have collected so far:

https://scitechdaily.com/paleontologists-discover-odd-shrimp-that-fills-hole-in-fossil-record/amp/ Enjoy!

Having trouble making an ID on this one, unmarked in an old collection. I'm hoping that someone will recognize it instantly! My guess: Acanthotelson.

I’m not sure what I’m looking at is it a fossil? Is it a Deteriorated fossil. If it is a fossil, how should I proceed? Posting other pics in comments.

Once a year i head for the East Yorkshire coast to Reighton beach which is North west of the Flamborough heritage coast UK, as you walk south on this beach it becomes Speeton Sands (beach) this is where you can find the Lower Cretaceous shrimp Meyeria ornata. This is the one i found this year it is a bit one sided so this is a photo of it's best side. Meyeria ornata Cheers John

A few weeks ago, I posted asking for advice on splitting fish for Green River. Your advice helped me out A TON, so thank you for that . I ended up leaving with a shrimp, crawdad, 3 Pharo's, 8 Amphiplagas, both species of Hypsiprisca, and many more. But by sheer luck, we ended up finding a bird, which means, we're going back to Wyoming for a CT scan.(And for more splitting) According to Arvid, the bird appears to be a new species, slightly dis-articulated, but it still has it's skull. I'll post pictures of our finds when I get a chance, but I wanted to thank everyone that gave me advice.

I found a shrimp at the American Quarry of the Greenriver Formation, and was wondering if someone knew of somebody that has done this kind of work before so I can get it prepped. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone - I need some help identifying a few of the Mazon Creek fossils my father and I found over the last two years. I will first apologize for the blurriness of the images, I must have had something on my lens. But, I can take more if necessary (just not today!). Here's the link to the images: https://imgur.com/a/yRaND6K I have three plants, something that's just parallel lines, and something that looks like a shrimp. Any help would be appreciated!

Was out near Canyon Lake today and found these oddities. I think my expectations are overreaching my reality, but I sure would like these to be something other than just something boring, like worm burrows.....sorry worm burrows, no disrespect. Any help is appreciated! Crab Claws? Shrimp? Brittle Star Arms? Seriously...I know these are probably worm burrows, but hey, a girl can hope..... t

I was given this around Christmas. It had a gray "dusty" coating. Upon cleaning/prepping it now looks like this. Here's what makes me question it's authenticity...notice the gray matter down the middle and at the tip. Your thoughts?

Hello to all fellow fossil lovers. Ok I found this at the Lincoln formation in porter wa. At first I tried to relieve it from its cast by striking it with a hammer. Then I soaked it In Vinager and chipped away at it. I decided that I would ruin it if I continued. I froze it and thawed about 4 times. The end fell off as you can see. Is this a lobster or shrimp? How do I finish exposing it?

Check out these neat little shrimp I just prepped out. Little more clean up and they will be done. Shout out to RBJ for supplying the fossils.

You already read the title so lets start: (all of these were bought) Brittlestar? No idea what species this could be. Fossil shrimp, possibly carponanus? Fossil fish found behind shrimp fossil. possibly Knightia? Fossil leaf. again no idea what this type of leaf.

Hi all, Can someone tell me whether I'm looking at a shrimp that was in the process of molting? Thanks! ~Paul