Search the Community

I am looking for Dinosaur material I don't have of good quality. For now I have two items I am looking to trade let me know if you are interested.

Howdy! Last week, @KompsFossilsNMinerals and I were invited by Dan Cooper to go collect the Walcott-Rust Quarry this week, so today we both got up bright and early to make the trek out to the central Mohawk Valley for the day. After fueling up on some pancakes from Denny’s, we made the last leg of the trip to the site, which is far from easy to find or get back to! It wasn’t long before Chris and I had both found a nice crinoid calyx, and the day just kept getting better! I mainly surface collected in the piles of weathering rock around the quarry, while Chris and the rest of the guys worked to get down to and peel up some more chunks of the Ceraurus layer. I had heard that the site was pretty difficult at times, so my hopes of finding anything weren’t too high, but not one of us left home empty handed! Collecting at this site has been a dream of Chris and I’s, so this was such an amazing opportunity for us!!

Just now getting through some camera rolls and specimen photo-taking of a two week trip in May. I covered about 2000 miles across Ontario and Quebec, and this is a sample of what I saw and/or collected. I won't be mentioning any specific sites, so I'll just number them. Site 1: Pleurocystites Pleurocystites close-up A crappy Calyptaulax Possibly a Flexicalymene senaria, disarticulated impression. Leaverite. A busted, incomplete cheirurid. Leaverite. Large Isotelus gigas cheek. (Also leaverite ) Looking very carefully, just about complete and really smashed Isotelus gigas. The chisel tip is an inch wide, so the trilobite is about 5.5 inches. Not worth taking home, either. This I did take home. Not sure if this will be a complete Bumastoides. A big Gabriceraurus. The head is there, but smashed in. A c-grade bug.

For some time, I have been wanting to check out some of the lesser known formations that exist in my local area. The Devonian Mahantango Formation and the Needmore Shale are undoubtedly fun to explore and yield some beautifully preserved specimens - something that can be seen in a number of posts on this forum - but I still had the itch to collect from something a bit more obscure. That opportunity presented itself in the Ordovician limestones that expose intermittently in western northern Virginia. A small body of literature exists describing these formations and analyzing their fauna, particularly the silicified trilobites they are best known for, but they do not seem to be nearly as thoroughly explored as nearby Devonian formations. Armed with my trusty Estwing, an overly chipped chisel, and the hope of uncovering some silicified trilobites, I headed over to one of the better known Ordovician exposures in the Virginia area. This particular exposure is quite large and unique due to the different formations it exposes. The road cut begins beside a small stream (in which limestones can also be found) and is composed of large, white largely unfossiliferous limestone. This limestone represents either the New Market Formation or the Lower Lincolnshire limestone. As one moves rightward along the exposure, the white limestones continue for some time before grading into significantly darker limestones. These, which are part of the Upper Lincolnshire limestone, have been interpreted to represent the Taconic orogeny which took place in the Appalachian region during the latter part of the Ordovician period. The dark Upper Lincolnshire continues for an appreciable distance as one travels right until it eventually transitions to the Edinburg limestone. The Edinburg limestone, which is composed of alternating beds of limestone and shale, also represents a period of rather intense deposition caused by erosion of the mountains that had formed during the Taconic orogeny. The Edinburg limestone at the exposure appears white to dusky grey due to weathering, but, interestingly enough, when it is chipped, the true jet black coloration of the limestone is revealed. The sequence continues past the bounds of the road cut that I explored, with an exposure of the Martinsburg Formation - which is yet younger than the Edinburg formation - exposing not far from the road cut. Here are a few pictures I took of the road cut. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to take more pictures, and I am not exactly sure as to the specific formations each photograph depicts. I briefly explored the Upper and Lower Lincolnshire limestones, but I did not find much with regards to fossil content. Most of my exploration was focused on the layers of the Edinburg limestone, which I had heard were the most productive with regards to silicified trilobites. Unfortunately, I do not believe that I recovered any silicified trilobites from the exposure. However, I did manage to find some silicified brachiopods in varying states of preservation and a number of other interesting fossils that I have not been able to identify. Now, let's delve into some of the finds . Brachiopod 1: Brachiopod 2: Brachiopod 3: Brachiopod 4: Brachiopod 5: Brachiopod 6: This particular brachiopod previously had more of the (silica?) coating, though I believe I inadvertently removed it by treating the specimen with concentrated vinegar. I would not want this to happen to any other specimens, but Brachiopod 3 and some of the others would certainly look very nice if some more of the limestone/mineral coating could be removed. Would there be a way to do this without physical preparation techniques (I do not possess the proper equipment for this and even if I did, I would be afraid of ruining the fragile specimens)? Brachiopod 7: This was one of the best preserved brachiopods that I found, which was quite ironic since it happened to be exposed to the elements right on the surface of the limestone. The photographs are not the best and I can certainly take more if they are needed. Brachiopod 8: Brachiopod 10: There were more brachiopods uncovered... but I think that is enough for one post. Now for some interesting microfossil hashplates that I decided to keep. Hash 1: Under the Microscope: Hash 2: Hash 4 Here I have included some photographs of some specimens that I have not been able to readily identify. Any help in identifying what organisms they are and even what genus/species they could be would be greatly appreciated! Below each one I have included a tentative guess as to what each fossil is. Unknown 1: I believe that this may be a weathered brachiopod viewed from the inside of the shell. Unknown 2: An interesting feature of the limestone or perhaps a preserve fragment of an arthropod/trilobite carapace? Unknown 3: I would guess that this piece would have the same origin as the specimen pictured directly above. Unknown 4: Same as the previous two unknowns? Unknown 5: One of the larger and more interesting specimens that I found at the exposure. I am not at all sure what it is, though I would guess that it might be part of a graptolite or bryozoan. I'd be very curious to hear what others think about this specimen in particular. Unknown 6: Not at all sure what this is. To me it looks like it is a fossil, but it could very well be a mineral stain of some sort. Unknown 7: Upon first cleaning this specimen I thought that it might be a very weathered brachiopod. However, after inspection under the microscope it seems to me that it might simply be a mineral deposit or a geological feature. Unknown 8: An interesting piece of detritus found on the plate containing Unknown 5. Unknown 9: I would imagine that this is either an encrusting bryozoan, a sponge, or a fragment of trilobite cephalon. Unknown 10: Unfortunately I do not have a larger, better picture of this specimen. I will try to take another photograph of this one. I do believe that this might be some sort of fenestrate bryozoan. Although most of the specimens were smaller than those I am used to collecting, I was glad to have some interesting mysteries and to have the Ordovician represented in my collection. All of the micro photographs that I took were taken using a Celestron Microcapture Pro Microscope, which has been working phenomenally to view even some of the smallest fossils. I hope that you enjoy reading this post and I want to extend my gratitude in advance to any who help with identification of the specimens! (Edit: Not sure why these photographs keep appearing at the bottom of the post. Does anyone know how to fix this?)

It's been a couple of weeks but it's taken me this long to take all the photos of my fossil finds from my trip to Oklahoma with the Paleontological Society of Austin! Our yearly trek to find Silurian, Devonian and Ordovician finds (not much of that in Texas!) was a great success again, thanks to our OK friends! Since it's just over a 6 hour drive for me, I went up early on Friday to hit a couple of "non field trip" spots before our "real" field trip on Saturday and Sunday. I had heard about a Permian site that I was excited to check out. It's a weird barren moonscape in the middle of a field. It was a bit warm.....and the sun radiating up from the baked clay was....intense. Fortunately a cold front was on the way so I kept reminding myself that the 90's of this Friday would recede into memory. But yeah...it was hot. There were bone bits everywhere....everywhere! But they were pretty crunched up. I didn't find much more than a few not-well preserved vertebrae, some okay bone bits, a few nice little amphib teeth and a couple of quite nice unbroken orthocanthus teeth. Tiny tiny ones, because all the big ones break easily. While I didn't find a lot of quality stuff initially, I did haul out about 60lbs of matrix so I can look through at my leisure at home! I learned a valuable lesson though...take two smaller buckets rather than one large bucket. It's a LOT easier to haul out two 30 lbs instead of one big haul a quarter mile over rough terrain! A little amphibian tooth: EDIT:...I thought these were Amphib teeth, but apparently....they are Orthocanthus Shark coprolites! hahahhha They are 1/4 inch each What is most amazing about these fossils is the color of the preservation. Astounding reds, yellows and purples. The little Orthocanthus shark teeth that were mostly complete. The Permian "moonscape": I decided to hit one other site before I headed to Ada where we were all meeting. It was the Ordivician site that I found a lovely Oklahomacystis echinoderm last year. The cold front had moved in and the temperature dropped almost 20 degrees and was just LOVELY hunting! I didn't find any more Oklahomacystis and wasn't finding much except a few nice brachiopods, but then I saw a crinoid calyx piece upside down (all I saw was the edges but I recognized it as crinoid) picked it up and got a nice surprise!! Too bad it's not the whole thing and just one segment, but I'll take what I get! It's a beauty...the geometric patterning is amazing. It is a Pleurocystites echinoderm. It's 1 1/4 inch wide. Early on Saturday, the whole group goes to Yellow Bluff which is a huge area above a creek and up a hillside. It's a great site with a plethora of fauna. It is completely possible to spend an ENTIRE day there! But first we had to drive through the pasture and the cows! They were nice cows. Yellow Bluff - It is primarily Silurian with a cap of Devonian at the very top of the hill. It is Henryshouse formation (which I keep wanting to call Harryhousen.... hahahha - that's for any of you old school animation lovers out there) And not only were the fossils abundant, so were the Missouri Primroses! A few nice finds in the field- A Gastropod Platyceras, Crinoid cup - I think this might be Ollulocrinus? A pink Brachiopod! Here's that pink brach again: I found a couple of Trilos, nothing quite good (last year I found the best one!!) but I did find one large one which still has lots of matrix on it, an interesting half a one, split vertically, not horizontally and then some others not very well preserved. This is an odd bit of crinoid : not sure what it is: So aside from the above pics of the in situ pieces, my only other really good find was this brachiopod Dictyonella. It was originally thought to have a bryozoan growing on it, but turns out it is actually the pattern of the brachiopod! There was also this cool bryozoan which I thought was a horn coral when I picked it up, only realizing it was bryzoan as I photographed it! It's 1 1/2 inches in size! But I did bring home a bucket of matrix and am having fun going through it, so will post some of those at a later time. Oh, and there were scorpions out and about enjoying the cool weather too. Hopefully no scorps in my bucket of matrix..... if so, now they are Texas Scorps. So Sunday was Black Cat Mountain Day. If you are not familiar with the trilobites from Black Cat Mountain...you are in for a google treat. Of course, finding the rare trilobites is.....rare. But there are plenty of other amazing things to find at Bob's quarry! The Quarry is Devonian with Haragan and Bois D'Arc Formations. But the trilobites are of course, the favorite. While I love the rollers the best (not sure why, I just do) I actually found better "open" ones this time than rollers! All of these are about an inch long. Paciphacops sp. Kainops sp. and not sure what this one is...probably Kainops and a surprising find of a (sadly not complete, but more complete than the typical) Huntoniatonia huntonensis Usually you just find the pygidiums...they are ALL OVER THE PLACE and they get HUGE. The biggest pygidium I found was 2" x 2"...just the trilobutt! It would have been a monster trilo. But the brachiopods are almost as amazing as the trilos. My favorite is this Howollella (I think) covered in Beekite: This is a big silicified Anastrophia (1 inch) An interesting Meristella with some crystals Orthostrophia and a neat coral which I think is Syringaxon perhaps? And one of my favorites to find - straight shelled cephalopods. This by far the most intact one I found. They are usually only three or four chambers but can get to be almost an inch in diameter. This one is 5 inches long And finally , my other favorite find from Black Cat Mountain.....a beautiful bryozoan ring:

Hello, welcome to my report of this last week fossil hunting in Morocco. I have been this last week in Morocco going to different localities looking for fossils. As I have never done fossil hunting before in morocco, I contacted with Mohand Ihmadi from Ihmadi Trilobites Centre, a local geologist that does fossil hunting tours. I talked to him about all the localities that I would like to visit and we planned a route together. If you ever want to do some fossil hunting in Morocco, I have to recommend getting in touch with Mohand, if you search for him or the center in google, the contact information will appear. I will try to divide this fossil hunting in the main 4 areas that we hunted: KEM KEM BEDS This location is near the dunes, and going there you will have beautiful views. Once you arrive there, you will start seeing the typical Kem Kem colors. First you can try to find microfossils filtering the sand. We also found some workers there, and they let us visit the caves they make to arrive to the layer where they find the fossils. Here is me and my dad in front of the cave entrance. And here more photos inside the cave: In Kem Kem it's very difficult to find the stuff you see online so the normal thing is to find some micro fossils or chunks. This is what we found in and hour or so: Probably if you search harder and during more time, you can find more stuff, but we were more casual about this. And obviously, you can also try to buy the stuff the workers have found. ORDOVICIAN LOCALITY FOR CALYMENE Another locality we visited, was a trilobite locality. A ordovician Locality. Here, with heavy machinery, they extract the first useless layer, and then you can start to manually search for the trilobites. Here, we found several as it's pretty easy. One of them is this next photo: DEVONIAN TRILOBITE LOCATION The other trilobite location was a devonian one. There you can find phacops sp. pretty easily and if you are lucky some other species. Here is the typical limestone where you have to break them, find the trilobite, glued back and prepared it. After this, we went to Mohand workshop and he teached me how to prepare them: We were lucky and found a Paralejurus spatuliformis that he is preparing for me and will send to me. OUED ZEM FORMATION The last stop was the Oued Zem formation. It's the formation where we found most fossils, and it's easy to work with the hammer and find it. It's near the phosphates exploitation ground. And here some of what we found: We visited some more places, but this were the main ones. In conclusion it was an amazing experience and Mohand was the best guide we could have asked for. If you are planning a similar trip to Morocco and have some doubts or questions don't hesitate to ask. And just as an extra. As we all know, all the Moroccan material has a reputation of being restored, composited and altered. And while that is sometimes true, after visiting this places and talking to the diggers there, I bought some pieces from them, without the intermediaries, and they were really honest about what reparations or things they did to the piece. So my conclusion is that a lot of times the international dealers are the ones buying pieces without caring about the state of this ones because a composited/restored piece will be cheaper and they think it will sell at the same price and will make more profit.

Hello all, In my investigation of the fauna of the Devonian Mahantango Formation, I have become quite interested in the trilobite Dipleura dekayi. I have not yet had the opportunity to encounter this bug on the field, but it’s size and strange appearance have draw my interest. From the sources that I have read regarding the Mahantango and Hamilton Group formations in Pennsylvania and New York, I have noticed that trilobites with a very similar appearance have been referred to the separate genera Dipleura and Trimerus. In Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States, Jasper Burns seems to treat Dipleura and Trimerus as synonyms. However, Wikipedia (I am fully aware this is not the most reliable source) has separate pages for Dipleura dekayi and Trimerus dekayi. I have also heard more references to Trimerus when the specimens are found in the New York area and I vaguely remember a posting on the forum where the question of Dipleura vs. Trimerus was addressed but which post that was has escaped me. Here are the main questions that I have regarding this topic: 1.) Are Trimerus dekayi and Dipleura dekayi different valid trilobite species or are they synonyms? If they are synonyms, which would be the most proper to use? 2.) If Trimerus dekayi and Dipleura dekayi are two different valid species, how can they be differentiated? Does this depend on the region where the specimen was recovered? 3.) Are there other species of Trimerus present in the Mahantango Formation/Hamilton Group and how can they be identified and differentiated from Dipleura? Thank you in advance to all who view and comment on this post. I am very eager to learn more about Mahantango fauna and hopefully it will not be long before I find my first Dipleura/Trimerus in the field.

Hello y’all! On Sunday, my close friend@KompsFossilsNMinerals and I met up once again to do some collecting at La Familia quarry in search of some good trilobites, and as always, we didn’t leave empty handed! We hit a few different sections of the strata, and we managed to have some level of success at every spot we worked.

Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: 500 million-year-old Grand Canyon rock layer finally gets a name. UNLV geologists name ancient rock layer after Las Vegas mountain that contains similar strata; research published in the journal Geosphere. New Study Links Geologic Features of Las Vegas’ Frenchman Mountain with Grand Canyon. Las Vegas Valley rock layer matches that of a famous interval of rocks at the Grand Canyon; findings reported in the Journal Geology. University of Nevada at Las Vegas, May 1 , 2020 The open access paper is: Rowland, S.M., Korolev, S., Hagadorn, J.W. and Ghosh, K., 2023. Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: A new formation of the Cambrian Tonto Group, Grand Canyon and Basin and Range, USA. Geosphere. Supplemental Material: Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: A new formation of the Cambrian Tonto Group, Grand Canyon and Basin and Range, USA, Geological Society of America Another paper is: Karlstrom, K.E., Mohr, M.T., Schmitz, M.D., Sundberg, F.A., Rowland, S.M., Blakey, R., Foster, J.R., Crossey, L.J., Dehler, C.M. and Hagadorn, J.W., 2020. Redefining the Tonto Group of Grand Canyon and recalibrating the Cambrian time scale. Geology, 48(5), pp.425-430. Related papers: Rowland, S.M., 2022, Geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens, southern Nevada, USA, in Jiang, G.Q., and Dehler, C., eds., Field Excursions from Las Vegas, Nevada: Guides to the 2022 GSA Cordilleran and Rocky Mountain Joint Section Meeting: Geological Society of America Field Guide 63, p. 23– 43. Rowland, S.M., 1987, Paleozoic stratigraphy of Frenchman Mountain, Clark County, Nevada, in Hill, M.L., ed., Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America: Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide 1, p. 53– 56. Hollingsworth, J.S., Sundberg, F.A. and Foster, J.R., 2011. Cambrian stratigraphy and paleontology of Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin, 67, pp.1-321. PDFs of more trilobite papers. Videos Wild Speaker Series: The Amazing Geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens. Friends Of Nevada Wilderness Frenchman Mountain Loop | Bordering Lake Mead National Nevada Trilobites, Frenchman Mountain Yours, Paul H.

After scouting some Kinzers spots with @Dean Ruocco , we found ourselves in rock with some beautiful Cambrian bugs. Not nearly all…but some highlights in order 1. Olenllous Getzi (Cephalon) 2. Olenllous Sp. (full bug) 3. Wanneria Walcottana (Thorax/pygdium)

hi! i recently acquired some trilobites with the intention of sending them off to be prepared professionally. however i would also like to start prepping myself and thought this might be a good opportunity. i’m a student and don’t have the biggest funds so was looking at the Dremel 290 engraver with the zoic palaeotech fossil prep bits. this with ppe is about £54 which is great for me. these are the specimens i would like to prepare: the main advice i wanted was should i stick to going the professional route on these guys or trying it myself. i’ve heard that very fine detail is hard to get without an air abrasive tool which i cannot get, anyone able to give their advice is welcome!!

Hi people, First of all, I love everything related to fossils and the fact of collecting them. I got these three Trilobite fossils from a reputable seller some time ago and I want to know if they're real or not. They presents cracks on the matrix that extends to the fossil I think. Here are some photos: Fossil 1: Fossil 2: Fossil 3: Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great week!

Greetings to everyone. I am trying to decide for a nicely preserved and prepared morocops. I found these two that seem to have a lot of detail on the cephalon. The first one seems to have nicely preserved eyes and the pores (don't know if it's the correct naming for the small dots) seem much more pointy. On the other hand the second one I just like it, I don't know why but I think I prefer it esthetically more. So I want some personal opinions to decide and choose between those two. Thank you all.

Hi! My friends and I are part of our Universities geology club and we were hoping to plan a spring break day trip to look for some trilobites. We go to Binghamton University in the southern Tier. I've been to the site in Tully NY behind the hotel and gas station and found some great partials (especially of greenops), but this time around we were hoping to find some more complete fossils. We've heard that there are some good places to look in Madison County, and also in Little Falls, but were hoping for advice on the best spots to look that are also public property to collect on. Sites closer to Binghamton would also be great, but I figured I'd ask about the one's we've heard of so far. A few of us have also been out o Buffalo to find fossils at places like Penn Dixie but the Buffalo region is probably too far for this trip. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you! Here's a picture of my favorite trilobite find from Tully

Hello all, Today I found many trilobites from a locality called Gilwern quarry in Wales They are from the Ordovician period. Here are 2 of my best finds. I would love to get an ID on them! The complete one (~2cm) I don’t know what it could be , the second one (just the head) ~1cm is probably Trinucleid? Kind regards Thomas

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to get back to the Silurian site were I found a complete Dalmanites last month. I met up with @Jeffrey P, @Scylla and his son Grant, as well as their friend Chris who is a member of the New York Paleontological Society. I met up with them around 8:30am. They had gotten there about a half hour or so before me and were already finding things. I spent more time exploring the site then I did the last time as the fossil exposure covers a very large area. I would check out various spots, and it took awhile before I found a good spot to get settled in and do some serious digging. I won't bore you with all the trivial details, but there were plenty of fossils found by all. Brachiopods, bivalves, small horn corals, trilobites, ang even a sponge. I was very surprised by the sponge, which according to Jeff and Gus are rare finds. I actually thought that it was a small concretion and was ready to toss it, but then something caught my eye. There was a small piece broken of the sponge that showed the internal structure. Once I saw that I knew it had to be something and Gus confirmed that it was a sponge. Then a noticed a pattern under the thin film of dirt on the surface. So I was happy. It was only about 36° out but after awhile of digging I ended up removing my jacket as I was getting too warm.( I always dress with many layers in the colder months.) So I set my jacket next to my bucket of tools and moved away a bit. Sometimes later I was talking to Gus when the wind picked up and blew my jacket into the Canal. It was too far out to retrieve it went to the other side. Thank goodness I didn't have anything important in the pockets like my keys or phone. Then a while later Chris had the wind blow his bucket in the water twice. Anyhow, it was really great meeting up with everyone and I had a good time. I will post some pics of my finds and I hope Jeff and Gus will share their finds when they get the time. Sorry not all of the fossils have been cleaned up yet. Pic#1 Sponge 2 Sponge 3 Trimerus pygidium The rest are all Dalmanites partials.

It's been a long time, since I have posted anything. I'll try to contribute, now. Best pictures I can get with a cheap phone, and not being able to be very still, myself. I took many duplicate photos. Sorry. I acquired these 6 fossils today. The Theropod tooth has visible serrations, when viewed with a common magnifying glass.

What an adventure! I was on a trip to southern California with my partner. He does not like fossil hunting – yes I know what you are thinking but he is a very nice guy. You can’t have every thing! I wanted to go to the Marble Mountain Trilobite site in the Mohave desert. I did my research and knew exactly where I wanted to go. As I would be by myself I decided to be very clear about where I was going and how long I expected to be there. Off I went on a bright warm sunny day armed with gallons of water, a sunhat, fossil hunting backpack, many snacks, and a brand new Lexus. Yes I know you are thinking dumb dumb dumb! But as it turns out the lexus was an excellent choice, it had lots of power and reasonable clearance. I did high center it on some shrubs (sorry shrubs) and almost lost it in a sand bank. Power does win the day and I managed to get it about 3 miles away from the classic north end site by Chambliss. What I did not account for was that the recent atmospheric rivers had washed out a lot of the tracks and roads. I had a really big walk up to the base of the mountain. From there I struggled through boulders fields and scree slopes to get up to the famous red and green Latham shales. Oh boy what incredible rocks! Fortunately I am fond of lapidary too so I collected some glorious specimens. My aim was to find the blue green algal nodules formed by precipitation of the cyanobacteria. They look like elongated ovals and are found everywhere. I was gob smacked by these fossils. They are 518 million years old. The trilobites are mostly Olenellids and are rare. I struggled to find any of these and found mostly cool trace fossils. As I was completely exhausted getting to the top of this mountain and now had to get down it with a lot of rocks AND walk 3 miles across the desert to get back to the Lexus I made a decision – I would come back another day and find some of those trilobites. By the time I got back to the car my knees were shaking and I had drunk 5 litres of water and eaten everything I brought plus 3 candy bars. It was an amazing trip and the area is totally deserted. I never saw one person or vehicle while I was there. There is another trilobite site that is down towards the ghost town of Cadiz. This is the official BLM site and you are allowed to take small quantities of fossils. Unfortunately the road was completely washed out and unlikely to be repaired soon. Oh well that's for another day

Hello, Could someone explain the specific distinctions between the Pennsylvanian-aged proetid trilobites Ameura vs. Ditomopyge vs. Paladin? They all seem quite similar-looking trilobites so I often have a hard time distinguishing them. Thankfully @piranha has already outlined Paladin vs. Ditomopyge in a PM, but I would like to know a comparison with Ameura as well. Thank you.

Today I enjoyed a wonderful fossilhunt, searching the Silurian age Rochester shale. Our trip was led by an actual Paleontologist who works at a local museum. The main focus of today's hunt were the trilobites Trimerus delphinocephalus,and Dalmanites limulurus. Other known fossils from the site included Leplaena rhomboidalis brachiopods, tiny rugose corals, and rare graptolites. We were informed that while there were plenty of trilo bits and pieces to be found, finding whole ones were a rare occurrence. When we got to the sight some club members started finding things immediately. Cephalons, pygidiums, and thorax segments were abundant. Most of what I found was very small. Until it happened. I split a slab open and found this beautiful Dalmanites!