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Back in July of 2009, I was crawling around an Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Formation (late Turonian) site that was exposed by recent excavations. There were many amazingly preserved marcasite / pyrite encrusted ammonites and other fauna to be found. However, one of 'gems' of that site was a beautiful, tiny regular echinoid. I was fascinated with it and I made additional discoveries that I wrote about in an article on The Fossil Forum. (early images) In trying to establish an identification, I checked with several experienced Texas collectors and none of them recognized it. When that happens, you really start to get your hopes up you may have found something new to paleontology. Then, I saw a similar echinoid on London's Natural History Museum website, The Echinoid Directory. Ahhh! Finally, I figured out that the genus must be a Bathysalenia ...but, there was no species listed for North America and my find had some distinct differences. This ID was tentatively confirmed by a few other echinoid experts and a new search began. (holotype - early images and actual size @ 1440 x 900 screen resolution) It still took almost another year of personal research and networking to find someone able to take on the project of the little urchin. Again, I must mention that Alex Osso (thank you, my friend) was very patient, offered good advice and was helpful in facilitating paleo connections. Ultimately, he introduced me to paleontologist, John W. M. Jagt. This surprised and thrilled me because I was familiar with some of his work on mosasaurs (another of my favorite fossils.) His interest was due to his prior research on Turonian aged fauna of Europe. Over the next four years, the article had many "starts" and "stops", since it was a personal project. However, we stayed in touch and the work continued when possible. During this process, I decided to name this fossil after one of my older nephews. He accompanied my late Dad and me on many outdoor adventures when he was younger. So, I'm really excited to introduce a new species of echinoid from the Eagle Ford Formation of Texas: Bathysalenia skylari n. sp. This is the first record of the genus in North America and the first regular echinoid in the Eagle Ford Formation. The holotype and one paratype have been contributed to the University of Texas Non-vertebrate Paleontology Lab. Another paratype has been donated to the Maastricht Natural History Museum (where John Jagt is the Curator of Paleontology.) (specimen #7 and #13) Bathysalenia skylari, a new late Turonian (Late Cretaceous) saleniid echinoid from central Texas, USA Abstract: "A new species of saleniid is recorded from the so-called ‘Eagle Ford Condensed Zone’ with typical elements of the late Turonian Prionocyclus hyatti cephalopod Zone, which rests unconformably on the South Bosque Marl (Collignoniceras woollgari cephalopod Zone) in the Georgetown area, Williamson County (central Texas). It is easily distinguished from both extinct (late Albian - early Paleocene) and extant congeners by a comparatively low test, wide ambulacral zones with large (near-)horizontal pore pairs, a large peristome with conspicuous gill slits and a highly ornamented apical disc with a relatively small suranal plate. The new species constitutes the first record of the genus Bathysalenia from North America."

Hi everybody, i found those pieces in A Kimmeridgian layer for the Cidaris and a Cenomanian layer for the other pieces and I'd like your opinion upon them. Kimmeridgian Cidaris : that's the fourth time I go in that place, I always found radioles but this time i come back with a piece of test. In the Cenomanian I found that urchin, I think this is a Leymariaster : This one is also an urchin according to me I think this is also the case for that piece but I'm not sure. @Coco, I did found urchins in Port des Barques, you mustn't despair, never. @caterpillar, what do you both think?

This block was on a pallet of what was called corkstone that i bought to use in a pond nearly 20 year's ago, I used the rest to border my koi pond but this one was too cool to pu into the water. i had it indoors for many year's but it got moved outdoors and developed a lot of moss, ,while it still looked cool i recently hit it with a pressure washer revealing more than had shown prior and since have become more curious about the center dis and cluster of spines. this morning I used a little sandblasting to erode the backside and this is what i have. I have no way to know were it came from,and suggestions? is it already too cool to mess with furthermore or do you think there's more to be seen?

Hi everybody, i'd like to lighted by your opinions on those Bartonian fossils from Blaye on the estuary of the Gironde. Firstly, those urchins. Blaye is a place where exist endemic urchins. I made a little research on myself and found some names. Echinolampas burdigalensis ? (maybe sismondia for the upper one ?) 1) 2) 3) Echinolampas stellifera ? Those gastropods : Olividea ? Olivancillaria ? Terebellum ? Bivalves : 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Tellinidae ? Arcopagia for the one in the middle ? 6)

Hi, i had this little urchin from @Kane, he doesn't remember where he had it. It is 1.8 width and 2.2 hight.

I found several interesting things while walking the beach last month just south of Visby, Gotland Island, Sweden. I wasn't even seriously looking, but these caught my eye. Three I can identify, but one has me scratching my head. It's been suggested it's a fossilized sea urchin, a bead from the Viking age, and perhaps a whorl used in spinning thread. All old, but I'd really like to know what exactly this little gem could be. It's about the size of a Cheerio, rock solid and smooth with a hole started on both sides.

So i found this in san sebastian puerto rico and tried looking for info on it. All i found was that they were from madagascar. What's it doing all the way here in Puerto rico? How old is it? What period is it from?

Hi guys, How are you? Just to let you know that I donated few fossils to 熊本市博物館　(Museum of Kumamoto city). The fossils I donated are a big nodule filled with danian ship worms from Amakusa Shimojima, a silurian piece of "coral" not yet identified from Yamatocho and my best (I won the FOTM contest with this beauty but its place belong to a museum as would say of famous archeologist ) Santonian sea urchin found in Amakusa. The Urchin should be part of the permanent exhibition as soon as they make some place for it. I will post pictures of the fossils I donated later after work. David

I am new to the fossil finding world. Please help me ID my find. A Facebook group says it Looks like it could be Temnocidaris (Stereocidaris) hudspethensis or ? Found among white rocks in a developing subdivision in Granbury, TX.

Hi, several months ago i found a very tiny and rather flat urchin in a block which had two spines. I managed to disengage the urchin, but it is really too tiny for my camera. The spines are bigger and i wondered to what family of urchin they belong (maybe a cidarid ?) I also join the photos of the urchin that was with them (although i don't know if that would help). @Coco @caterpillar ? The smallest spine : The bigger :

I decided on a whim to go fossil hunting yesterday. I took off on the 2 hr drive to get to my favorite area the North Sulphur River Texas. I jumped off in three creeks to see footprints everywhere. I decided to go try a creek I spotted a few years ago but never tried. It paid off. I found my first NSR echinoid after 4yrs of heavy hunting. Echinoids are quite rare at NSR. I also found a really cool Pachydiscus ammonite with an Inoceramid on it. I think I"ll try that creek again in the future.

Hello again, here is my most beautiful sand dollar fossil. We picked it up yesterday on a beach close to Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, UAE. I have found dozens of these, but rarely find one so flat. I would love to know the species name if possible.

This is part 2, site 2 of my Memorial day fossil hunting trip. You can see the site one report here: I chose to drive out to Denton Creek north of Ft. Worth. I had been there before, but had not gotten to explore the area. It was the takeout point from a kayaking trip I’d taken down the creek a few weeks before. It took me 30 minutes out to drive out there from the first location I hunted in Benbrook. If you pass the creek going north you can go up to the next exit and then loop back to the creek. There is a little rock and dirt path off the shoulder of the road that leads down to under the bridge where you can drive your vehicle. The hill down to under the bridge is kind of steep. My car was a bit on the low side for getting over the curb and then a steep embankment with rocks. I bottomed out once. I thought I might park my car in the shade under the bridge, but when I arrived there was another vehicle in the area. I thought I was the only person crazy enough to be out here in the heat. Nobody could pass if I parked under the bridge so I pulled through into a small clearing there. The grass and weeds were grown up pretty high in the clearing. I knew of a sizeable exposure on the creek that I wanted to try to get to on foot, but I didn’t know the terrain around the creek. I switched to my rubber boots for walking in the creek. I reapplied sunscreen and headed down the steep hill to the edge of the creek. I had to sit down and scoot myself over the edge and drop down to the rock ledge that ran along the creek. I inspected the exposure. Last time I was here I found a pretty decent Macraster obesus right by the spot I came in by. I didn’t see a single fossil. The creek was maybe 40 feet wide give or take. The water was less than 10 inches deep where I entered the creek. I don’t think the creek is ever a high energy creek. The rocks that are in this part of the creek are angular and jagged. The water in the creek is rather murky so you can’t see into the water. All of that makes it a difficult creek to walk in. Most of the creek in that spot is one level at bedrock with rocks scattered across much of the creek bottom. There is a narrow jagged rift in the bedrock that meanders along the creek bed. The water is deeper in the rift. I walked down into the creek and squatted down looking at some ammonite fragments in the creek. I saw two butterflies nearby. I tried to get a better picture from the side, but they flew away before I could do so. Sorry it is not a very clear picture. You can see the creek bed is kind of slimy looking. In some areas where the water was very low it looked foul and fetid. It had a green bubbly looking surface. I assessed the creek and decided to walked along the exposed rock ledge above the creek. As I walked up the creek there was a horrible stench of something dead. The further I went the worse it got. Finally I came upon a gar fish carcass on the rock ledge above the creek. It was close to one of the places where I had wanted to have a look around, but the odor was too strong and repulsive. It looked to be just over 3 feet long. I can’t imagine how it got there. It had to be a person who had drug it there. This section of the creek does not seem deep enough for such a large fish to swim in. Maybe it swam in the rift though. There were deeper sections of the creek where it could live, but not here. There were signs of racoons all over along with remnants of their meals. Evidently gar is not on the racoon menu, which was surprising to me since it seems raccoons will eat almost anything else. I looked at the thin, razor sharp gar teeth. It is kind of scary to think that type of critter was in this creek when I kayaked it. I was in and out of the water all the time. A bite from that thing would be nasty. Here is a pic of it. I walked back down the creek upon the rock ledge to a place where there weren’t too many jagged rocks in the creek and where the rift in the creek would be narrow enough for me to step across it. Since the water was flowing slowly the rocks were covered with algae and were very slippery. I got to the rift. There were rocks pilled up there. I place one foot on a large one sitting at an angle and it tottered underneath me. I made sure my foot wouldn’t slip and I balanced myself as I put my next foot on another rock. It tottered too. To slip and fall in this creek with all the jagged rocks would really hurt and might do considerable injury. At least when I slipped and fell in the NSR the riverbed was smooth, without any rocks. I took a few more steps on similar rocks and I was I on smooth riverbed again near the other bank. I began to inspect the exposure. I found these just sitting on the bank. A cute little impression of an ammonite and what appeared to be a fragment of a Pinna clam. I have yet to find a whole Pinna clam. I’d kind of like to find at least one whole one someday. The only other formation I have found them is in the Goodland. It is another of the Washita Group formations.

I found this little jewel a while back, but never found out what species it is. Can anyone tell me what genus species it is? This is a close up of an ambulacral and pore area. I don’t think I can get much better on the close up picture quality. I do have a number of pics from other angles if needed. Thanks in advance for your input.

This was also found near Herznach in Switzerland and according to my lexicon, it could be a Jurassic Holectypus, am I correct? Greetings!

Hi everybody, i recently made an exchange and so i received those ferns, all i know is that they come from Colorado, i have no other clue about them. I also received an unknown urchin and have no clue about it. Could you help me know a bit more about them ? The longest diagonal of that piece is a little less than 15 cm, the base is about 13 cm and it is about 11 cm hight. @Plantguy @paleoflor ?

found this little thing it looked interesting it looks like it was once prickly? it also looks like it had a stem? is this a seed or perhaps a sponge?

I found this in a load of gravel that came in for the drive it looked very different from the other stones and stuck out. At first I thought it was a squashed fossilized urchin but after looking at it more closely I just dont know...I have included as many photos as I could get of the outer part ... then I have some of the open side....my question is is this an urchin of some type or could it be an egg???. Mon Sep 17 00-46-22....is the bottom of the item in question.

Hi, in my exchange of that Week-end, i found that middle Jurassic urchin from the department of Orne, Normandy, France.

During april i and a friend had the oportunity to spend a few days hunting in cretaceous of Normandy, hunting for echinoids. Day one : We drove from brittany through Le Havre to Saint Jouin de Bruneval and Antifer Cape. (3 hours and a half) We let the car on the beach parking lot and hiked south on the peeble shore looking for fossils in the boulders on the beach. The cliff is cenomanian with a bit of albian at the bottom. You have to look carefully on rocks surface for the familliar spherical shape. I found about 20 urchins but thats about it. No shark tooth, just a poorly preserved ammonite (mantelliceras) and a few rhynchonellas At some point we noticed tide was coming back faster than expected, most likely because of the wind pushing the water back. We had to quicken the pace, and made our way through the slippery covered with algae rocks. We finally managed our way back to the car and took the road to Fécamp where we had booked an hotel for the next 2 nights. some finds of the day : Crassiholaster subglobosus : Crassiholaster subglobosus : Cyclothyris difformis : See the all hunt gallery here http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/gallery/album/2849-haute-normandie-april-2018/ or on my flickr : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmiwWft6