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Location: Warrensburg, Missouri Period: Pennsylvanian Formation: Unknown Hello! I happened to have had an opportunity to visit land owned by one of my friends and decided to split some of the black shales. I happened to come across something that seems familiar but I just can't seem to place a name on it as of yet. So far I have found 2 specimens, and I'm not sure if one is just infilling of the original mold or something other. Unfortunately they were in already weathered sections of shale and I could not retrieve the other halves of the shales. In case it helps with identifications, I have found listracanthus denticles, conodont elements, very faint orbiculoidia? shells/fragments, and some nodules that were not compacted enough for me to take thin sections of. Specimen #1: What appears to be a mold of the specimen. Very faint shell fragments are visible to the right and upper portion form the specimen Specimen #2: And lastly for anyone who is interested, here are images of the conodonts! Another conodont tooth fragment seen on the left side: I didn't do any size measurements on the conodonts or use the CAI to determine anything as I'm not experienced in the later but would love any input! Thanks for taking time out of your day to read all this!

Any idea what this tiny fragment could be? Found in a sample containing conodonts and other microfossils.

I recently collected from the Drakes formation on the west side of the Jessamine dome. I've been dissolving rocks, rinsing and then baking for about ten minutes in an old toaster oven. This is my outdoor laboratory. Here are some fossils. Thanks for looking.

Now you guys can criticize me all you want with this theory, it’s just something I have thought of for a while. My theory is that hagfish (weird jawless fish with a primitive skull and no backbone) are in fact late surviving conodonts ( proto vertebrates from the Cambrian to late Triassic). First their Anatomy is very similar, a long eel like body, jawless appendages, and weird proto skulls. Another thing that’s supports my theory is that conodonts could have swam to deep water to escape environmental extinctions. So living in pitch dark water they lost their eyes but developed better olfactory senses to detect dead body’s and scavenge on them. It also explains why the conodonts in the deep sea are still alive because generally deep sea organisms are better at surviving mass extinctions. Another point is that hagfish are known from the Carboniferous, which is when conodonts were around, which could suggest that hagfish are just a family of conodonts. So yeah consider my theory, and write in the comments if you have any criticisms. Remember this is a theory I have had for a while.

Looking for conodonts, I found and meticulously cleaned this object-at first I thought insect wing, but then fish scale, then plant, then, nuthin special. Thoughts again appreciated!! What say ye? (Stark shale, between Winterset and Bethany Falls, Pennsylvanian) . Bone

Back in May or so I got my hands on some micromatrix from the Harding Sandstone, CO, USA. This formation dates back to the Ordovician: ~450-475 mya. It's chock full of some really cool and important fossils. It has some of the earliest vertebrate material, and some of the earliest steps in the evolution of teeth! I hope this is an informative and fun look into an important period in life's history. If you feel I have mischaracterized something or have left out pertinent information, please do speak up! I do also plan to post more pictures as I sort through material. If there's something specific you would like a better view of, let me know. So without further ado, let's dive in! All the matrix I have came in this small vial (not all of it is in the vial - this is just what I still have to go through). It's been heavily concentrated. What you're seeing is a mix of shells, some sandstone bits, and vertebrate remains. The majority of the vertebrate material is from ostracoderms - armored fish whose skin was made of bone. They had no jaws, teeth, or fins. They look to me like a cross between an armadillo and a potato. Most of the fossils are of their skin-armor which was studded with "tubercles:" little bumps and ridges. These are important and we'll talk about them later. Also in the mix are scales from potentially the earliest sharks. It seems there is still debate on this, as they could also belong to another class of fish named the thelodonts. There are also the well-preserved "teeth" of conodonts. Conodonts were jawless, bug-eyed, hagfish-like animals.

Last weekend I decided to take a short drive to Vermilion County, IL and get outside for a little bit. I haven’t been able to do any fossil hunting since COVID-19 reached our shores, so I had a few iffy sites less than 40 minutes from home in mind as I was driving. The first two proved fruitless, but I decided on a whim to take a new road over a local river in hopes of finding some exposures there. The river was running high with verdant growth all around and dragon and damselflies filling the air. As I looked down from the bridge I saw sandy shore, concrete bridge abutment, and then a small section with some intriguing rocks scattered along the river’s edge. Once I made my way down to river level, I found that the black rocks visible above were pieces of black shale and coal. I was excited! I had been thinking of black shale since collecting some on an ESCONI trip last year and reading @connorp’s posts about black shale finds. This shale was much more fragile and bedded than the Mecca Quarry Shale I found last year, so I was able to split it easily by hand. I was too excited, so I forgot to take any in situ photos (I took the ones above on my way back to the car). Before too long, I spotted the unmistakeable shape of a dermal spine from the iconic black shale chondrichthyan fauna Listracanthus hystrix- a strange shark relative covered in spiny denticles. I spent about 30 minutes searching this small exposure and turned up several more Listracanthus, the inarticulate brachiopods Lingula and Orbiculoidea, fish scales, and some mysterious spine fossils. Unfortunately, almost everything was tiny (less than 1 cm) and I don’t have a macro lens for my phone yet, so photos of most of them will have to wait. Here is everything I kept after trimming the matrix down: I will share some more pics of the best Listracanthus in my next post.