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Thanks so much to @steelhead9 for preparing this crab for me, I thought his work was so good that I’d share it with everyone some of the legs are restored and it’s a puliarus vulgaris from washington

This crab along with another of the same type are currently with Torrey Nyborg of Loma Linda University in California. I'm told they are Paradoxicarcinus sp. (possibly P. nimonoides or maybe something new). At any rate Torrey Nyborg expressed interest in examining and describing them because he felt they may be something new. If they are indeed new and/or are published they will be donated to the Royal British Columbia Museum, in my hometown of Victoria (BC), not far from where these and other crab fossils were found).

This specimen of a possibly new crab (galatheoid? or homolodromid?) from southern Vancouver Island has been sent, for study and description, to Torrey Nyborg at Loma Linda University in California. The specimen is to be donated to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC. I will update the forum once I've heard back from Torrey on the status of the specimen. Torrey has also expressed interest in a number of other decapod crustaceans collected in association with this specimen. So those fossils may eventually make their way (two already have) to him for description and potential donation to the RBCM.

Hello all, I'm going to be in Olympia at the end of July for a wedding and I was hoping to get out and look for a couple crab concretions while I was up there. Would anyone be able to give me some pointers on where to look, or be willing to meet up for a hunt while I'm up there?

About 3 or 4 years ago I made a trade with a guy from New Zealand. Today I received the last part of the trade. Apon opening it up I knew immediatly that it was broken!!! After taking off the bubble wrap my heart just sank and I could see it was in many pieces! Im going to have a very hard time sleeping tonight. This thing was HUGE!!! Just glad no one is here to see me cry. RB

Dying to find a good crab claw. Found this little tiny thing....it sure looks like a crab claw but I have a sneaking suspicion it's just a very good mimic of limestone rock. Please help me confirm or contest. Thanks!!!

Well preserved fossil described with 3d model too: https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/bizarre-chimera-fossil-reveals-platypus-of-the-crab-world/

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

This is another piece discovered at an estate sale, which of course means I do not have the info such as location it was found, etc. It has some amazing detail, spiny legs? but it's so squished into the matrix I have no idea what it could be. Hope to receive more info. The piece is approx. 6 x 4"

Hello! I wanted to share some information and the published study of a crab carapace I recently donated to the New Jersey State Museum (NJSM). I found this last year in Monmouth County, New Jersey and thanks to suggestions from fellow forum members, as well as the NJSM, I sent this crab to decapod expert Dr. Rodney Feldmann to study. After review, it was determined that this crab represents a new genus and species and was recently published in the Mizunami Fossil Museum Bulletin. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Dr. Feldmann, who was kind enough to name it after me (Costadromia hajzeri). I also want to thank my good friends at the New Jersey State Museum, and everyone on the forum who helped ID this specimen. This was a really fun project to be involved in! @non-remanié @Trevor @Jeffrey P @Carl @FossilDAWG @Darktooth http://www.city.mizunami.lg.jp/docs/2019031400022/files/02feldmannschweitzer2019.pdf

In January, @Metopocetus and I met to do some map work and go through some old documents in search of productive exposures of the Eastover Formation (which generally lies on top of the Calvert Formation in Maryland and Virginia). Like all good fossil hunters, we met at dawn to do a little fossil hunting first. The wind chills were below zero (F), but there was a blowout tide. We each found a fossil shell or two and some cool pictures of interesting ice formations along the Chesapeake Bay (below) and then retired, thoroughly frozen to a warmer spot to do our map work. Working with some 50 year-old publications and field notes, we identified a passing mention to a tiny layer within the Eastover Formation that MIGHT have fossil crabs and a concentration of vertebrate material. Within a few weeks, @Gizmo and I had worked ourselves into a lather over the possibilities. The sites are remote. They are basically not documented in the modern literature and none of us could find any published record of crabs from the Eastover Formation. It sounded like a good chance at finding a new species. We found ourselves completely convinced that we could do the impossible: 1) drive hours to a waterway that we had no experience with, 2) use 50-year-old information to find the sites and 3) then identify the crabs in anonymous clay beds in shallow, freezing water On February 12, I met @Gizmo at our favorite meet-up in the pouring rain and air temps around 40F. We spent a tense couple of hours on the road wondering if hurricanes, weather or riprap had erased the sites. Just a bit after dawn, we put the boat into the water and set out into a cold and gray day. Within an hour we had checked several potential locations and found the sites to be almost exactly as described. Within two hours we identified two nearly complete crabs as well as a pile of other goodies ranging from shark teeth to random fish vertebra. However, we were pretty bummed out that we had only picked up two complete crabs on the beach. While the tide was out, we worked in clay slicks in shallow water to find more. On a hunch, we kept every nodule that we found. We couldn't see through the mud and clay, and the clay was nearly waterproof when wet. Impossible to clean the nodules. Plus, the water was just way too cold. Near the end of the day, Gizmo found a megalodon tooth and several nice makos. Soon after, we found an associated set of vertebra that I kept for trading. Anonymous vertebra and skeletal associations are fairly common in VA, but I hold onto them sometimes to use for trading with other collectors or for donating to classrooms. At the very end of the day, I stumbled on two seal bones, a humerus and metapodial, in the clay underwater. We quarried them quickly in the freezing water and scooted back to the ramp just before sundown. In cleaning up the nodules, I quickly found that the dried marl washed right off. In the course of an hour of cleaning I found 25+ crabs that were largely intact, as well a seal astragalus. In all, we ended up with several coprolites, several pounds of fish, seal and whale bones, a variety of shark teeth, and an ecphora. The little association of dolphin sized vertebra turned out to have some surprises. Three vertebra, with one complete, one with broken processes and one that has been sheared by a large shark bite (on the right). The sheared vertebra was buried in the clay underwater, but came out without any damage. The bitten surface is sheared smooth ( a modern break would be jagged) and has the profile of a large tooth (still trying to figure out how to get a profile+tooth photo).

hello all!! I found what I thought was just the end of a bivalve, but it has these odd bumps which I associate with crab fossils. (Not having found anything but a couple of partial claws, I am just guessing here). It was found in Blanco County in Central Texas, Glen Rose formation, I think. (second picture, couldn't get them in the right order. Sorry) The first picture is another find from that same place, the regular lines of dots intrigued me. Any info would be much appreciated!!

I thought I would check out a small exposure of what I think is Buda formation, I wasn't expecting much but I thought maybe I might get lucky, boy did I. The most interesting finds were two crab carapaces IDed as graptocarcinus texanus, (thanks Dan) enough talking, pictures!

hi guys sorry to bother again but i have found these two crustaceans on our favourite auction site and was wondering whether they were both real(apparently the lobster has a little restoration to the claws) and if so which one would you guys prefer to go for thansk

Hi everyone! I wanted to share with you about the crab carapace which I found in 2012. I found it at the Rocky Point Quarry, Rocky Point, North Carolina, USA. This little crab carapace captivated me and I am so thankful to Alex Osso for responding to a trip post I made in 2012. I thought I had a regular little carapace, but with his help and then Don Clements and among several others, the carapace made it's way to George Phillips. Then the research began. I want to thank everyone whom has been a part of this adventure, timeless research, keeping me informed, answering my questions and just taking to needed time to complete the project! Thank you to so many whom also include Barry W. M. van Bakel, Alex Osso, George Phillips, Don N. Clements, Torrey Nyborg, Francisco J. Vega, Trish Weaver, The North Carolina Fossil Club and the manager of the Rocky Point Martin Marietta Quarry, Doug Pope. The crab carapace has been named: Cenocorystes libbyae n. sp. I donated the crab carapace to the Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, North Carolina. The carapace found by the Mark Mckoy Family is in the article too! Such an amazing find! WOW! Have a wonderful 2019 everyone and happy fossil hunting! I posted a link to the article below, hope it works. If not let me know and I may need a little help from a friend with it. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667118303495?dgcid=coauthor. The article is published by ELSEVIER, Cretaceous Research. The pic below is from the day I found it in 2012. All the best! Happy hunting in 2019! Libby

It seems a lot of people don’t think that there’s a lot to find at the outerbanks beaches. If there’s shells there usually can be some fossils that can be found to. All these have been found in the same stretch of beach that is in front of the same three or four houses for the past 10 years. I usually go for one to two weeks a year and have stayed in the same home. Some years I don’t find any but if there are shells you’ve got a good chance.

Just curious. I keep seeing these hand mined boney crab fossils from the green river formation from Chinese sellers on an auction site. I have also seen them listed as from Madagascar. They don't look like green river fossils. Just wondering if they are real and where they actually come from.

I thought I would share a couple of my Christmas presents. A beautiful Pulalius vulgaris crab prepared by our own @RJB When he calls his B crabs or everybody else's A crabs. A deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Leg mount from Florida. Pleistocene. All of the bones were found together and are associated. A Megaloceros Giganteus jaw section with two teeth.

I figured it was time to do a little learning and went to find a diagram of a crab so I could learn all the parts of a crab instead of just prepping one out and putting it on my shelf. I spent over 40 minutes and only found one that really wasnt very good. I am hoping that someone here can lead me to a really good diagram? Thank you to everyone. RB

My second time out fossil hunting for crab fossils and struck pay dirt! Found 2 nice examples of what I think is Tumidocarcinus from some Googling. My first time finding a complete(ish) fossil so I am very excited! Found a smallish one and a medium one. Both seem to have the legs and claws.

I believe these are parts from a crab I found in NJ, from what I see I think the large one is from the shoulder or bicep from a crab, is it possible to identify anything else about the animal?this side is fairly flat with the bottom edge protruding out.this side is round but in pretty bad condition.side view of the piece.

Ok, this is actually yet another crab prep. I figure its a round rock so I named it the way I did cause so many folks think a round rock is a fossil dino egg. Anyways, I bought 27 crab concretions from a friend of mine just a short time ago and went through them today. I picked out this one just because of the size. Its a monster! Im used to the ones that are about the size of a baseball. This one is more like a soccer ball. Quite heavy too! I spent 2 hours on it already and have another 7 or 8 hours or so of removing rock. Quite boring, but I think I 'read' this one right and this way is better than 'WHACKING' it with a sledge hammer. Time will tell. If it turns out to be a dud it will be a huge waste of time but sometimes doing this is a gamble. Ive always said, "if you dont gamble, you dont win". These cost me $530. Believe me, Ive lost many many times. But with this crab prep thread you can go through all the ups and downs with me. Hopefully more ups than downs. Dont want anyone seeing me break down and cry. I cant prep like I used to and this is gunna take some time being soooooooooo much rock to remove, but once down to the crab, either the fun starts,,,,,, or the heartbreak starts? Gunna be interesting no matter what. So,,,,,, the count so far is: 2 hours I just looked at the first pic. Looks smaller than it actually is. this rock measures 6 inches across.