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Hello all! I recently rearranged my collection so I figured this would be a good time to show some fossils! I usually hang-out in the New Jersey Cretaceous but I have been collecting fossils for over 25 years and have found some pretty cool specimens of creatures from many different eras, That said, my collection is mainly focused on the New Jersey Cretaceous, so let's start there. These are my displays for New Jersey Cretaceous non-reptile fossils. My favorites aren't actually fossils at all but rather casts of some of my favorite finds. The crab, Costadromia Hajzeri is the earlies known sponge crab and was named after me. The lungfish cast is of one of two specimens of late Cretaceous lungfish found from New Jersey (probable new species based on time period and 'crushing' element of teeth. The big Xiphactinus tooth is another of my favorite finds along with the echinoids and Menunites ammonite (pictured).

Hi! I recently aqcuired quite a lot of "microfossils" to kick off my Triassic collection, as I personally find it one of the most interesting time periods and while I am aware possibly not all of them are ID'd correctly I just wanted to get some nice fossils from this time period regardless of their ID's. All the fossils I acquired are from the Bull Canyon Formation, Dockum Group, San Miguel County, New Mexico, USA (Norian age) But I myself am not very knowledgeable yet in this material as I just started my collection but I am aware that some if not most of the ID's on these fossils given by the seller might be wrong as everything I read about the Bull Canyon formation says that the formation isn't that well discribed yet. I tried to make the photo's as good as I could, but it wasn't always easy given their extremely small size, so I hope the quality is good enough to work with. So I am kinda hoping is someone here on the forum would like to give it a try to see if he/she could confirm or disprove given ID's. Thank you in advance! The first set of 2 teeth were listed as the Phytosaur "Pseudopalatus" teeth which after doing a bit of research is considered a junior synonym for "Machaeroprosopus" The next collection of 3 teeth were listed as the Pseudosuchian "Revueltosaurus" The next tooth was listed as a "Theropod indet" tooth, and I know there are at least 2 species of theropod present at Bull Canyon, a Coelophysid called Gojirasaurus and a herrerasaurid called Chindesaurus. But I am not even sure whether this tooth is dinosaurian or not. The next set of teeth were listed as "Arganodus" lungfish teeth And the final tooth was listed as a "Sphenodont" (Rhynchocephalia indet.) tooth with affinities to Clevosaurus (which is found in Nova Scotia, Great Britain and China)

Dear Guys, I recently got a new camera and made the better pictures of all my lungfish dental plates. There are some families identified but I would be very happy to discuss with you about unidentified specimens and features of each dental plate, maybe some of you would know genera of these finds? The age of fossils is Devonian- Early Carboniferous, they are found in Lithuanian erratics (the majority in marine dolomite and some in shallow marine sandstone). The smallest find is 1,5 mm length and the largest is 1,2 cm length. Please tell your opinion about identifications of these finds, any help will be very appreciated because it would be great material for publication The first fossils I show are holodipterid dental plates. The main feature- merged tooth rows with poorly visible odontodes in the top. 4-7 mm length.

Hi guys, last week I started studying so I don't have much time at the moment and because of that I can't be very active here. Nevertheless I could go hunting last weekend (related to my eighteenth birthday (so why I am still a youth member?? )). I was in a quarry near Stuttgart where you can find fossils from the Triassic. Looking for bones and teeth in the "Bonebed" there is quite strenuous but it makes always fun! Especially if you find something good And my best find was this lungfish tooth (Ceratodus): Never found something like that before so I am quite happy with it! It's about 2.5 cm long and I prepped it with my air pen and with my new sandblasting machine! The prep work took about 1 hour. I can't really estimate how rare such a find is but maybe @Pemphix can say more! Thanks for viewing

Hello all! I was going to wait for the study to come out but I figure since it is now on display at the New Jersey State Museum, I would post this now. This is my late Cretaceous lungfish from Monmouth County New Jersey. It was first looked at here, on this forum (thread below) and was later confirmed by and donated to the NJSM. There have only two late Cretaceous lungfish fossils found from Eastern America so coming up with guy was a dream come true! It's currently being displayed at the NJSM for their "A Decade of Collecting" exhibit. The study on these specimens should be out in a few months so more to come. @njfossilhunter @Trevor

Good morning everyone! I have collected many vertebrate fossils from Tournaisien dolomites, Carboniferous marls and Early Carboniferous- Permian carbonated sandstones. I tried to identify the age of the erratics for a very long time and I think that all three types of erratics are from Carboniferous or Permian periods. There are many rhizodonts, megalichthyids, lungfish dental plates, one ganoid scale, small shark tooth and even one big ptyctodontid placoderm tooth (I have doubt if it is more famennian like or could be Tournaisien). In the same Tournaisien dolomites I have found many crinoids, brachiopods and molluscs. From brachiopods the Productids, spiriferids, rhynchonellids are very numerous, there are also some athyridids and Orthotetes specimens. In the marls the clam shrimp remains are often, plant (like horsetail) remains are very rare, the majority of fishes are rhizodonts and there is also one specimen of two skull bones from small amphibian. Please help to confirm vertebrate fragments (especially Sagenodus lower jaw and Ctenodus upper jaw plates), for the age confirmation I also will show invertebrates if it is needed. Best Regards Domas

Tooth of a lungfish.

Hi all, I found this impression in a Triassic coprolite from the Bull Canyon Formation, Quay Co., NM. It is hard to see in the photo, but there appears to be bits of enamel/bone still stuck in some of the cavities left by whatever made the impression (shows up white). Best I have been able to determine, it was left by the tooth plate from the lower jaw of a lungfish. Can anyone confirm this for me? Isn't poop just the best? Thanks for looking!

a book review of: "Swimming in Stone: The Amazing Gogo Fossils of the Kimberley" by John Long. Fremantle Arts Centre Press. 2006. 320 pages. Suggested Retail Price: $21.95 USD. Anyone who has collected fish fossils of any kind knows that they tend to be found in the form of isolated teeth, jaw sections, vertebrae, or the few other more durable bones. Even when you collect at one of those rare deposits where complete skeletons are common, the specimens are flattened, crushed by the rock layers that formed on top of them. In paleontology, a flattened skeleton is a good specimen but since many of the deposits are not that old, geologically speaking, scientists are dealing essentially with modern fish orders and families that date back to the Cretaceous at the earliest. Whole other classes existed long before that - back to the time when fishes were biting their way to the top of the food chain. "Swimming in Stone: The Amazing Gogo Fossils of the Kimberley" is the story of a 375 million-year -old marine deposit in an arid and remote part of Western Australia. The Gogo Formation is a nodule-bearing limestone layer, the nodules of which contain an incomparable treasure: fishes preserved as three-dimensional specimens: uncrushed skulls and skeletons with evidence of muscle and cartilage attachments. Thorough studies of the Late Devonian Gogo fishes have allowed scientists a much better understanding of early representatives of osteichthyans (bony fishes) and placoderms. a long-extinct class that appeared in the Early Silurian and ruled the Devonian seas. The author, John Long, has worked as a vertebrate paleontologist and museum curator/representative, specializing in Devonian fishes for nearly thirty years. He has been a prominent researcher of the Gogo with much of his professional life involved in the collection, preparation, and study of its fishes as well as in the conservation and promotion of the deposit. An extended introduction imagines the living Gogo environment, a tropical reef. It moves forward in time as geologic processes deeply buried it and later slowly exposed the nodule-bearing bed now representing the reef. The reader learns a little local human history as well. The book is then divided into 3 parts subdivided into 21 chapters. The first part is a historical account of Gogo studies from fieldwork to labwork; the second is a guide to the various fishes known from there. In the third part Long looks at how the deposit has been reinterpreted over the years, comparing it to other same-age fisheries. Long writes about how some anatomical features in humans can trace their origins to Devonian fishes and can be seen in Gogo forms (skull structure, basic limb structure, enamel-coated teeth, etc.). Long writes in an easy-going style pausing to define technical terms and explain complex concepts. The reader gets to know him as an average guy as well as a scientist. Captions in the margin provide further background on topics related to same-page text. This book is reasonably well-illustrated. The reader encounters 4-8 pages of solid text in only a few chapters. The figures are printed in black-and-white but Chapter 8 holds several full-color plates. The figures range from drawings (reconstructions, charts) to photos (locations, fossil photos, portraits) and it is a good mix. The paleogeographic map at the beginning of Chapter 19 confronts us with an unfamiliar jumble of continents still en route to uniting as Pangaea. I would recommend "Swimming in Stone" to anyone interested in Paleozoic fishes especially placoderms and their contemporaries. Collectors who have dug up pieces of placoderm armor in other parts of the world would appreciate a mainstream paleo title they can relate to. It is a good light read about unusual fossils within a story set in an exotic locale - almost foreign even to many Australians. It would also appeal to anyone who enjoyed the recent premiere of "Your Inner Fish" on American public television (based on Neil Shubin's 2008 book). Jess