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My friend from Texas was back up in April for nearly three weeks to photograph some of the Ammonites in the M.A.P.S. collection for a book he is working on and for the days he wasn't shooting invert's we went out collecting and scouting for potential future sites. We managed to find some nice fossils and some are a bet rare to find in nice or nearly complete state. Here are a few of the best ones I found. The first one is a Hoploparia Gabbi.... Its a Cretaceous Lobster from the Wenonah a late Campanian formation. What makes this a rather rare fossil from New Jersey is that you mostly find bits and pieces of them.. mostly claws and the carapace is rare in its self. My specimen was found encased in a siderite layer that also makes up the protocallianassa (Ghost Shrimp) burrows . My specimen is partially disarticulated at the abdomen somites/tail section but looks like it can be put back together but one side of this area was not preserved or has fallen off and its also missing the uropod / flipper. I am tempted to try to expose the perciopods the walking feet if there still there I don't know. I have been working on this lobster for the last two days and I'm not sure if it worth doing any more to it. All in all a nice example of a New Jersey Hoploparia Gabbi. I also posted a picture of the anatomy of a Lobster for comparison.

Hi -- I look my young son to the clay beds in Sayreville, NJ this weekend to look for amber (or, most hopefully, something in amber). We left with just a few pebbles. But in some gravel at the site, he pulled out what he was *convinced* was a shark tooth. While I initially dismissed it as a rock, my son -- who at 7 is pretty up on his game -- made a convincing case for further analysis. There's an enamel-like substance on the "top" side, with a smooth, rounded back, and there appears to be dark fossil remains where the "root" would have been. I haven't tried to clean the clay off of it, (nor am I sure its possible, or even if its clay and not, you know, just a rock). Here are the pics: I don't know where Sayreville, NJ would fit in NJ fossil hunting eras. We usually do the Big Brook/Ramunessen Creek thing here in NJ, and are used to some late Cretaceous finds. And though I know the Sayreville site was a quarry and has a history of some fossils, I was under the impression it was primarily plant, shells and imprints found there. Oh, and rocks. Anyway -- thanks for any help with this!