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So here is my 2021 summary of my collecting trips to the late Devonian Catskill formation of Pennsylvania. I have been collecting for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia for the past few years. A Tristichopterid skull collected at the Cogan House exit on RT15 in the 2019 season was just described as a new species of Eusthenodon in JVP, Daeschler et. al.. Very exciting! All three trips to PA this year included Red Hill. While the forestry department was very limiting on the use of power tools, they seem to not care too much if people collect with hand tools. The problem is most of the easier surface and near surface material has been collected over the many years the site has been worked. Now, the only way to discover any new tetrapod material is to move large quantities of rock. So that's been the challenge. How much stone can be moved with hammer and chisel with 64 year old wrists? Anyways, I was able to recover a number of interesting specimens although nothing has been id'd as tetrapod so far. These have all been sent to ANSP for analysis. This head plate with what I thought were lateral line canals (Y shape in middle) had a different ornament from other specimens of Hyneria I have. I had also convinced myself the curved surface on the left side and lower image appeared to be orbits but the experts determined it to be just a run of the mill Hyneria post parietal shield. ….It was exciting for a while. Even though this endochondral bone was found in with some exceptionally well preserved material it must have experience some significant transport before being deposited. With a thin blade at the top and some hefty bone at the bottom, I thought this might be id'able but no such luck. I still feel like it must be a shoulder girdle. Not sure what else it could be?? This is another endochondral bone found closely associated with the others. It is minimally a mesomere element of a fin but compares well with the radius of Ichthyostega (see below). Unfortunately, it again being an isolated element has not been id'd at this point. Unfortunately, this mesomere element split when I was removing the head plate. It seems to compare well with an ulna/tibia from a sarcopterygian fin. Here it is with the above "radius"? Finally, the one id'd significant fossil from the season! This bone was found at the Cogan House exit on RT 15. Ted Daeschler was pretty quickly able to id it as a lungfish lower jaw, probably something like Soederbergia.

This is my first attempt at a trip report so bear with me. In May 2014 my dad lead a trip for Delaware Valley PS to Red Hill. We identified some fossil bone sticking out of the face in the shallow channel margin. Excavation of the layer produced a 12 inch Hyneria Cleithrum along with many large scales. Also we identified the end of the lower jaw of possibly the same fish. Doug Rowe of the Field Museum determined the Academy would definitely want to keep it so it was left in place. He was able to expose about 7 inches the following week before reburying it. We returned in Aug. to try and finish extracting it. Excavation also produced a fragment of the palate with about a 2 inch vomerine fang and many pieces of a head plate which were reconstructed. We took out about 10 inches of the jaw bone with a portion remaining in the wall. The final trip was with NYPS in Sep. because the remaining jaw fragment was going to be difficult to cut around we brought our generator and a rotory hammer. The extraction of the remaining jaw fragments also exposed what appears to be the other half of the jaw. Total length of the jaw is about 15-16 inches making the fish about 8 feet long. The jaw material was sent to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences where prep work was performed by Fred Mullison. The jaws will remain in the Museums collections and add to the knowledge of Hyneria. fig 1. Cleithrum exterior. fig. 2 Cleithrum interior. fig. 3 Jaw bone in situ lateral side. fig. 4 Jaw bone prepped, lateral side. fig. 5 Jaw bone prepped, medial side. fig. 6 Palate with vomerine fang, upper rt corner. fig. 7 Head plate, interior. fig. 8 Head plate, exterior. fig. 9 Scale. fig. 10 2nd jaw bone.