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My little Mazon Creek collection


Italo40

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Hello dear members,

In this post I want to show you my Mazon Creek Fauna collection. I have only 6 specimens, that I’ve acquired over a long period of time in shows and online. Mazon Creek is definetely my favourite fossil assemblage and I dream, one day, to be able to collect fossils there myself!

My specimens are not museum-quality, I’m aware of that, but still can help to give an idea of what a 309 million-year-old soft-bodied biota looked like!

Let’s start with the most abundant species of the Essex assemblage: the jellyfish “Essexella asherae”. Known from thousands of concretions, in mine the preservation is fairly good: you can distinguish the bell and the membranous skirt that encloses the tentacles, except their end.

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Moving on to arthropods, another abundant species is the cycloid “Cyclus americanus”. It is carachterized by a round body, long straight antennae and, at the posterior, two short processes. In my specimen, one antenna and one process can be easily-distinguished.

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In the echinodermata phylum, there’s only one species described so far: the holoturian (or sea cucumber) “Achistrum sp.”. It has a cylindrical, sack-like body: during preservation it dries, leaving dessication cracks that are replaced whit calcite and are very evident in my specimen. Also clear is the mouth, bearing 15 calcareous plate.

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The acorn worms (class Enteropneutsa) are hemicordate organisms and their closest relative are echinoderms. These animals have a body that is made up of three main parts: an acorn-shaped proboscis, a short fleshy collar that lies behind it, and a long, worm-like trunk. Mazon Creek’s species “Mazoglossus ramsdelli” is extemely similar to extant species.

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Finally, I posses two species of bristle worms (Class Polychaeta). The first one is “Astreptoscolex anasillosus”: I’m not 100% sure that the ID is correct, so if you have any suggestion, they are welcome! Anyway, it is a stout worm with the body tapering towards the tail. An eversible proboscis is usually preserved and I think that my specimen features it.

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The other worm is “Esconites zelus”: it has a long, narrow outline with prominent bristles on its segments. The head has projecting antennae and the jaw apparatus shows wing-like mandibles. In my specimes they are partially preserved, even though not visible in the picture.

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All right, this is my collection! I know it nothing special, but I hope that it can be appreciated by both Mazon Creek collectors and people who like soft-bodied fossils!

 

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I really like your collection very interesting. I also have a small lot from Mazon Creek but mainly plant material and coprolite. I have a jellyfish or two?  but you know what they say about Mazon Creek if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably a jellyfish.   :default_rofl:

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Nice little pieces. 

Really like the bristle worms. :)

I also have a few little bits from Mazon Creek and love the flora and fauna from there. 

Fascinating stuff, you can find several collections of Mazon Creek fossils to drool over on this forum. 

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Fun collection! 

 

Mazon creek diversity makes it so addictive.  I have a bristle worm similar to the first one you posted and am interested about the id.

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Nice collection of MC concretions. :)

Thanks for showing us. 

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    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
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Thanks for sharing, you have a good selection of iconic Mazon Creek fauna. I hope you can indeed come to Illinois to collect yourself someday! 

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That’s a nice collection with some good representative examples.

My first Mazon Animal was an Essexella and I just built my collection from that.

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