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Hello everyone!

 

I wanted to share some good news with you all...

 

On Monday, March 16, 2020, I visited "Formosa Reef" in Ontario (Amherstburg Formation, Lower Devonian) for a little fossil hunt.  One of the rocks that I found at the site had a trilobite piece that @piranha identified as the hypostome belonging to the trilobite Acanthopyge contusa.  When I asked him if he knew of any museum/researcher who might be interested in my specimen, he suggested that I contact the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), and so I did.

 

First, I emailed David Rudkin, and this is what he said:

 

"Thank you very much for getting in touch and offering to donate your splendid little Acanthopyge hypostome! I've been retired from the ROM for 3 years now and am not permitted to act on behalf of the Invertebrate Palaeontology section, but I am copying these messages to the Curator and Collection Manager with my recommendation to accept your generous offer." 

 

"Acanthopyge contusa is indeed a relatively rare component of the Formosa trilobite fauna and the ROM collections do not hold any specimens of the elusive hypostome. Like your contact on The Fossil Forum I've not seen one from Ontario before, so your discovery is quite exciting ... at least for a self-professed trilobite geek such as myself!  I'm hoping that my ROM colleagues, Dr Caron and Ms Akrami, will follow my recommendation to accept your offer, but I must leave the final decision in their hands."

 

Just last night, I received two consecutive emails from Maryam Akrami (the current Invertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager at the ROM):

 

"Thank you for sending the images and the information for the trilobite specimen. I am glad to let you know that we will accept your offer of donation.  Just want to let you know that the ROM is closed until at least 5th April. If you would like to ship the specimen to us now, I can give you my home address. Once we have the specimen, I will send you a letter acknowledging your generous donation to the ROM."

 

"Following up on my previous email (below), given the current situation and the advise against leaving our homes for non-essential reasons, perhaps it would be a good idea to wait till things return to normal and then ship the specimen to us. I hope that would be ok with yourself."

 

So, once the ROM is up and running again, I'll be handing over my little Acanthopyge contusa hypostome to the ROM!  I'll update this thread as soon as the donation has been completed.

 

Here are pictures of the specimen in question:

DSC01292.thumb.JPG.8b72c9125c599bd3536c5a88605b0cea.JPGDSC01293.thumb.JPG.24611d69f3e21cbf3dd9e3ef022dd2b7.JPG

 

Thanks for reading, everyone!

 

Monica

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Congratulations on a rare find Monica, and good for you for donating it!:thumbsu:

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Dipleurawhisperer5.jpg

I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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That is just grand Monica! Congratulations! 

 

:yay-smiley-1: 

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The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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Congratulations Monica on a great find and contribution to ROM's paleontology collection. Thanks for sharing. 

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Spectacular! You wisely realized that this was a SIS (Scientifically Important Specimen) and took steps to contact the museum to offer the specimen so that it might be represented in their collection.

 

When you've been able to send this off to the ROM and get your verification that they've received it for the collection, you can let us know here in this topic but also please add your specimen to the ongoing gallery topic in this section:

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/102935-fossil-contributions-to-paleontology-the-gallery/

 

Please follow the format and guidelines below when posting in this topic:

Common or Scientific Name.


Geologic Formation or Geologic Age.


Region the fossil was found.


Museum or University that received the fossil.


A short note explaining the reason for the fossil contribution. Please include a link to the topic about your fossil (if available).


(attach your fossil photos here)

 

 

Once you've added to the gallery we'll rummage through the box-o-badges and polish up a nice Paleo Partner badge for you. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Thanks for the congrats, everyone!  I'm very happy to be able to contribute a self-found fossil to such a wonderful institution as the ROM!

 

@digit Ken - I'll definitely submit the appropriate information to the gallery after the donation has officially been made. :)

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Nice find and donation. Some museum curators say that 90 to 95% of fossils in museums were found by amateurs, not professionals!  People like you are essential too paleontology. Congrats!

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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt

 

-Mark Twain

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Amazing news :D Congratulations!!

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Opalised fossils are the best: a wonderful mix between paleontology and mineralogy!

 

Q. Where do dinosaurs study?

A. At Khaan Academy!...

 

My ResearchGate profile

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That's Awesome... as an alternate you could give it to me and I will pass it along to Maryam or Jean Bernard. A shame you did not have it earlier as they were just at my house for the afternoon a few weeks ago. I ended up donating a number of pieces for the New Dawn of Life Gallery opening in 2021.

 

Either they are going to be visiting me or I am visiting them again in the next while as I am doing a bunch of prep for the ROM

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Hope you have better luck than I have had so far "trying" to make a donation.  Since the initial "acceptance" (via email on 26 Jan 2020) I still haven't received any documents from the "acceptor".   My three follow up status requests have produced little.  Guess I need to look for another Natural History Museum that is more interested:-(

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56 minutes ago, Ruger9a said:

Guess I need to look for another Natural History Museum that is more interested:-(

Yes, its not always easy, some museums are rather picky, and it really depends on what they have already or are specialized in.

 

For my rather large rudist collection (700 specimens, 200 kg) from the Campanian St. Bartholomä-formation, collected May 2017 to June 2019, I have asked three museums in Austria:

- The Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. They accepted happily*, having only a very few specimens of this kind. Their main collection focus is simply "Styria".

- The Natural History Museum in Vienna. They would have accepted it, but they said, its better to have it in Graz. Maybe I can give them my next batch, if there will be any in the future :D.

- The Austrian Geological Survey. They refused to accept the whole collection, but liked to have 10 representative specimens. Which I selected from finds from July-Dec. 2019 for them. Not the best, not the poorest, just representative, as requested.

 

*It was a big relief, life is much easier with only about 100 rudist specimens...:).

 

Franz Bernhard

 

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2 hours ago, Thecosmilia Trichitoma said:

Nice find and donation. Some museum curators say that 90 to 95% of fossils in museums were found by amateurs, not professionals!  People like you are essential too paleontology. Congrats!

 

2 hours ago, piranha said:

The global reaction of all self-professed trilobite geeks:mail?url=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fmail?url=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fdancing smiley      

 

2 hours ago, The Amateur Paleontologist said:

Amazing news :D Congratulations!!

 

Thanks, guys!  I'm pretty excited!!! :yay-smiley-1:

 

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1 hour ago, Ruger9a said:

Hope you have better luck than I have had so far "trying" to make a donation.  Since the initial "acceptance" (via email on 26 Jan 2020) I still haven't received any documents from the "acceptor".   My three follow up status requests have produced little.  Guess I need to look for another Natural History Museum that is more interested:-(

 

Hi there!

 

I think they're pretty interested in the specimen because the ROM has an excellent collection of Ontario trilobites, and they don't have a specimen like the one I found, so I think (:fingerscrossed:) that the donation will happen.  I'll post again once the specimen is officially handed over to them...

 

Thanks for chiming in!

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1 minute ago, Monica said:

I think they're pretty interested in the specimen because the ROM has an excellent collection of Ontario trilobites, and they don't have a specimen like the one I found, so I think (:fingerscrossed:) that the donation will happen.

So they are specialized in this stuff and they simply can not refuse it. 

Franz Bernhard

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2 hours ago, Malcolmt said:

That's Awesome... as an alternate you could give it to me and I will pass it along to Maryam or Jean Bernard. A shame you did not have it earlier as they were just at my house for the afternoon a few weeks ago. I ended up donating a number of pieces for the New Dawn of Life Gallery opening in 2021.

 

Either they are going to be visiting me or I am visiting them again in the next while as I am doing a bunch of prep for the ROM

 

Congrats yourself on donating some of your spectacular specimens to the ROM, Malcolm!  But I'm not surprised that they were interested in your stuff - I've seen some of your specimens, and they're fantastic!!! :default_faint::drool::wub::envy:

 

And you're doing prep work for the ROM, too???  Wow!  I'm sure they'll keep you busy :)

 

Re: the A. contusa hypostome - I think I'll just wait until they're back at the ROM - that'll give me a bit more time to enjoy looking at it before I donate it ;)

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Congratulations on your discovery and follow-up research, Monica!  :default_clap2:

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The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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2 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Congratulations on your discovery and follow-up research, Monica!  :default_clap2:

 

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Monica, Congratulations! :tiphat:

 

Thank you, John and Ricardo!

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3 hours ago, FranzBernhard said:

So they are specialized in this stuff and they simply can not refuse it. 

Franz Bernhard

 

That's what I'm thinking/hoping :)

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Congratulations! What a wonderful feeling, to be able to directly contribute to the annals of paleontology. 

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1 hour ago, deutscheben said:

Congratulations! What a wonderful feeling, to be able to directly contribute to the annals of paleontology. 

 

Thanks, Ben!  It is a wonderful feeling - I'm still incredibly excited about it!!!

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29 minutes ago, Al Tahan said:

This is really cool!!! Great stuff Monica :) 

 

Thanks, Al! :)

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