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Pliosaur rib/vert in matrix


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It was initially being sold as plesiosaur when I inquired about it, but seller says it was mislabelled and is pliosaur--which, if accurate, even better! But I am dubious over Pliosaur ID because I don't think I've ever seen any Morocco pliosaur fossils up for sale.

 

But,  if anyone can take a look and let me if A) It looks legit and B ) Whether you think Pliosaur or plesiosaur is accurate, that would be great. 80 million years old, from Morocco. 17 inches along the straight edge and 10 inches along the bottom.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

 

 

 

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Well, I'd say it's possible, seeing shortness of the verts and their overall look. The upper one looks like plesiosaur cervical and the 2nd probably pectoral (shouldn't they be the same size then?). Morrocan pliosaurs do exist

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8 hours ago, RuMert said:

Well, I'd say it's possible, seeing shortness of the verts and their overall look. The upper one looks like plesiosaur cervical and the 2nd probably pectoral (shouldn't they be the same side then?). Morrocan pliosaurs do exist

 

Thanks. The Morocco pliosaur is Brachauchenius? Or is there another species?

 

Looking online at plesiosaur cervical verts for sale, I do see it looking like it now.

 

What are your thoughts on the fossil? It is legit rather than being carved or faked? 

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Just realised, I didn't put a location. It is from, khouribga Morocco. Which I think eliminates Pliosaur?

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I haven't ever heard from Pliosaurs from Khouribga. I'm not well versed enough to know the difference in Pliosaur and Plesiosaur verts. But this looks like most Plesiosaur from Morocco to me. So Zarafasaura is most likely IMO.

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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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8 minutes ago, LordTrilobite said:

I haven't ever heard from Pliosaurs from Khouribga. I'm not well versed enough to know the difference in Pliosaur and Plesiosaur verts. But this looks like most Plesiosaur from Morocco to me. So Zarafasaura is most likely IMO.

 

Cheers. Thanks for the help. Yeah, I expected Khouribga ruled out Pliosaur. Pliosaur is Goulmima isn't it?

 

 Nice, I was initially intetested in it when labelled plesiosaur, so that's not an issue.

 

 

I assume then it looks ok--no fakery or anything? I remember seeing a vert posted here that was a bison bone plonked in Morocco matrix being sold as plesiosaur. But if there's no red fkags, I will get it ordered today.

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6 hours ago, FF7_Yuffie said:

What are your thoughts on the fossil? It is legit rather than being carved or faked? 

I'm not so good at distinguishing fakes, LordTrilobite is the expert here, as well as @jnoun11

Relying on common sense, I don't think verts would be faked, unlike skulls/jaws/skeletons

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There are no red flags here in my opinion. @RuMert is right that individual verts aren't often faked. But skeletons often are. It can happen that real verts are composited together to create a more complete animal.

This specimen looks pretty natural though.

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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Just now, LordTrilobite said:

There are no red flags here in my opinion. @RuMert is right that individual verts aren't often faked. But skeletons often are. It can happen that real verts are composited together to create a more complete animal.

This specimen looks pretty natural though.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the help. I will place an order for it later tonight.

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2 hours ago, RuMert said:

I'm not so good at distinguishing fakes, LordTrilobite is the expert here, as well as @jnoun11

Relying on common sense, I don't think verts would be faked, unlike skulls/jaws/skeletons

 

Cheers thanks for the help. :)

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hi

i agree with lord trilobite, it s zarafasaura oceanis vertebrae.

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett ...

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14 minutes ago, jnoun11 said:

hi

i agree with lord trilobite, it s zarafasaura oceanis vertebrae.

 

Awesome. I'll label it as that. 

 

Thanks.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/9/2020 at 9:13 AM, jnoun11 said:

hi

i agree with lord trilobite, it s zarafasaura oceanis vertebrae.

A bit late to the party, but I concur that these are Zarafasaura oceanis vertebrae and rib. Pliosaur vertebrae would be way more massive (not just simply bigger, but axially deeper with a more rounded vertebral centrum) and indeed not come from Khouribga but Goulmima - in which case it would, as correctly stated, have been Brachauchenius lucasi, which I believe is still the only true pliosaur described for Morocco. For comparison, here are two pliosaur vertebrae from Goulmima:

 

pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco-359-p.thumb.jpg.b3632ebd4e6ede1e88f2e74062283ff0.jpg5f1b580579ed6_pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco-2-359-p.thumb.jpg.328a1902b33c5a6d5a648404355931e2.jpg

 

pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco.-312-p.thumb.jpg.e5d06b0f6db20f33ad3357fa0f1e0680.jpg5f1b58086cbdb_pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco.-2-312-p.thumb.jpg.a1d57f7710ceeba10bf7522f7e3c11fd.jpg

 

Rib, of course, is more difficult to assign to a species, but ca  here be assigned by association. It also matches a specimen I have in my collection labelled as Zarafasaura oceanis. And though the layout of the fossils in this piece looks a bit too neat to look entirely natural at first glance, the piece seems to be okay and authentic overall: the matrix has additional inclusions that would tell you this is not fabricated matrix, and the fossils seem positioned such as to exclude additions / "enhancements" (I.e. slight compression of the rib when the vertebral process crosses it, and such like).

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'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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7 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

A bit late to the party, but I concur that these are Zarafasaura oceanis vertebrae and rib. Pliosaur vertebrae would be way more massive (not just simply bigger, but axially deeper with a more rounded vertebral centrum) and indeed not come from Khouribga but Goulmima - in which case it would, as correctly states, have been Brachauchenius lucasi, which I believe is still the only true pliosaur described for Morocco. For comparison, here are two pliosaur vertebrae from Goulmima:

 

pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco-359-p.thumb.jpg.b3632ebd4e6ede1e88f2e74062283ff0.jpg5f1b580579ed6_pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco-2-359-p.thumb.jpg.328a1902b33c5a6d5a648404355931e2.jpg

 

pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco.-312-p.thumb.jpg.e5d06b0f6db20f33ad3357fa0f1e0680.jpg5f1b58086cbdb_pliosaur-vertebra-goulmima-morocco.-2-312-p.thumb.jpg.a1d57f7710ceeba10bf7522f7e3c11fd.jpg

 

Rib, of course, is more difficult to assign to a species, but ca  here be assigned by association. It also matches a specimen I have in my collection labelled as Zarafasaura oceanis. And though the layout of the fossils in this piece looks a bit too neat to look entirely natural at first glance, the piece seems to be okay and authentic overall: the matrix has additional inclusions that would tell you this is not fabricated matrix, and the fossils seem positioned such as to exclude additions / "enhancements" (I.e. slight compression of the rib when the vertebral process crosses it, and such like).

 

 

Thanks very much for the info. Especially about the matrix-- that's really good to know. 

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hi ff7-yuffie

its not zarafasauras oceanis but libonectes atlasense ,turonian bed of goulmima.

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett ...

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1 hour ago, jnoun11 said:

hi ff7-yuffie

its not zarafasauras oceanis but libonectes atlasense ,turonian bed of goulmima.

 

Nice. That's a species I know nothing about so gonna have to do a bit of looking up on it.

 

Thanks very much for taking a look. It's great to have an id.

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Hi jnoun11,

I'm a bit confused, might have misunderstood. But when you say Libonectes atlasense, you're referring to the images of the vertebrae I posted, not those posted by the original poster, correct? Because the original bone-block to me seems to concern Z. oceanis, especially since it comes from Khouribga, no? How can you tell the others are from Libonectes and not a pliosaur? Where does the difference lie? Just out of genuine interest and because I think the original poster may also have gotten confused. Thanks in advance for your response!


---

 

Bonjour @jnoun11,

 

Je suis un peu confus, peut-être ai-je mal compris. Mais quand vous dites Libonectes atlasense, vous faites référence aux images des vertèbres que j'ai postées, pas à celles postées par l'affiche originale, n'est-ce pas ? Parce que le bloc osseux d'origine me semble concerner Z. oceanis, d'autant plus qu'il vient de Khouribga, non ? Comment pouvez-vous déterminer que les autres proviennent de Libonectes et non de pliosaure ? Qu'est-ce qui fait la différence ? Juste par intérêt sincère et parce que je pense que l'affiche originale a peut-être aussi été confuse. Merci d'avance pour votre réponse !

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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29 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Hi jnoun11,

I'm a bit confused, might have misunderstood. But when you say Libonectes morgani (not L. atlasense?), you're referring to the images of the vertebrae I posted, not those posted by the original poster, correct? Because the original bone-block to me seems to concern Z. oceanis, especially since it comes from Khouribga, no? How can you tell the others are from Libonectes and not a pliosaur? Where does the difference lie? Just out of genuine interest and because I think the original poster may also have gotten confused. Thanks in advance for your response!


---

 

Bonjour @jnoun11,

 

Je suis un peu confus, peut-être ai-je mal compris. Mais quand vous dites Libonectes morgani (pas L. atlasense ?), vous faites référence aux images des vertèbres que j'ai postées, pas à celles postées par l'affiche originale, n'est-ce pas ? Parce que le bloc osseux d'origine me semble concerner Z. oceanis, d'autant plus qu'il vient de Khouribga, non ? Comment pouvez-vous déterminer que les autres proviennent de Libonectes et non de pliosaure ? Qu'est-ce qui fait la différence ? Juste par intérêt sincère et parce que je pense que l'affiche originale a peut-être aussi été confuse. Merci d'avance pour votre réponse !

 

 

With location, seller did say Khouribga--but he did also say it had been mislabelled as Plesiosaur and was Pliosaur, which turned out to be incorrect--so it seems that there could be mistakes from seller with the location as well as the ID, if Libonectes isnt found in that location. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen fossils from Morocco with the wrong formation mentioned.

 

 

Thanks to everyone for taking a look btw. All info and comments are much appreciated.

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7 minutes ago, FF7_Yuffie said:

With location, seller did say Khouribga--but he did also say it had been mislabelled as Plesiosaur and was Pliosaur, which turned out to be incorrect--so it seems that there could be mistakes from seller with the location as well as the ID, if Libonectes isnt found in that location. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen fossils from Morocco with the wrong formation mentioned.

But that's what I'm saying and why I'm presently confused. Because the matrix in terms of colour, consistency and inclusions matches what one would expect for Khouribga/Oued Zem - that is, yellow to orange course-grained marl that easily crumbles and has various bone and tooth inclusions. Bone from these beds is white in colour, as - I believe - the mineral that replaced the bones is a gypsum. In contrast, the matrix found at Goulmima is a greyish light yellow or light grey, fine-grained and either very hard (the grey-coloured matrix) or soft (the greyish light yellow matrix). Bones are brown/red-brown and - as to my knowledge - other inclusions in the matrix minimal. In other words, your bone-block matches the location given for it.

 

As stated in Angst & Bardet 2015 ("A new record of the pliosaur Brachauchenius lucasi Williston, 1903 (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) of Turonian (Late Cretaceous) age, Morocco"), most Moroccan plesiosaur species are restricted to Goulmima, with only Z. oceanis occurring in the Maastrichtian (i.e. Khouribga / Oued Zem):
 

Quote

Compared to other continents, the fossil record of plesiosaurs is scarce in Africa where only five valid taxa are known. All described from Cretaceous out- crops, these are: the leptocleidid Leptocleidus capensis [...] from Early Cretaceous (Valanginian) South Africa [...]; the elasmosaurid Zarafasaura oceanis [...] from latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Morocco [...]; and the polycotylids Thililua longicollis [...] and Manemergus anguirostris [...] and the elasmosaurid Libonectes atlasense [...] described from the lower Upper Cretaceous (Turonian) sediments of the Goulmima outcrop, southern Morocco [...].

 

The same information is repeated above in that

 

7 hours ago, jnoun11 said:

hi ff7-yuffie

its not zarafasauras oceanis but libonectes atlasense ,turonian bed of goulmima.

 

This, however, doesn't match your matrix. Hence my surprise...

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'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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hi

its confusing i admit:

so ff7 yuffie

the first group of pictures are zarafasaura oceanis from phosphates bed 3 , no pliosaurs until now in phosphates deposits

and the second group of picture with the vertebrae out of matrix is:  libonectes atlasense or the pliosaur : manemergus longisrostris.

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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett ...

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2 hours ago, jnoun11 said:

hi

its confusing i admit:

so ff7 yuffie

the first group of pictures are zarafasaura oceanis from phosphates bed 3 , no pliosaurs until now in phosphates deposits

and the second group of picture with the vertebrae out of matrix is:  libonectes atlasense or the pliosaur : manemergus longisrostris.

 

Ah, I see. So the seller's location of Khouribka & the id from posters here of Zarafasaurua is correct.

 

Thanks for clarifying. Cheers :)

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