Veins?

[BirdsRDinos]

Are these vein imprints? 

[Rockwood]

No

[Samurai]

100% it is not veins. It looks like to me it is some sort of mineral deposit in the rock. They are not fossils but can look like them. At best, if it is a fossil, this would be a trace fossil but I find this unlikely.

 

Veins are extremely rare and are very small and would most likely have soft tissue preserved around it.

 

Edit: I did not read the tags, I thought this was a random piece of rock, so I apologize. Still most likely not veins.

[Mahnmut]

Hello together,

 

I do not believe these to be vein imprints either, but:

 

If I got you right, this is not a random piece of stone, but a  confirmed piece of fossil egshell, right?

Of course the probability to find a fossil vein without surrounding soft tissue is close to zero. On the other hand, finding an impression of a vein in an anatomical structure (fossil or not) is quite common, many of the grooves in bone are vascular impressions, I got some nice "positive" ones on a fragment of a natural endocast of an oreodont.

Talking about size, the vena cava is about as thick as a thumb in grown humans, there may have been much bigger ones in dinosaurs.

In Eggs, there is an extensive net of blood vessels surrounding the yolk at some stage of development, but as far as I know it does not leave impressions on the shell, at least in the eggs I have seen. The vessels are not as tightly aligned with the surface as for example in a braincase or under a horns ceratinous layer.

So I think the lines you see are mineral stains (or maybe root scars from plants growing above the fossil.)

I also saw blood(iron) stains that kept some of the vessels shapes on old (not fossil) bones, so I cannot rule this out completely.

 

Best regards,

J

 

 

 

[Mahnmut]

And welcome to the forum!

[Rockwood]

1 hour ago, Mahnmut said:

  confirmed piece of fossil egshell

I have serious doubts about that.

[Mahnmut]

Hello BirdsRDinos,

can you tell us some more about your specimen? Did you find or buy it?

If you bought it, what  species is it supposed to come from?

If you found it, do you know the age of the rocks there?

 

@Rockwood,

I can not decide if the pictured piece is an Eggshell or not, although it resembles very much a piece from my collection supposed to be Aepyornis eggshell. I got a certificate with it (that may be faked of course) and it has a shape and structure, including the "vein"-like pattern now that I look at it again (not impressions, just colour), that makes me believe it is real. Interestingly, there are traces of glue on my shard as well as the one pictured above that make me believe that maybe someone tried to assemble a composite egg and later discarded the pieces we see here.

But maybe there is an eggspert on the forum who finds out  my shard isnt one after all, it would not be the first time.

 

Be this as it may, I just understood the tags on the post to say "I got an eggshell of an avian theropod, do you think these structures are vein imprints?"

To which your answer "No" is of course a perfectly valid one.

 

Cheers,

J

[Rockwood]

The curvature and structure/texture shown here looks right. I don't think it compares well to the post though.

Perhaps @Troodon will share an opinion.

[Troodon]

I doubt its an eggshell but would have to have a much closer look at the edge and need to understand its provenance.   It does look a bit Aepyornis shell that Ive seen but its not dinosaurian if its an eggshell. 

[Rockwood]

14 minutes ago, Troodon said:

It does look a bit Aepyornis shell that Ive seen but its not dinosaurian if its an eggshell. 

I sort of forgot they are ridiculously huge. Maybe there is or was enough curvature.