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dhiggi

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I recently bought a bit of a job lot of things online just to get an ichthyosaur tooth for my daughter’s collection. Along with the tooth, an ichthyosaur bone and some acrodus teeth was this. The seller stated that it is from the Rhaetic bone bed in Somerset and is triassic. It looks a lot like the other ichthyosaur bone in the lot, but is anyone able to identify it?

 Thank you for looking 

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Yes, Rhaetian (late Triassic) bone bed from Aust, on the Severn estuary, near Bristol, South West England. 

I really can't tell the difference between fragments of icthyosaur, plesiosaur and large fish that are found in these deposits. And other reptiles.

Have a close look at some of the rounded bits. Some of them might be pebbles, but there are a lot of coprolites found in this formation.  

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  • 1 month later...

I can only confirm what @Tidgy's Dad already said: this is indeed Rhaetian (i.e. terminal) Triassic material from the Severn estuary in Somerset, more exactly the Aust Cliff or Blue Anchor localities. The material is contemporaneous and like in kind to that from Penarth in Wales and consists mainly of marine species - though I've heard about some terrestrial remains having been found as well, possibly due to the Somerset location also having been an estuary in the past, or because of tidal action washing stuff out from rivers and shore. In terms of fish, Severnichthys accuminatus, a large predatory fish, seems to be one of the most frequent finds, as is Pachystropheus rhaeticus, a early crocodile-like/champsosaurian reptile. Ichthyosaurian and especially plesiosaurian material are less common, but when found include such species as Leptonectes sp. on the ichthyosaurian end of the spectrum and Eurycleidus arcuatus. And, then, of course, the mentioned coprolites ;)

 

ID-ing bone fragments to a certain species or even genus of animal is difficult, unless enough of the bone survives to clearly identify it as to clade, with vertebrae and teeth being some of the most diagnostic material available. Your piece may be a rib fragment of a larger animal, but also looks like it could be the inside of a jaw, may be, near to the articular.

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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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Sorry, when I wrote Penarth above, I actually meant Lavernock, which, though located relatively near to one another, have slightly different geologies.

'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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