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Fossil Fishy's of Lebanon Thread


RJB

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 In the last couple of months my son and I have purchased some unprepped Lebanese fossil fishy's.  There are four known species of guitarfish from the Lebanese provinces of Hakel and Hajula. Rhinobatos maronita is one of these; this species was fist described in 1866 by Pictet and Humbert. Some purty dang cool stuff but the guy we are buying from does not know how to wrap and send fossils over seas!    Our last shipment came in many pieces!  Not good.   My son is working on him to make it right?   Aside from that Im going to do what I can to fix things.   First up is one side of what I think is a Guitar Fish, Rhinobatus?  My son purchased this and this is the 'not so good side' with the other side being in better shape.   Every so often I will be back and make more post of these realy neato fossil fishy's.   @oilshale  I dont know much about the types/specimens of these fish from Lebanon so if anyone wants to chime in and correct me, I would greatly appreciate it.  Thank you

 

RB

 

 

The back half of this slap used to be in one piece!!! 

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1 hour ago, FossilDAWG said:

I know you can make it right, but wow that hurts to see.

 

Don

I agree wholeheartedly - this hurts! But I am sure you can fix it.

Seems to be either Sclerorhynchus atavus Woodward, 1889 or (more likely) Libanopritis hiram. They look quite similar. Sorry, I am not very familiar with fish from Lebanon.

https://www.biolib.cz/en/taxonimage/id276231/?taxonid=1160708

Sclerorhynchus atavus and the convergent evolution of rostrum-bearing chondrichthyans.pdf

Edited by oilshale
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Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes (Confucius, 551 BC - 479 BC).

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This should be Libanopristis or Micropristis. Sclerorhynchus is a little younger and is found at Sahel Alma rather than the Cenomanian of Hakel and Hajula.

I really hate to see things unnecessarily broken. It looks like it can be repaired, but it can never be the same as original.

 

Bob

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:Horrified::s_cry: That makes me sad to see such a nice specimen broken into bits by carelessness. I know you’ll work your magic and revive it as best as you can though.

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:Horrified: The horror! :Horrified: The agony! :Horrified: The utter brutality! :Horrified: Spit & bailing wire ain't gonna work on that. But you know what? I know it'll be just fine & probably won't even look like it got dinged once you're done with it. :default_clap2:

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Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.

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   Thanks everyone.  I should have done at least a little bit of research before I posted that.  That is not Rhinobatus at all.  Im gunna hafta check out all those names and see what I come up  with.  I do thank you folks for the help.    What I started on the other day im sure is a Rhinobatus but wont know the species till its done.  This one is rather large.  At least for me.  Im not used to working on fish of this size.   I will do most of the prep first and then put it together.  Easier to work on the peices that one large piece.    And again, this fish was in 5 pieces when I purchased it and it came in 11 pieces.   Very painful and very expensive.  If the guy makes it right I will buy more, if not, he will never see me again.  My son feels the very same way.  Not good for business.

 

RB

 

 

Tail end in on the left.  If you look closely you can just see whats left of a penciled outline. 

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Here is my large fish, ray actually, after two prep sessions totaling about 13 hours.  A very very long ways to go!   and the farther I go towards the back of this fish, the harder the rock becomes.  And I mean HARD!!!   Ive never had this hard of rock on any fish ive ever done.  Turning into a nightmare!!!

 

RB

 

Not much for 13 hours of work, but its a start.

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Here you can see how im collecting some chips of rock off this slab for any rock repair down the road.

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It'll turn out great, I love fossil rays, and live ones too.

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“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

"With hammer in hand, the open horizon of time, and dear friends by my side, what can we not accomplish together?" -Kane (Kane)

"We are in a way conquering time, reuniting members of a long lost family" -Quincy (Opabinia Blues)

"I loved reading the trip reports, I loved the sharing, I loved the educational aspect, I loved the humor. It felt like home. It still does" -Mike (Pagurus)

“The best deal I ever got was getting accepted as a member on The Fossil Forum. Not only got an invaluable pool of knowledge, but gained a loving family as well.” -Doren (caldigger)

"it really is nice, to visit the oasis that is TFF" -Tim (fossildude19)

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*hands out the popcorn*

popcorn.jpg

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Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.

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  • 2 weeks later...

  Man-o-man!!!  I can now see that this will be about a 100 hour fish!!!?   Never had to work with such hard rock on a fish!   Ive lost count how many times Ive had to sharpen the scribe tip!  Im going to guess about 12 times?   3 more prep sessions sence the last post, so im guessing another 12 hours or so?

 

RB

 

 

You can see that ive got one heck of alot of cleanup work on this piece!  and thats after I finish ruffing it out!  But by golly its got a good start to it now?  :)

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Its got a great start ;)

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“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

"With hammer in hand, the open horizon of time, and dear friends by my side, what can we not accomplish together?" -Kane (Kane)

"We are in a way conquering time, reuniting members of a long lost family" -Quincy (Opabinia Blues)

"I loved reading the trip reports, I loved the sharing, I loved the educational aspect, I loved the humor. It felt like home. It still does" -Mike (Pagurus)

“The best deal I ever got was getting accepted as a member on The Fossil Forum. Not only got an invaluable pool of knowledge, but gained a loving family as well.” -Doren (caldigger)

"it really is nice, to visit the oasis that is TFF" -Tim (fossildude19)

"Life's Good! -Adam (Tidgy's Dad)

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  3 more prep sessions totaling 11.5 hours.  Its now starting to look like its supposed to, (shape/outline) anyways.  Still a very long ways to go, but I have to say,  I'm having fun again.   This is without any doubt, the tuffest fish ive ever attacked!  Sticky, sticky, sticky and then more sticky!!!   From very soft rock to the hardest rock ever for a fish!  and ive done a couple of fish in my lifetime.  and then all kinds of stuff in the way.  Lots and lots of shrimp parts, fish parts and things that I dont know what it is in all different layers including stuff that seemed to have landed onto this fish when they died with only a thin layer of rock between it and the fish.   I havent mentioned yet, but doing the air abrasive cleanup/finish work on this will be my next nightmare!  :)

 

RB

DSCN0801.JPG

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  • 5 weeks later...

  The holidays are over and I finally made it out to the garage again.  I started working on the back end/tail end of this thing today.   The very last part of this fish is in 8 pieces and I will get to that later. 

 

 

Looks easy, but I guarantee you its extremely hard!   I did not think it possible, but this super hard rock literally beat up my Super Jack stylus!!!   Im not kidding!  Bits of steel missing from the tip!!!  A first for me.  

DSCN0843.JPG.b324b8b31496f8b01ea50f3efa0bdbd0.JPG 

 

 

What appears to be nural spines?   and Im always wanting to call this 'back bone' but should I be calling it 'back cartilage'? 

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Looks good! If you say it is "extremely hard" It must be almost impossible. Can't wait to see it all completed together 

  • I found this Informative 1

“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

"With hammer in hand, the open horizon of time, and dear friends by my side, what can we not accomplish together?" -Kane (Kane)

"We are in a way conquering time, reuniting members of a long lost family" -Quincy (Opabinia Blues)

"I loved reading the trip reports, I loved the sharing, I loved the educational aspect, I loved the humor. It felt like home. It still does" -Mike (Pagurus)

“The best deal I ever got was getting accepted as a member on The Fossil Forum. Not only got an invaluable pool of knowledge, but gained a loving family as well.” -Doren (caldigger)

"it really is nice, to visit the oasis that is TFF" -Tim (fossildude19)

"Life's Good! -Adam (Tidgy's Dad)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just to give everyone a better idea as to where im at with this I figured I would kinda place the pieces together and take a photo. The tail end is gettin real tuff.  Hard to tell what is rock and what is fish?   Gots a heck of a long ways to go but its gettin there. 

 

RB

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On 1/8/2021 at 2:02 PM, RJB said:

super hard rock literally beat up my Super Jack stylus!!!   Im not kidding!  Bits of steel missing from the tip!!!

Are you using the chisel tip stylus? Paleo Tools sells a diamond shaped stylus for very hard rock. You may want to change it out.

 

Looking good my friend.

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  • 3 months later...

  I havent been doing hardly any fossil prep lately but I did buy a couple more fish from Lebanon.  This one ray has both sides and only needs some crack repair, squared up and then the back cleaned up real good so I can put a french cleat on it.   Really cool fish!!!

 

RB

 

This is the better half but the tail end of this fish is much better on the 'lessor' half.  Here you can easily see the cracks.  I will try my best to get them to disapear.  I  will also soften those abrupt edges too.   A few shrimp and small fishy's also on the slab.  Very cool!!!

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This is the 'lessor' half.  The tail is much better on this half.

P5020016.JPG.c7af2af5963be82d0dfe1b1f93225b42.JPG

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That is a cool fish! Can't wait to see it after you work your magic.

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