Incredible Devonian Phyllocarid with Antenna New York

[mikeymig]

 Phyllocarid

Collecting trip 4/9/2021 Devonian N.Y.

 

A beautiful Echinocaris punctata (Hall) with mandibles and antenna. This is as found unprepped and awesome.

You can see the complete mandibles under the carapace, attached pyritized brachiopods, and a first for me, pyritized antenna.

Happy collecting!

 

[Fossildude19]

Awesome find, Mikey!   

 

[oilshale]

Wow, great find - that would be very interesting to see a CT scan of it. Because of the pyrite you should get a good contrast.

[FossilDAWG]

Way cool!  Have structures such as antennae been described from the species before?  I wonder if there are other structures such as appendages buried in the matrix.  Thomas' suggestion of a CT scan is a good one if you have a way of getting that done.  This might be a scientifically important find.

 

Don

[Malcolmt]

Wow!!!

[jpc]

Cool...As a guy who rarely delves into the Paleozoic and know very little about phyllocarids, can you show me what we are looking at.  

[Jeffrey P]

First off, I've never seen an Echinocaris robust enough to remove from the matrix. Then there are the intact mandibles and those pyritized brachiopods and bryozoans. I assume that you are assuming those other structures are antennae. Given that I've never seen antennae preserved on a phyllocarid, I am not sure, but suspect you're right. I agree with others, a potentially important specimen. Congratulations Mikey and thanks for sharing it.   

[mikeymig]

I'm not someone that jumps to conclusions or attempts sensenatiolism with my finds. I've examined this specimen under the microscope and I feel that these are the antenna of the Phyllocarid. This is a very low energy environment and fossils in this unit are as they were at the bottom of the Devonian Sea 380 million years ago. I have found more than a few Phyllocarids in my time. My gut told me that what I was looking at the moment I found this specimen is the animals antenna. I will get it prepared and then I can verify my assertion. They are pyritized and have an attachment articulation where the two sides meet. jpc Here is a snapshot of line drawings from Halls vol.7. It shows a specimen like mine with the mandibles and what the animal looks like complete. Unfortunately the telson (tail) was lost to the elements before I found it. 

[jpc]

thanks, Mike.  

 

[Notidanodon]

Great find! If you ct scanned it beforehand, the prepper could get a better idea of where things are and if something goes wrong, an image could be saved for science