MarcoSr Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 Dr. Stephen Godfrey, the Curator of Paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum, has a special interest in bones and coprolites with bite marks. I recently found the below fish coprolite (20 mm length) with bite marks in the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia and donated it to the Calvert Marine Museum. Some bite marks are infilled with Pyrite. It is by far the nicest example of a fish coprolite with bite marks that I’ve seen from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia (I’ve collected over 50,000 fish coprolites (shark, ray and bony fish) from the Nanjemoy Formation over the last 25 years or so.). When I sent the bitten coprolite to the Calvert Marine Museum, I also sent along a donation of a gallon bag of regular fish coprolites from the Nanjemoy Formation. Below is Stephen’s acknowledgement of the coprolite donation in the Ecphora newsletter. Marco Sr. 2 13 "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristineR Posted August 25, 2021 Share Posted August 25, 2021 Dr. Godfrey may have an Ig Nobel in his future. This is a perfect example of research that first makes people laugh, then makes them think. I am amazed that this is a subject of study, and you knew who would use it to expand the body of knowledge. Good job Marco! And congratulations on making your contribution. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted August 25, 2021 Author Share Posted August 25, 2021 4 hours ago, Christine.Rowland said: Dr. Godfrey may have an Ig Nobel in his future. This is a perfect example of research that first makes people laugh, then makes them think. I am amazed that this is a subject of study, and you knew who would use it to expand the body of knowledge. Good job Marco! And congratulations on making your contribution. I interface with a lot of different researchers (currently 11 different researchers), and there are a lot of very unexpected areas of interest with fossils. If you have an unusual, unique fossil specimen, there is probably a researcher somewhere that will be interested in studying it. The real hard part is finding the right researcher that is interested. Marco Sr. 3 "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted August 25, 2021 Share Posted August 25, 2021 Sounds like we need to commandeer the source code for one of the dating apps and make our over paleo version of match.com. Maybe I should register paleomatch.com just to be sure. Cheers. -Ken 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted August 26, 2021 Author Share Posted August 26, 2021 37 minutes ago, digit said: Sounds like we need to commandeer the source code for one of the dating apps and make our over paleo version of match.com. Maybe I should register paleomatch.com just to be sure. Cheers. -Ken Ken It would be nice if there was a site where researchers could indicate the type of fossils that they were interested in. However, I don't know how many researchers would post on it. They might be concerned about being inundated with people wanting to show them common stuff or unrelated fossils. I've found the best way to find researchers is by searching the web for PDFs of papers that deal with the fossil types, time periods and geographic locations that match my fossils. A lot of papers give e-mail addresses for the authors. I then e-mail pictures (If the pictures aren't clear and detailed, you won't hear back) of some of my rarer specimens to the researcher that are in-line with what they are describing in their paper. I usually get a response back, but I have a good amount of rare and unusual fossils, and very large sample sizes, that pique their interest. Marco Sr. 3 "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted August 26, 2021 Share Posted August 26, 2021 Yup. Likely, the best way of connecting with specialists doing research in areas that match your fossil finds. Cheers. -Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Hoddson Posted August 26, 2021 Share Posted August 26, 2021 Honestly, I've never given the idea of scavenger marks on a coprolite any thought. I've read of predator/scavenger marks on bone, and even a report of marks on a dinosaur bone with marks identical to those left by beetles use in cleaning hunting trophies. I'll definitely be searching for more information on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted August 27, 2021 Author Share Posted August 27, 2021 16 hours ago, Bill Hoddson said: Honestly, I've never given the idea of scavenger marks on a coprolite any thought. I've read of predator/scavenger marks on bone, and even a report of marks on a dinosaur bone with marks identical to those left by beetles use in cleaning hunting trophies. I'll definitely be searching for more information on this. Bitten coprolites have been described in a number of papers. Below is a figure that shows several bitten coprolites in the 2020 paper in Lethaia “Coprolites from shallow marine deposits of the Nanjemoy Formation, Lower Eocene of Virginia, USA“ which I am a co-author. Marco Sr. "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Styles Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 This is really cool! I have what I believe is a similar piece from the cretaceous of Texas. It doesn’t immediately strike me as coprolite (but rather geologic?? - coprolites are a huge black hole in my knowledge) but has very similar bite / claw marks. Haven’t been able to get much info or buy-in when showing it around to the local groups. Do you know if Dr Godfrey’s focus includes the cretaceous? Images below. Piece is ~ 3” in length. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted August 24, 2022 Author Share Posted August 24, 2022 12 hours ago, Styles said: This is really cool! I have what I believe is a similar piece from the cretaceous of Texas. It doesn’t immediately strike me as coprolite (but rather geologic?? - coprolites are a huge black hole in my knowledge) but has very similar bite / claw marks. Haven’t been able to get much info or buy-in when showing it around to the local groups. Do you know if Dr Godfrey’s focus includes the cretaceous? Images below. Piece is ~ 3” in length. Wow, that is an interesting specimen. The marks are especially interesting. The shape of the specimen reminds me more of an infilled crab or shrimp burrow than a coprolite. Do you know what those bulbous inclusions are? I can't really tell from the pictures. When I enlarge your pictures, the texture of the inclusions really doesn't look like bone. If the inclusions are geologic, it makes it unlikely that the specimen is a coprolite. In that case, the marks could be fossilized mud ripples, which I've seen before. They could also be a trace fossil of some kind. However, it is remotely possible that a coprolite was pressed into geologic gravel before it fossilized. I have hundreds of coprolites that are completely flattened because they were covered, compressed and flattened before they fossilized. However, none of them have geologic inclusions. I know Dr. Godfrey has written about Paleocene and Miocene bitten coprolites. He was interested in my coprolite, which is Eocene in age. So I would expect he would also be interested in a Cretaceous bitten coprolite if this specimen turned out to be one. Marco Sr. "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Styles Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Wow great info!! Some very knowledgeable here on this forum. Appreciate your response and thoughts. Congrats again on your contribution to Dr Godfrey’s work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBkansas Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 (edited) Just recently saw the Disney+ documentary "The Croc that ate Jaws," Dr. Godfrey showed a crocodile coprolite with an un even shark bite (which he suggests may indicate the coprolite was in the crocodile at the time of the bite). Edited August 24, 2022 by JBkansas 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted August 24, 2022 Author Share Posted August 24, 2022 42 minutes ago, JBkansas said: Just recently saw the Disney+ documentary "The Croc that ate Jaws," Dr. Godfrey showed a crocodile coprolite with an un even shark bite (which he suggests may indicate the coprolite was in the crocodile at the time of the bite). That is interesting. I wish I had Disney+ as I would really like to see that documentary. Marco Sr. "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBkansas Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 1 hour ago, MarcoSr said: That is interesting. I wish I had Disney+ as I would really like to see that documentary. Marco Sr. Also on Hulu if you have that: https://www.hulu.com/series/47c0413c-0039-4b81-9f86-c9fcd0264d8c 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted January 31, 2023 Author Share Posted January 31, 2023 The below picture and caption were in the December 2022 issue of The ECPHORA which is the newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club: Marco Sr. 1 2 "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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