Platyceras with Brachiopod attached

[cabes234]

I am going to go to some real sites in eastern New York tomorrow, but I decided to check the rocks by a pond near my grandparents house where I found a couple trilobites and other Devonian fauna this summer.

And I found this really nice Platyceras specimen which it turned out had a brachiopod fossil attached near the bottom, where the opening of the shell would be located.

I highly doubt that these two organisms are articulated and fossilized together but I thought it was interesting and worth showing here.

 

 

 

 

 

[minnbuckeye]

Love the association!! Thanks for showing the two in tandom. It reminds me of a find of mine a few years back. Here is a gastropod, Liospira with a Bellerophon "attached". It is hard to look at this and not think there was some association between the two..

 

[FossilNerd]

 

Neat little find. Thanks for sharing it with us. 

 

2 hours ago, cabes234 said:

I highly doubt that these two organisms are articulated and fossilized together but I thought it was interesting and worth showing here.

I think it possible that they could have died together in the same event. Maybe a strong storm covered them both over.

 

Or… Maybe the gastropod just happened to be crawling on the brachiopod valve when it kicked the bucket.

 

Or… The brach was attached to an empty gastropod shell when it died.

 

Who knows?  But it is fun to think about the possibilities. 

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

@minnbuckeye @cabes234, lovely specimens.

 

They remind me of the children's books

 

Sharing a shell

 

and, of course

Snail and the whale

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

I have a few specimen like this, noteably a brachiopod with another brachiopod having a piggyback on top of it! Both the same species, too...

I'll see if I can dig it out.

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

 

Slightly blurry, but you get the idea!

[Sjfriend]

Lovely! Love associated pieces and hash plates. Fun to make up theories