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BobWill

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I heard from a friend that someone recently posted a bryozoan I found here but I missed seeing it and I can't find it so they may have been mistaken. However, that reminded me that I had only posted it on Facebook so I thought you might like seeing it here too. I'm pretty sure it is a Tabulipora carbonaria which must have been named by a lumper since it appears in such a wide variety of forms. It can be branching, encrusting or massive. The latter is how you describe one than is self-encrusting, forming a sub-hemispherical mound, much like a stromatolite.

 

This is one of the branching forms and came from the Finis Shale of Jack County Texas, a Late Pennsylvanian member of the Graham Formation. The ones I usually find are much smaller, with a diameter less than 3 mm. When I walked up on this I thought it was a burrow infill until I noticed the zooecia. Then I assumed it was the encrusting type until I look at a cross-section with a loupe. Maybe some of you find them this big normally but this is a first for me.

 

In situ image

122415340_B.collectedin-situ.thumb.jpg.ff9d2b4c29c6df5a67663bec64e7251a.jpg

 

ready to assemble

526428826_C.laidout.jpeg.31f2d3eb74ed5245fdeabccf9e4686a7.jpeg

 

close-up of side

2078943955_E.sideview.thumb.jpg.c439f2c178a51c04a9423de8ec49c24a.jpg

 

closer

529023119_F.close-upofside.thumb.jpg.d8acfb3d7c3c8dc45c8bf72c8dc9ac9d.jpg

 

 

end view, millimeter scale

1044987158_G.endview.thumb.jpg.51b4d188c984012f55b34248229e6b66.jpg

 

close-up of end

1366463571_I.extremeclose-up.thumb.jpg.cb8d45c89ee4fe95a67c8fc61d2fbf0f.jpg

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great find! Bryozoans are always interesting, not many people work on it like on Serpulids or Corals. But, they tell more about the ecology than most of the (often more pretty...) Ammonites, Fisches or marine reptiles. I love the bryozoans, that are normally really smaller than yours. Never found one in this size, my hughes one was around 5 cm...

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4 hours ago, erose said:

NICE! Bryozoans can really be all over the place in size and morphology. 

I had no idea until I found this. Dr. Nestell saw it and to talked me out of it. Now he wants some more pieces to slice-n-dice!

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Very cool! Here's one of my favorite bryozoan groups. The world-famous Hamburger Bryozoan Chamber Choir.

 

Kammerchor.JPG.d604d0ffa567903e52deae98e1ed2460.JPG

 

Actually it's a colony of Murinopsia francqua from the Late Cretaceous Maastrichtian from Basbeck in Lower Saxony.

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Nice chunky bryozoan puzzle. :thumbsu:

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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1 hour ago, LanceH said:

Too big for Bryozoa more likely some type of Heliospongia or similar sponge.

Do you mean the colony is too big or that the opening are too large?

This look like classic bryozoan morphology to me including autozooids and mesopores. 

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Tortoise Friend.

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Sorry, I'm not seeing an zooids and the cross section and bumpage look like sponge to me.   Bryozoans and the zooids spaces are much more regular almost geometrical in arrangement.   It look exactly like the large Heliospongia me and nothing like the typical relatively tiny branching bryzoans we have.

 

This is the first Heliospongia I have seen from the Finis which is why it is unfamiliar.  That also means it's a very, very rare find.  I have tons of Heliospongia from other sites.

I would have to see it in person.

Edited by LanceH
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That’s wonderful! I haven’t seen a fosdil bryozoan preserved like that. Glad you could rescue it! 
The encrusting forms are what I find here mostly. 

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9 hours ago, LanceH said:

Sorry, I'm not seeing an zooids and the cross section and bumpage look like sponge to me.   Bryozoans and the zooids spaces are much more regular almost geometrical in arrangement.   It look exactly like the large Heliospongia me and nothing like the typical relatively tiny branching bryzoans we have.

 

This is the first Heliospongia I have seen from the Finis which is why it is unfamiliar.  That also means it's a very, very rare find.  I have tons of Heliospongia from other sites.

I would have to see it in person.


Bobwill’s specimen looks like bryozoan in cross section to me. I can see zooid tubes radiating outward. Compare with this heliosponge from Missourian’s collection found here-http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/25240-pennsylvanian-sponges-from-kansas-missouri/

 

The second photo is Missourian’s heliosponge. Notice the more sponge-like texture.

 

432BE075-D4C2-4ADD-A58A-210289C8E301.thumb.jpeg.94a9d488ebd892385ac0bcfe8bca7eb9.jpeg
 

 

25953514-1730-4B0A-842D-0564CFCBFE58.jpeg

Edited by Al Dente
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Tabulipora maculosa - bryozoan - Pennsylvanian - Gzhelian Stage - 18 (lakeneosho.org)

 

not easy or possible to say what type of Tabulipora it is (or Tabulipora in general, bryoans are really not easy... started working on bryozoans from upper cretaceous of westfalia many years ago and stopped it after some years, never understood them total). You need thin slices, lot of material, perfect conditon and a lot of patience... 

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Here are zooids on some of our branching bryozoans Rhombopora and Tabulipora.  The zooid spaces are only a surface feature created by the animals they don't go to the core of the stem.    
 

2007-01-27-146-800.jpg

2009-09-06-019-800.jpg

Edited by LanceH
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Here is what I have tentatively ID'd as "Heliospongia".  The cross section views above are infilled sponges.2020-02-03-163817-1000.thumb.jpg.56e62a8a747c0bd29362df1b346d2008.jpg
 

Edited by LanceH
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  • 3 months later...
On 12/18/2022 at 9:01 PM, LanceH said:

Here are zooids on some of our branching bryozoans Rhombopora and Tabulipora.  The zooid spaces are only a surface feature created by the animals they don't go to the core of the stem.    
 

 

 

I don't know how I missed seeing this from December. You are right about pores only being a surface feature on encrusting bryozoans but not on ramose, or branching forms. This illustration shows what the inside looks like.

 

1361390565_ramosetrepostome.jpg.de68dce6ab36cdf2ac32a841b5fef821.jpg

 

 

When we walked up on these even Cris Flis thought they were borrows because of their large size but luckily I got down close enough to see what we had. Here's what they looked like on the ground.

 

IMG_20221022_100627895.thumb.jpg.fb073cc2c13ea750fdeddb1c224c83b6.jpg

 

 

 

I had no idea branching bryozoans could be this big but Dr. Nestell said that they were indeed Tabulipora carbonaria.    He asked me to go back and get a few more of them so they could mount some thin slices for a closer look. I have found plenty of the self-encrusting form of these there but Mark McK mentioned in his book that the same species could be lamellate, laminate or ramose. Must have been named by a lumper.

 

I agree with the ID of the Heliospongia excavata for the similar looking ones you posted and they are on Mark's fauna list for the Finis but I haven't found them there either. They wouldn't have pores like a bryozoan though. Dr. Nestell was surprised by how well preserved these were and his SEM Images confirmed the ID.

 

 

 

 

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