Carboniferous Arthropleura, plants, insect wing...!

[oscarinelpiedras]

That day was so exciting, because I found a really nice specimen of Mixoneura wagneri fern, a specie that isn't very commoon in the area. And the color is...

 

I had the luck of found some Arthropleura armored pieces too (I have to clean and glue them) and a small part of a cockroach wing. Terrestrial fauna are very rare in Spain...

 

I found It on a restored coal mine from upper Carboniferous, Stephanien B of NW Spain.

Edited December 10, 2022 by oscarinelpiedras

[digit]

Beautiful Annularia and awesome color contrast in those fossils. Assuming the close-up fragment is the "cockroach wing" element? Outside of a brief amount of collecting at Mazon Creek I don't know my carboniferous material vert well at all. How can you distinguish this fragment from a fern frond pinnule? Well above my pay grade.

 

We don't get to see enough Spanish fossil material here so thanks for rounding out the diversity.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[oscarinelpiedras]

@digitHii, thank you very muchYes, that area is one of my favorites because of the color contrast. That's right, that's the wing, the main way to distinguish a wing from a leaf is by the bifurcation of its venation, and you have to know what the venation of all plant species that can be found in that area is like to so discard them. However, it is also a good idea to bring a magnifying glass of, for example, x16 magnification. Well, we can appreciate the small cells between the nerves in case it is a well-preserved wing. Even so, it is usually easier to distinguish them by intuition. Or at least I do it that way and I have already found 9 wings, the vast majority are now being investigated at a university.

 

Greetings from Spain, you will get bored by see spanish flora

[digit]

7 hours ago, oscarinelpiedras said:

That's right, that's the wing, the main way to distinguish a wing from a leaf is by the bifurcation of its venation, and you have to know what the venation of all plant species that can be found in that area is like to so discard them.

You have much more experience with the fossils in your area but I always thought that some types like Macroneuropteris had bifurcating venation toward the edges of the pinnule. This one from the Fossilera site seems to show a bit of bifurcation.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

 

[deutscheben]

Wow, spectacular finds! The colors on the ferns and wing are beautiful and the detail on those Arthropleura pieces is so fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

[oscarinelpiedras]

4 hours ago, digit said:

You have much more experience with the fossils in your area but I always thought that some types like Macroneuropteris had bifurcating venation toward the edges of the pinnule. This one from the Fossilera site seems to show a bit of bifurcation.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

Hi Ken, yes, there are many types of ferns with these type of bifurcating venation, but we will have to look at the way they bifurcate, number of veins that bifurcate, distance between veins, etc.

 

For example, for my genus Mixoneura sometimes it causes me confusion at first sight with wings.

 

However, to distinguish wings we also have to take into account that there are many types of wings...although the most common are cockroaches, which are also small, with some exceptions.

 

Tomorrow I'll look for some images for you, now I'm going to go to sleep.

 

Goodnight.

 

Óscar

[jdp]

I am wondering if the insect piece is a chunk of the pronotum of a paleodictyopteran. Shape seems wrong for a wing but I am pretty confident it's insect.