Fossil fishes from central Italy

[Francesco1994]

Hello everyone !

I received this fossil as a gift from my grandfather, a retired geologist. I've always wondered if it was possible to trace the species of the two fish. The fossil was presumably taken in an area of central Italy, probably in the Apennine area of Lazio or Abruzzo.
the two fish measure just under 3 cm.
Moreover, do you think it would make sense to continue cleaning the surface completely to perhaps discover new ones? Thanks so much !

[jpc]

Hello and welcome.  Nice little fishes.  I can't tell you what they are but I would not clean it up any more.  You may end up making holes in a nice slab of rock and not find anything and end up with an ugly slab of rock.  BUT, if you take it to the local hospital and ask them nicely they might x-ray it for you.  Then you could see if there are additional fishes in there.  

[Fossildude19]

These look like Gosiuteichthys parvus from the Green River Formation in Wyoming, to me. 

[FossilDAWG]

I agree with Fossildude19.  If they actually are from Italy, @oilshale would likely recognize them.

 

Don

[jpc]

3 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

These look like Gosiuteichthys parvus from the Green River Formation in Wyoming, to me. 

I had the same initial reaction but I have never seen Wyoming Green River Fm rock that looks like this.  

[Francesco1994]

I'm 99% sure that they're from Italy ! The only problem is that my granpa doesn't remember which is the exact area of central Italy 

[jdp]

Could these be from Bolca in Veneto?

[Francesco1994]

8 minutes ago, jdp said:

Could these be from Bolca in Veneto?

Too north, I think they come from an area included in the Apennine area of Lazio and Abruzzo, but I'm not sure.

[FranzBernhard]

Is there any other stuff in the slab? The white spots and lines are all scuffs and scratches? Lots of tiny black pits(?) or holes(?).

Franz Bernhard

[jdp]

Yes, I'm aware of where Abruzzo and Lazio are. I am simply saying that these look a lot like material I have personally seen from/at Bolca and I am wondering if the locality is correct. That is all.

 

Regardless, the identity of these fish is some sort of clupeid (aringue). There are a handful of species at Bolca. I am unsure of whether there are known fossils from further south along the Appennini but I can check.

 

[Francesco1994]

On 1/19/2023 at 2:29 PM, jdp said:

Yes, I'm aware of where Abruzzo and Lazio are. I am simply saying that these look a lot like material I have personally seen from/at Bolca and I am wondering if the locality is correct. That is all.

 

Regardless, the identity of these fish is some sort of clupeid (aringue). There are a handful of species at Bolca. I am unsure of whether there are known fossils from further south along the Appennini but I can check.

 

UPDATE !

You were right! I apologize if I tried to mislead I discovered that the fossil comes from Bolca! I heard from my grandfather and the fossil was given to him by my grandmother's brother, also a geologist. So I wrote to my uncle and I confirmed your hypothesis!Congratulations for the glance! 
So at this point I would like to ask if anyone knows the species of the two small Venetian fish

[jdp]

There's a bunch of clupeids from Bolca, and most have not been recently worked on. The most common is Bolcaichthys catopygopterus. The anatomy doesn't entirely line up but that could just be my impression. There are, however, a ton of other species of clupeid from Bolca so it is certainly possible this is one of the others. You might get in touch with Giorgio Carnevale at Universita degli Studi di Torino, who might be able to give you a better idea of what you have. I will say, though, that I believe fossils are now covered by Italian patrimony law so I am unsure of whether that will affect your fossil here.

[Francesco1994]

1 hour ago, jdp said:

There's a bunch of clupeids from Bolca, and most have not been recently worked on. The most common is Bolcaichthys catopygopterus. The anatomy doesn't entirely line up but that could just be my impression. There are, however, a ton of other species of clupeid from Bolca so it is certainly possible this is one of the others. You might get in touch with Giorgio Carnevale at Universita degli Studi di Torino, who might be able to give you a better idea of what you have. I will say, though, that I believe fossils are now covered by Italian patrimony law so I am unsure of whether that will affect your fossil here.

I know the professor by name, I have read some of his articles.  I think I'll contact him, I've read that Bolca's residents can trade fish of little scientific interest.  if my two fish should have it I would be happy to send them to the professor maybe they belong to a new species

[Francesco1994]

Mistery "solved"

 

First of all I wanted to apologize for the inaccuracies relating to the place of discovery that led astray, I will try to read up better next time :(. The fact is that blindly trusting the word of whoever gave me the fossil was not helpful, but the grandpa is always grandpa
I contacted Professor Carnevale, a very kind and extremely helpful person, read his articles if you happen to, they are very interesting and well written, and he confirmed to me that ....... the matrix is not from Bolca !
The two clupeids actually look like pellonulini, Gosiutichthys parvus type of the Green River Formation.
I'm quite happy with this, as they are quite rare to find in those areas compared to other fish and it only adds numbers to my green river fish collection , which I'm looking to expand :).