West Texas Coenholectypus

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Here are some of the Coenholectypus c.f. nanus I found in West Texas last month. They were bulk sampled, screened, then bulk cleaned with KOH followed by a vinegar bath. They range from about 1 to 9 mm diameter. All I've seen on C. nanus peg it as a Pawpaw form, and the Pawpaw fm is 13 million years older than the Boquillas, so I'm not sure if these are nanus or some other species.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I also got these floating micro crinoids, broken Enchodus tooth, and sponge spicule (?) from the same bulk sample.

[Roz]

Excellent finds! Beautiful echs for sure..

I am not sure I follow you about the bulk sample. Do you

mean you went to one site and took shovels full, and all those

echs came from where you dug?

[Bill]

This might help.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/pro...taxon.jsp?id=98

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Yeah Roz, I went out in the middle of nowhere with a buddy looking for Hemiaster jacksoni and we found plenty of them. While working a soft layer I noticed little specks in the matrix, cleaned one in my mouth, called it Coenholectypus, grabbed a 5 gallon bucket of matrix on the way out, and good all the stuff you see from that one bucket. I think my friend and I took a couple thousand echies that day including 10 examples of some strange form of Holaster. I plan to take George Phillips from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science out there during his next TX echie trip.

[Roz]

WOW, George will love that! Sure right up his alley!

That is something I don't do often enough, dig extra to take home, just in case..

but gonna start doing that..

[jax]

Wow those are neat. I live in the DFW area and we have plenty of unchins but I have neve found any that small. I make the drive to Abilene,Tx for work out I-20 a few times a month and I pass plenty of huge road cuts but have never stopped. Ever been up that way before??

I like the sand dollars you find too. about what part of TX do you find those?

Thanks

Justin

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Jax

A buddy sent me to his Protoscutella site early this year and asked that I allow the site to weather in anticipation of his next visit. On that note I'll say that those sand dollars come from the Weches formation (Eocene) of east Texas. I've also taken some nice Mellita quinquesperforata sand dollars from the TX coast in the Port Aransas area although I've heard of them being found well up the coast and all the way down to the Land Cut near Port Mansfield. I take my little boat out on calm days and hop between spoil islands to find numbers of these late Pleistocene sand dollars. That's a pretty fun gig - lob live shrimp to hungry trout, reds, flounder, drum, and sheepshead and then look for fossils mid day.

I've never worked that I-20 stretch you mentioned.