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What Type Of Foliage Or Maybe Not?


paleoflor

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On 10/16/2011 at 11:41 AM, paleoflor said:

I'll also mail your suggestion to some of the paleobotanists I know to hear their opinion on it.

Hey Tim,

Did You ever determine the identity of this fossil?

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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Six years down the road, the specimen has not yet been identified with certainty, unfortunately. The amount of documentation I have on it (mostly personal communications with different paleobotanists and paleoentomologists) has increased significantly, though, and some options discussed in this thread can probably be ruled out. Spring 2014, I sent the specimen to Prof. Jörg Schneider at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Germany) for study. At Freiberg minor preparation was performed to expose more of the specimen. While there, it was shown to a number of different paleoentomologists and paleobotanists, who have provided me with their thoughts. In Fall 2014, the specimen was returned to me, after Prof. Schneider and his coworkers concluded that this was almost definitely not an insect wing. Spring 2015, in pursuit of more information on Lesleya, I sent photographs of the specimen to Dr. Richard Leary, an authority on this plant fossil genus. According to him, the specimen could well be Lesleya, reassuring me that the size of the specimen (about 9 cm) is no issue, even though Lesleya leafs are typically much larger, since he has found specimens as small as 2 cm in the Carboniferous of Illinois. Unfortunately, Dr. Leary is retired and was not interested in me sending the specimen to him for further study. I have subsequently been in contact with a number of Dutch paleobotanists, in order to consider the Lesleya-option further in the context of regional geology. Unfortunately, they said that there are no previous records of Lesleya from the Netherlands. Moreover, they noted that my specimen does not resemble any examples of Lesleya from abroad that they are familiar with. Interestingly enough, for years now, all the paleobotanists I have contacted tend to suggest that this is something insectan, while all the paleoentomologists suggest that this is something vegetative. Nowadays, I tend more towards something vegetative, though the assymetry of the leaf makes it difficult to assign this specimen to Lesleya. Earlier this year, a friend of mine has been in contact with a paleobotanist from Denmark who wrote that this may rather be something new. Long story short: the story is not over yet!

Searching for green in the dark grey.

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