Euconospira - King Of The Pennsylvanian Gastropods

[Missourian]

These elegant shells are highly sought after here in Kansas City:

 

 

Perfect specimens are hard to come by. They tend to be hollow, and often break when extracted from the limestone. This one was lucky:

 

 

The bottom of the shell is flat:

 

 

They can reach up to four inches in size. This is my largest:

 

 

Some specimens retain a color pattern:

 

 

Another, with slightly better colors:

 

 

Here, some sponges had bored into the base of the shell:

 

 

Euconospira isn't the largest gastropod we find around here. That honor goes to Shansiella:

 

 

This one is even bigger, but it is broken. Hidden from view here, the shell extends all the way to the left edge of the rock:

 

 

A smaller, but higher quality Shansiella:

 

 

[Indy]

Congratulations...

The Euconospira you found is an outstanding specimen

They are not known from my Pennsylvanian locality in St. Louis

:greenwnvy:

The "higher quality Shansiella"

Excellent preservation ... Beautiful specimen

Appears to be a different species than the ones

found at my locality in St. Louis ... Link

Edited November 27, 2011 by Indy

[terriW]

since gastropods seem to be the only thing i find in my local... these are gorgeous! thanks!

[piranha]

Fantastic fossils... Thanks for posting!

[Roz]

I see why Euconospira is king.. I don't know if I have

seen one of those .. I see why they are sought out, real

treasures..

The Shansiellas are favorites of mine..

[Missourian]

I've seen Euconospira in only three spots, all of them limestone.

 

Two of the beds are oolites with quite diverse molluscan faunas. The specimens here are from these two.

 

One other fragment was associated with abundant scaphopods and bellerophontids in a unique, algal-reef-associated deposit.

[Sinopaleus]

very cool! thanks for sharing!