araucaria1959 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 (edited) Hello, here are two different specimens I bought 2 – 3 years ago from a trustworthy Chinese dealer via ebay; the specimens were labelled as lower Cambrian (Chengjiang biota): Quiongszhusi Section Heilinpu Formation Locality : Maotianshan They look like graptolites from the order Graptoloidea. However, the earliest graptoloidea are known from the lowermost ordovician. Meanwhile, a pterobranchia from the order Rhabdopleurida was described from the Atdabanian of the Chengjiang biota (Galeaplumosus) as the earliest pterobranchia; however, this is not a graptolite, only a close relative. Thus, it became clear that no real graptolites are known (described) from the Chengjiang biota. This rises several possibilities: (i) the fossils shown here are not graptolites, but something different (but what?) (ii) the fossils are the oldest graptolites/graptoloidea and so far undescribed. However, this seems extremely unlikely since several specimens of that kind were sold and (as is shown on one specimen) they don’t seem to be rare; so it’s very improbable that they were not noticed until now. (iii) the fossils are indeed graptoloid graptolites, but from younger strata (Ordovician, Silurian?) and locality and stratigraphic information are wrong. However, the seller seemed trustworthy to me with a lot of knowledge about the fossils from his area and hunts fossils in the field himself (though I don’t know whether he collected these two specimens himself). Mislabelling may happen more easily if fossils are sold second hand. I prefer (iii), but perhaps somebody may know more about these fossils or where they come from. Thanks! araucaria1959 Edited September 1, 2012 by araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyMorales Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Hi are you aware of http://www.graptolite.net Some guy in Poland is a researcher in graptolites. I ran across it while doing research on bryozoa, something that can look like graptolites. His site also has some links. If there is a place where you can ID your fossil that is it. I do have a question, and I'm not being sarcastic. Why would you go to the trouble of buying a graptolyte fossil as you did? good luck finding out what you have. Johnny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Hello Johnny, it is interesting to buy things that are unusual or unknown and to find out more about them. Many new taxa from the Chengjiang biota have still to be described, which may last years. I have some other undescribed Chengjiang material, hoping to find out the ID in the future when it has been described someday. However, with the description of a rhabdopleurid last year it became clear that graptolithes in fact are unknown from Chengjiang and that age, otherwise it would have been mentioned in the publication about rhabdopleurida. That's why I started the discussion in the first post and considered other possibilities about the origin of my specimens. araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyMorales Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 (edited) OK, I was curious, because being that you are in Germany has some locations with spectacular fossils I was wondering how you could ever get bored with those. Isn't Germany the location where they found the first couple of laggerstaten (spelling ?) I read once the quarries where they were found are now closed, and when they went out of business, fossil collecting was stopped too. Is that true? If so is anyone trying to open them just to collect. It seems like it would be worth it for scientific reasons alone. In regards to your fossil, if you didn't find out yet (you did not say) here is a link that has a photo of a fossil from the silurian that looks very much like yours. It's in a group of fossils found in Scotland. http://trifoss.com/p...oducts_id=1906 On my computer it appears in the 2nd photo down. Edited October 19, 2012 by jonathanseer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Thanks for the link, but this is not exactly the material I have. I tried already many picture searches to find out from what locality my material may actually come from. It's probably from China, because I got it from there. There are several famous locations in Germany, and some of them are closed for private collectors (e.g. Messel, middle eocene). However, there are no fossils occuring in Germany from precambrian times or from the cambrian explosion (lower cambrian) - except for some glacial drift fossils in northern germany; most of them (but not all) are trace fossils. araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyMorales Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 You misunderstood. I did not say your fossil was from Scotland. I said that a graptolyte that matches yours on the important points, the shape, the pairings is a photo of a fossil found in Scotland from the Silurian. I gave you the link so you could look at it yourself to see the resemblence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Nice specimens... did you get them from Jacky Lee? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Hi are you aware of http://www.graptolite.net Some guy in Poland is a researcher in graptolites. I ran across it while doing research on bryozoa, something that can look like graptolites. His site also has some links. If there is a place where you can ID your fossil that is it. I do have a question, and I'm not being sarcastic. Why would you go to the trouble of buying a graptolyte fossil as you did? good luck finding out what you have. Johnny Nice Link ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/jorgm/WebJorg07/malresearch.htm http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842678/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 (edited) I can't remember it with 100 % certainty, but I think it was Jacky Lee. I would not have bought such "doubtful" material (doubtful with regard to stratigraphic age and locality) from someone without much experience in that area or a "second-hand"- or "third-hand"-seller. Labels can be mistaken easily if the seller is not very experienced himself with the material he sells. Thanks for the interesting links!! araucaria1959 Edited October 20, 2012 by araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 I can't remember it with 100 % certainty, but I think it was Jacky Lee. I would not have bought such "doubtful" material (doubtful with regard to stratigraphic age and locality) from someone without much experience in that area or a "second-hand"- or "third-hand"-seller. Labels can be mistaken easily if the seller is not very experienced himself with the material he sells. Thanks for the interesting links!! araucaria1959 You might want to post the Graptolites here on this web site: http://oldasthehills.proboards.com/index.cgi Dr Joe Botting and Dr Lucy Muir at the paleo experts here currently stationed in Nangjing China.... they may be able to comment as Lucy is writting some papers on evolution of Graptolites base on Fezouta Lagerstatten material etc... Good Luck on your quest. You can also contact them directly from wwww.academia.edu PL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 Thank you for that link - I signed in and posted the specimens. Now we have to wait and see ... araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Thank you for that link - I signed in and posted the specimens. Now we have to wait and see ... araucaria1959 You are welcome. In the future you might want to open an account with Flicker or Photobucket upload the pics there and copy the links to the UK forum as the Fossil Forum links may not work as you have to be a member of the TFF to be able to see the pictures that you uploaded. Joe may not be a member of TFF.... I don`t think he is.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 Hello, I already got the answer from Dr Joe Botting. The graptolites "appear to be at least mostly a Glyptograptus/ Normalograptus sp.", aged middle to upper ordovician, possibly early silurian. I also got the information that there are many late ordovician shales in the area (as I already supposed) and many graptolite-rich localities in Guizhou, Yunnan and nearby; so it is not possible to assign the specimens to a specific locality. It is even not sure that they are from China at all. In my first post when I opened this thread, I prefered possibility (iii) as the most probable. Thanks to the experts, it is now clear that this is right, and we have an ID and a tentative age for the specimens. Thank you very much altogether - araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 Here is a link to Normalograptus from the Barrandian aera (Czech Republic) - the stone shows (lithologically) some similarites with my specimens; age is late Katian or Hirnantian: http://www.google.de/imgres?q=Normalograptus&num=10&hl=de&tbm=isch&tbnid=DZA3PbVbMz69yM:&imgrefurl=http://www2.gli.cas.cz/storch/projects.html&docid=pPkbAIJx9XvJ8M&imgurl=http://www2.gli.cas.cz/storch/gallery/laticeps.jpg&w=362&h=800&ei=na2DUNntCZDJsgaLtYGgCg&zoom=1&biw=1246&bih=857&iact=rc&dur=47&sig=115305578462837720505&page=1&tbnh=158&tbnw=69&start=0&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0,i:102&tx=34&ty=95 and this is a Glyptograptus, also on a stone with lithological features like my material, from a chinese website, but no locality or area mentioned in the english version: http://www.google.de/imgres?q=Glyptograptus&hl=de&tbm=isch&tbnid=ksH3qsxvc7jbvM:&imgrefurl=http://jpkc.cug.edu.cn/jpkc/dsx/kttk1.htm&docid=NsL6LxU0A93bBM&imgurl=http://jpkc.cug.edu.cn/jpkc/dsx/gsw.files/bb/3/32-1.jpg&w=500&h=268&ei=MK-DUPKoL4f6sgbEnYHIBA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=93&vpy=341&dur=4516&hovh=164&hovw=307&tx=153&ty=79&sig=115305578462837720505&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=216&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0,i:93&biw=1246&bih=857 araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 They're also similar to some of the Australian graptos I'm seeing for sale on Ebay right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
araucaria1959 Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 I found what you mean (Matlock Victoria); they are labelled as cambrian. araucaria1959 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
izak_ Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Yes, they do look a lot like graptolites! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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