Need Help To Id Tooth And Claw. Manitoba, Canada

[Tibble420]

Greetings! Ive had these fossils for quite a while now. Wish I had more info other than it was found in Manitoba, Canada.

If you need better pictures I can email more detailed shots but the forum has a size limit.

If nobody can identify is there a possible museum I could send them into for analysis?

[FossilDAWG]

The specimen in the 3 photos on the left is a solitary rugose coral, Lobocorallium trilobatum, which is characteristic of the Gunn Member of the Stoney Mountain Formation, a Late Ordovician formation whose only outcrop is at Stoney Mountain north of Winnipeg. The specimen on the right is also a coral, but not one that I have ever seen from Manitoba. It might be a pathological specimen; it vaguely resembles a Deiracorallium (another Stoney Mountain coral) that has somehow "doubled". Deiracorallium is usually strongly trilobate, but if it split in the juvenile stage and grew as "siamese twins" it might give something like this. Otherwise, it looks like some Tertiary or modern scleractinian corals, in which case it would not be from Manitoba as no marine Tertiary deposits occur anywhere in the province.

Robert Elias at the University of Manitoba is the expert on these corals, he may be able to give a better idea about specimen #2.

Don

Edited November 1, 2013 by FossilDAWG

[Al Dente]

The second one is similar to the modern rose coral Manicina. Here are some photos from Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=rose+coral&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=DJRzUoL2NaTnsAT4gIKgBA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1126&bih=786#q=rose+coral+manicina&tbm=isch

[Carl]

I agree that the first is a horn coral and that the second is Manicina. It is a modern coral in the West Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea and has a modest fossil record going back a few million years. The youngest marine sediments in Manitoba way older so there is basically no chance that this coral originated there. It must be anthropogenically transported, as they say: brought there by a person. It might be Johnny’s coral from the family trip to Florida in the 50s but I guess it could also be an old Native American trade object. More than likely it’s residue from someone dumping their aquarium decorations. Whatever its ultimate origins it has a story of travel to tell..