Some Peace River Micros, Hawthorn Formation, Florida

[Pagurus]

I've been searching through a bit of the Peace River matrix sent to me by Sacha after a recent auction to benefit the forum and I'd like to share some of my finds. I took these photos with a rather inadequate Digital Blue QX5 digital microscope which despite its faults is leading me down an enjoyable path to a new obsession. Any ID's I've suggested below are just my best guesses. If you know what they really are I would appreciate your expertise. Thanks for looking.

Mike

I found many ray mouth plates and what I think is a pharyngeal tooth:

Dasyatis sp.

Rhynchobatus

Ray barb piece

Shark teeth:

broken hemipristis?

fish tooth?

unknown

vertebra ( fish? )

gastropod?

Tiny Fish! (I'm kidding)

[Fossildude19]

Nice pics Mike!

Hope someone can help you with your unknowns!

Regards,

[Triops808]

Nice Fossils, seeing the variety of treasures you found I can see the attraction to Micro-fossiling:) Is that a bit of an Aetobatis tooth in the first picture on the left?

[Al Dente]

Your light colored half sphere unknown is from a modern crayfish. They form these mineral rich discs when they are about to molt. If they die during or immediately after molting these will be preserved.

Here are some examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=crayfish+gastroliths&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=D-7LUtaZH9HioAT2_IGIBw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1126&bih=775

Edited January 7, 2014 by Al Dente

[MarcoSr]

Really nice pictures. Really nice specimens. Shark unkn-1b is Hemipristis. Teeth, Shark6a and Shark unkn3a, look like Carcharhinus with the serrations worn away. Ray-mouthplate looks to be a fish mouthplate and not ray. Need an occlusal view of the Dasyatis to confirm that id. Not sure tooth1b is a fish tooth or even a tooth.

Marco Sr.

[squali]

Nice pics thanks for posting Pagurus and thanks MarcoSr for the ID's.

I have some Hawthorn matrix sorted and have to get piics and ID's together.

Its great to see the upswing in micro material on TFF

I think the gastropod is a Turitella sp.

forgive my spelling.

[Pagurus]

Nice pics Mike!

Hope someone can help you with your unknowns!

Regards,

Thanks Tim. These micros are easier on the body than fish mining. It's a much more relaxed hunt but still a fine hunt and quite a challenge to get good photos. I think I've done about the best I can with my freebie microscope but the quality of my pictures isn't nearly as good as some of the wonderful photos by Marco Sr and John Hamilton and others here on the forum. I'm hooked now, and it looks like I'll have to save my pennies for a better scope. It looks like help with the ID's has arrived. Wait, I'll get the door.

Nice Fossils, seeing the variety of treasures you found I can see the attraction to Micro-fossiling:) Is that a bit of an Aetobatis tooth in the first picture on the left?

Thanks. You're right that the variety is one of the great attractions to hunting micros. There are so many possibilities right there on the table. I'll have to look into your suggestion of an Aetobatis tooth. Thanks for letting me know.

Your light colored half sphere unknown is from a modern crayfish. They form these mineral rich discs when they are about to molt. If they die during or immediately after molting these will be preserved.

Here are some examples: https://www.google.com/search?q=crayfish+gastroliths&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=D-7LUtaZH9HioAT2_IGIBw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1126&bih=775

Al Dente, thanks so much! I had no idea. I've occasionally watched crabs as they molted and it's a difficult process for them which sometimes ends in death. I'll have to do some reading about the crayfish. It sounds fascinating. Thank you.

Really nice pictures. Really nice specimens. Shark unkn-1b is Hemipristis. Teeth, Shark6a and Shark unkn3a, look like Carcharhinus with the serrations worn away. Ray-mouthplate looks to be a fish mouthplate and not ray. Need an occlusal view of the Dasyatis to confirm that id. Not sure tooth1b is a fish tooth or even a tooth.

Marco Sr.

Thanks for taking the time to ID some of my finds. I'm on a slow learning curve. I had a hard time getting good views of the teeth, they wouldn't stand straight the way I told them to. I used double-sided tape on a few (I just laid the tape flat and stuck them to it). I'll try to get an occlusal view of the Dasyatis, but it's been hard to get it in good focus. I'm glad you like the pictures. When I compare them to yours I realize how much I need to do to get better ones.

Nice pics thanks for posting Pagurus and thanks MarcoSr for the ID's.

I have some Hawthorn matrix sorted and have to get piics and ID's together.

Its great to see the upswing in micro material on TFF

I think the gastropod is a Turitella sp.

forgive my spelling.

Thanks for looking, squali. I'd love to see some of your finds too. It does take a lot of time though. That little gastropod does look like Turritella but it's so tiny and a bit damaged so I couldn't be sure. When the snails are this young they often don't have all the details of the adults. I don't know anything about Turritella development. I've kept some modern whelk eggs in saltwater aquaria and watched them develop, and the young only have a very general outline of the fully formed adults. I imagine it's similar with turritella.

[MarcoSr]

Thanks for taking the time to ID some of my finds. I'm on a slow learning curve. I had a hard time getting good views of the teeth, they wouldn't stand straight the way I told them to. I used double-sided tape on a few (I just laid the tape flat and stuck them to it). I'll try to get an occlusal view of the Dasyatis, but it's been hard to get it in good focus. I'm glad you like the pictures. When I compare them to yours I realize how much I need to do to get better ones.

.

You can use clay or wax to position teeth. But you can damage fragile micros so you have to be very careful. I really try to get different views by changing the angle of my microscope in relation to the tooth. It is easier to shoot straight down but sometimes I really angle my microscope to get a view that is close to an occlusal or basal view that I would otherwise need to use clay or wax to get a true view. Microscopes just don’t have the depth of field that a good camera does. So a lot of the time it is difficult to get into focus the entire specimen especially if it isn’t flat. You have to determine what the most important features of the specimen are and try to get those in focus and go with that. I typically manually tweak the automatic focus view to do this. You can use stacking software programs to fix the depth of field by stacking multiple images. For me, this takes too long and I don’t use stacking software. Your pictures are already very good. The most important thing is to be able to see the features of the specimen so an id can be made. Aesthetics are nice but not necessary for an accurate id.

Marco Sr.

[Mediospirifer]

Pagurus:

I'm still new to micros myself (and I'll probably still be saying that a year fom now), but I think I saw something that resembled your "gastropod" in one of my new books.... (goes to find a reference) ....well, Cushman's "Foraminifera" has a photo of a Turritellella spirans Cushman and Waters (Pennsylvanian, from Texas) on Plate 4 that sort-of looks like your photo. The image size is about 2 cm, with 100x magnification. The text says the genus is found "Silurian to Recent". There are a few other genuses that also have a similar growth pattern: Terebralina regularis Terquem (Jurassic) and Turrelina andreaei Cushman (Jurassic to Recent) on Plate 27, with similar-sized or slightly larger specimens pictured.

I don't know how big your specimen is, but if it's a mm or less, it could easily be a foram!

I hope this is helpful. You have a nice set of micros!