Fred The Eryops And Mary The Dimetrodon!

[dinodigger]

Hey gang,

Its been a while since I posted; museum here in Seymour is going great! 4000 visitors from june to December, so we're pretty pleased. Meanwhile I have been digging like mad every day on five new bone beds. I'm starting to stretch thin on 4 ranches with incredible vertebrate assemblages of both Arroyo formation and the older Clyde formation of the Permian.

The Eryops beds have given up two enormous Eryops skulls- I LOVE Eryops. He's the last of the big-bodied amphibians. We won't see frogs for another 40 million years or so. Fred the Eryops has a great skull, complete upper skull and both lower jaws with GREAT teeth and palatal fangs. Charlie is the other Eryops skull, so far we have a MASSIVE lower jaw that pretty much Dwarfs Fred. Scary. snarge your drawers scary...

The Eryops beds are pretty fantastic; they extend for nearly 300 yards. It is one massive pond system with wonderful layers of silt. Each layer preserves a chapter in the ponds history. The top is a massive sandstone layer, a remnant of flowing water. Then the water stopped moving and we see very thick silty mud beds, full of preserved fish, sharks teeth, millions of isolated fish scales- and the important thing: Huge eryops and chewed up Edaphosaurs. Finally have proof that the daphys were living near the Eryops. Eryops had no problem munching on the rotting carcasses of Daphys.

One of the other ranches is the Clyde formation, older than the Arroyo. There we see another pond system that contains an underlying gravel bar, mostly dime size cobbles of permian carbonate. In the mix is a ton of amphibian remains; mostly the boomerang head Diplocaulus. But were also seeing, SEYMOURIA!!! WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! The elusive link between reptiles and amphibians. Granted I have just a few vertebrae, but thats more than I've seen in a few years. Just above the conglomerate is the bottom of the pond, full of plants. Beautiful plants that settled to the bottom and never moved again. Love that quiet water, preserves things so well. In the mix of the pond we see lots of reptiles and amphibians that have settled to the bottom. Mary is a Dimetrodon that settled- beautiful skeleton. So far we have a left maxilla, left dentary, four complete thoracic ribs, the C3 cervical vertebrae and I think C4 as well. After about a weeks worth of digging it looks like we'll have a pretty nice skeleton.

Hope you enjoy the photos, and good hunting to everyone,

Chris

https://www.flickr.com/photos/45026327@N05/sets/72157650232293462/

Edited January 11, 2015 by dinodigger

[Auspex]

Man oh man! This is exciting stuff!

If I was field-worthy, I'd be there, offering to help in any way I could.

[TyrannosaurusRex]

Very cool!

[Ludwigia]

Hi Chris,

I just love it when you pop in here every now and again. Always exciting things to see. Here's wishing you further success in your endeavors!

[ZiggieCie]

Great finds to keep us warm, up here in Ohio.

[Triceratops]

Interesting finds! I like it that you name your specimens

[Shamalama]

I love those plant fossils, so cool looking. Thanks for the update!

[Fossildude19]

Excellent update, Chris!

Thanks for taking the time to let us know -

I agree with Dave, the plants are incredible.

Regards,

[jpc]

Hi Chris-

The gf and I didn't make it to TX over the holidays; we went to AZ instead. But someday we will come see your museum. Naming specimens... I am left to wonder if it is legal to name each skull? I've always ha a hard time with the idea of naming specimens... it is a Bakker thing. He named specimens when he was here, and we still do it. It helps the public relate to these things. That's why we have Dee the mammoth and Lee Rex. I protested the idea by naming our hadrosaur anon-human name..."Dead Sheep 148"

Meanwhile, thanks for the report. Sounds like you are doing good things.