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My father recently took me to the Montour Fossil Pit, a large open pit filled with Devonian shales from the Mahantango formation. I believe I found a piece of a eurypterid (sea scorpion) in the weathered bits of shale on the side of the hill. It has a segmented look, and if you look close enough it appears to have tiny bumps in the middle of the fossil.

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Stephen

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I vote yes!

Way cool :wub:

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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It is definitely a chunk of eurypterid.

Congratulations on a great find.

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Way cool! Your original question was can they be found in the Devonian, and of course you now know the answer is yes. They go well back to at least the Late Ordovician (see Megalograptus). I think we tend to think of them as creatures of the Silurian because some of the most productive locations are from that period. But if you search you will find them from a variety of time periods and from all over the world. The literature has thembeing around from the Late Ordovician thru the Permian.

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Very nice... not everyone is fortunately to find even a piece.....

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Wow! Thanks to everybody for the help with the id, this makes me even more excited to visit that site again!

Stephen

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Hate to be the odd man out, but I see an orthocone with some kind of encrusting bryozoan more than a eurypterid, no?

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Sorry, but I am with Carl on this as well.

Cephalopod would be more likely, I think.

Regards,

    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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I didn't want to be a "wet blanket", but now that it's been said my first impression was flattened orthocone as well. Perhaps exposing more of it would settle the question.

Don

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