NFD & fossil shell hunt

[Shellseeker]

National Fossil Day held an event at the SouthWest Florida Museum of History and I volunteered to help out at my local Fossil Club table, bring a bunch of my fossils, and talk to interested kids on the fossil hunting hobby. Tough job but someone has to do it.

There were a number of vendors, selling and trading mostly local fossils. One of the vendors is a well know hunter on the Peace River. He showed me some shark teeth with CUSPS, and swore under my intense questioning that these came out of a mixture of clay and sand on the Peace River.

I had brought a couple of Megs with cusps and decided to add 2 of his to my collection... The colors for these teeth are "right" for Peace River clay -- greenish-yellow blades with brown roots.

Look at these.

Without being told, I would have thought this was a RIC. What is the problem? RICs are Eocene in age, and Hawthorn Group, Peace River Formation, Bone Valley Member ranges in age from Miocene to Pliocene. There should be zero RICs in this formation. So, we are left with Juvenile Megs with regressive cusps.

One event attendee had a number of fossils, one seems to be a marine toe bone and I will add a thread to the Fossil ID..

On Sunday I got to hunt for fossil Seashells:

Great Day, I have scratched that itch. The fossil Apple Murex in the 3rd photo is 4.34 inches and next to it is a medium sized modern Apple Murex.. The Peace may open in 3 Weeks.

Some of the finds. Enjoy!!! Shellseeker....

[Grimlock]

Nice finds Jack. That murex is awesome! Where did you go shell hunting?

[bierk]

To me they more resemble angustidens than auriculatis but either way they aren't a typical find on the Peace with that quality.

[Shellseeker]

Nice finds Jack. That murex is awesome! Where did you go shell hunting?

West Coast Aggregate pit. The only way in is to join a fossil club or join the Florida Paleontological Society (FPS) and go on one of their yearly trips. FPS is running a field trip on the weekend of October 24th. It costs $25 to be a member. Go to the website and join now. If you do not make this trip,go to one of the trips next year.

To me they more resemble angustidens than auriculatis but either way they aren't a typical find on the Peace with that quality.

You are likely correct. Down here in south Florida, I do not find RICs or ANGYs. I am not particularly good in identifications between them. I have not found anyone claiming either found in the Peace River.

[Coco]

I love your shells !

Coco

[Ludwigia]

Nice teeth, nice shells! If it wasn't so far away for me, I'd join that club before you could blink your eyes!

[Plantguy]

Nice finds and tooth additions Jack!!...I almost made it down to the club mtg last month but it was raining and late so I opted to head north and go back home after work. Will consider trying again later this month. Regards, Chris

[digit]

Some of the finds. Enjoy!!! Shellseeker....

DSCN1498cm.jpg

Great fossil shells. Looks like you scored a nice fossil coral polyp as well. I'm not as good in identifying coral polyps without their "clothes" on but it appears to me that you have a polyp from either Scolymia cubensis or a solitary polyp from Mussa angulosa (sometimes called Scolymia lacera in the single-polyp growth form). The Mussa angulosa is usually larger and a more fleshy coral (not a useful distinction when considering just the skeleton) and can grow into large multi-polyp colonies. Scolymia cubensis is usually found as solitary polyps but sometimes older individuals can be seen developing a second mouth and budding off to form two individuals. I'm tending to believe the "lumper" taxonomists these days since I cannot reliably distinguish Scolymia lacera from a small single-polyp Mussa angulosa underwater. As a whole spectrum of individual growth forms between these "two" species have been found I tend to agree that S. lacera is likely just M. angulosa. Here are a few images from my recent trip to the Dominican Republic to show what these species look like in life:

Classic Scolymia cubensis:

Classic Mussa angulosa:

Probably would be identified as a Scolymia lacera (more fleshy than S. cubensis) but more likely a single-polyp individual of M. angulosa (note similar coloration to the larger colony):

More than you'll ever need to know about the large polyp corals of the Tropical Western Atlantic.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Shellseeker]

Coco, I definitely love them also. Here is another that I am about to "gift" to a shell seeking friend on his wedding anniversary.

.

Ken, What a nice surprise!!! The experts from UF quickly identified the coral polyp as Scolymia and I thought that was all of it .. but then I got back to the internet and discovered that there were LOTS of variation and wondered if I would ever figure this one out.

I looked at http://www.fossilshells.nl/cnidaria039.html and thought Cnidaria might be it because these were found in the same general location!! See how little I know but this link led me to Zoantharia, and finally to Zoanthus (photo from Wikipedia).

It is hard to believe I typed that last sentence knowing as little as I do about coral.

Your expertise, on the other hard, is broad and deep, and exactly the bedrock of TFF. Thanks for making my day.

Here is a blowup: I keep looking for that oblong shape in the center.

[digit]

Yup, Scolymia was my first guess but it made sense to hedge with a single polyp of Mussa as they can look similar. Glad to see consensus with the experts at UF. Unless there are other putative species in the fossil record that no longer exist today, I'd say you could label your find as Scolymia cubensis with a fair amount of certainty. The only other species in the Tropical Western Atlantic would be S. lacera which I believe is really the same as a single-polyp form of Mussa angulosa and then there is S. wellsi which, if it really exists, looks a lot like S. cubensis but is currently only known from Brazil (and conceivably the extreme SE Caribbean). I've never seen S. wellsi and the "lacera" I've seen I firmly believe to be just baby Mussa. There are two more species in the genus from the Pacific but Scolymia australis probably belongs in the genus Lobophyllia as a single-polyp form (like our "lacera" over here) and Scolymia vitiensis (originally described from Fiji). The S. vitiensis is much more flat than the others and is probably the same as other corals in the genus Australomussa. Since the name Scolymia has precedence (is older) than Australomussa the species Austraomussa rowleyensis could be changed to Scolymia rowleyensis. But then the Pacific Scolymia bears little relationship to our (probably) single species from the Caribbean--Scolymia cubensis. That could be solved with the following move--many have noted that there seems to be a lot of morphological similarity between the single polyp Scolymia cubensis and small colonies of the multi-polyp Mycetophyllia genus. Thus, it could be argued that Scolymia could disappear from the Caribbean and Scolymia cubensis could end up as Mycetophyllia cubensis (see photo of an example of a Mycetophyllia below). Actually, I believe S. cubensis is the type species of the genus so if it gets subsumed into Mycetophyllia then Scolymia may disappear altogether with a wave of a taxonomist's hand and Australomussa might survive for the Pacific species. Taxonomy is a fascinating process filled with twists and turns. New DNA evidence is revealing hidden connections between species and indicating that the evolution of new species is not always a simple tree-shaped process with common ancestors branching cleanly to derive distinct species. I've heard the term "reticular evolution" where family trees look more like complex webs or nets with lots of hybridizations and cross-overs. Remember, species are an artificial concept invented by humans to try to keep track of things while nature is much more messy (and glorious).

That's much more than any sane person would care to know about mussid corals but it has been said before that listening to me rant is like taking a drink from a fire hose.

As a bonus bit of education (as long as we're in my wheelhouse at the moment), you mentioned "Cnidaria" from the link you provided above. True, your coral is in Cnidaria because that is a Phylum-level classification that contains other groups with stinging cells (cnidocytes aka cnidoblasts) like jellies, hydroids, zoanthids, anemones, etc. Your photo of a colony of zoanthids is also in the phylum Cnidaria but zoanthids (like many other members of the phylum) are entirely soft-bodied and do not set down a calcium carbonate skeleton. I've never heard of a fossilized zoanthid and the only place you might possibly find one would be a preservation site like Mazon Creek which is known for preserving squishy things like jellyfish. On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic we surveyed on many (relatively coral free) hard ground sites that had a nice diversity of zoanthids. Here is a little gallery of some of these pretty little cnidarians:

Just doing my bit to add a bit of knowledge to TFF even if it is only tangentially related to fossils.

Cheers.

-Ken

P.S.: May just have to join the FPS and do the field trip in a couple of weeks. Raised some interest in the wife when she saw the gorgeous shells in your post.

[Shellseeker]

Ken,

Thanks again!!! Agree Agree on Scolymia cubensis

Some nice photos here -- One with 2 mouths...

http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0762

I have already signed up for FPS trip to Alachua. If you make it, we'll meet there... Jack