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Show us your slightly bitten fossils


Past Hunter

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Let us see anything with a bite mark on it.

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"If you choose not to decide. You still have made a choice." - Rush

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Good idea for a thread and cool teeth. Here are a couple of crinoid stems that look like they have been bitten. What do you think? This shows both sides of the same fossils.

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Nice crinoids Bob; they look bitten to me. Is there any evidence that the crinoids survived their injuries, healed themselves and continued to grow?

Here's a good article about brachiopods that were bitten: Elliott, D. K., and S. D. Bounds. 1986. Causes of damage to brachiopods from the Middle Pennsylvanian Naco Formation, central Arizona. Lethaia 20:327–335.

Edited by DPS Ammonite

My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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Here is a front and back view if you will of a cetacean rib with shark bite marks from Shark Tooth Hill in Calif.

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Nice crinoids Bob; they look bitten to me. Is there any evidence that the crinoids survived their injuries, healed themselves and continued to grow?

Here's a good article about brachiopods that were bitten: Elliott, D. K., and S. D. Bounds. 1986. Causes of damage to brachiopods from the Middle Pennsylvanian Naco Formation, central Arizona. Lethaia 20:327–335.

Interesting question. I wouldn't know how to tell, but it got me wondering, do crinoid stems continue to grow larger after they're formed? Somewhere I got the idea that each section grew from the base of the calyx, one at a time. That could be very wrong.

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Bob, I think that the crinoids did start to heal. Notice the rounded overgrowths next to the larger "scars." Crinoid stems are made of single calcite crystals which are brittle and would fracture and would not "flow" plastically and make rounded bulging areas near the injury.

Compare yours to the pictures of crinoids with overgrowths that were injured by boring sponges. Photo from "Pennsylvania Fossils of North Texas" by McKinzie.

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My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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Here's a brachiopod that got nipped by something and healed itself. Nautiloids have been proposed as the likely culprits in this formation.

Glyptorthis insculpta (Middle Ordovician, near Cincinnati, OH):

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I have a few more, but I'll stick with one. :D For more: LINK.

I also have an impression of a Devonian Rhipidomella showing a similar scar.

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Heres the left humerus of a Somerset plesiosaur, and it shows a very characteristic bite mark. Plesiosaur bones were rather soft and you can see the plastic deformation to the bone caused by the bite. Top image RH side top edge....

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Cheers Steve... And Welcome if your a New Member... :)

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Bob,

Any idea what might have bitten a crinoid.

"If you choose not to decide. You still have made a choice." - Rush

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Here are photos previously submitted as part of the "Oreodont Prep Series" under the Forum's "Fossil Preparation category." This topic chronicled the prep of the skull and jaw of Lucinda, an Oreodont. During the prep, two areas displaying paired puncture fractures were revealed. One set was found in the top of the skull, the second in the mandible. Discussion ensued as to the likely perpetrator, However, the true identity of the ravenous fiend remains the subject of speculation.

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Edit: Lucinda was a Merycoidodon gracilis. Here is a link to the original prep topic;

Oreodont Prep Series - Fossil Preparation - The Fossil Forum

Edited by snolly50
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Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, also are remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

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Cool thread! Here are two from the New Jersey Cretaceous; an Enchodus jawbone with a big gash and a piece of chunkosaurus with feed marks.

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Some creatures eat sea stars, why not a crinoid?

Edited by caldigger

 

 

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The vert with tooth embedded is pretty awesome

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I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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Here is Ceratopsian skull with a hole on top of it that seems to have had some healing. No idea how it was was inflicted or if it was a predatory injury.

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There is no guarantee, but I suspect that my Cambropallas telesto has a bite wound just behind the right side of its cephalon. There even seems to be a slight bulge in the cephalon just forward of the alleged wound:

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It seems consistent in both part and counterpart:

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Then again, this could all be a product of the forces this shell was put under during burial and fossilization.

Of course, to bite a bug this big, you'd have to be a pretty big predator. I guess an Anomalocaris could fit the bill.

---Prem

Edited by prem
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Here is an obvious example of a trilobite that suffered a non-lethal attack. Note the wound response of healed / malformed pleurae that occurred over the course of subsequent molts.

 

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figures from:

 

Babcock, L.E. (1993)

Trilobite malformations and the fossil record of behavioral asymmetry.

Journal of Paleontology, 67(2):217-229

 

 

 

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