Finally Found The Holy Grail Of Mazon Creek Fossils

[piranha]

Congrats on the spectacular discovery! 

 

This paper has excellent technical illustrations of Phlegethontia longissima.

 

Anderson, J.S. (2002)

Revision of the aïstopod genus Phlegethontia (Tetrapoda: Lepospondyli).

Journal of Paleontology, 76(6):1029-1046

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

Just fantastic!! FOTY!

[Mediospirifer]

Gorgeous specimen! Congrats!

 

[Cluros]

Congratulations! I'm happy for you.

[bcfossilcollector]

Beautiful specimen!!!

[bone2stone]

One fabulous find.

Not often do you see these.

Big "O" congratulations on this one.

 

Jess B

[StevenJD]

Awesome find Rob, amazing fossil!

[FossilDAWG]

Spectacular discovery, Rob.   What an amazing feeling it must be to split a nodule and out pops an animal that has been hiding for 300 million years!  If only one nodule in 500,000 contains an amphibian, how many do you think you have split in the last 30 years?

 

Don

[Rockaholic]

A truly incredible find! Congratulations.

[RJB]

I was thinkin of this fossil very early this morning.   Given its size, is this a juvenile or adult or somewhere in between?  Just curious.

 

RB

[TheRocksWillShoutHisGlory]

phenomenal find!    Truly amazing.

 

However here may be a reason not to hang up the 5 gallon bucket:  how about trying to find a new species?  To me that's the holy grail of any site.

 

 

 

[RCFossils]

12 hours ago, RJB said:

I was thinkin of this fossil very early this morning.   Given its size, is this a juvenile or adult or somewhere in between?  Just curious.

 

RB

Thanks again to everyone for their support and enthusiasm. I dropped the fossil off with a preparator friend of mine to do some additional prep and cleaning. I will be sure to post additional pictures once it has been cleaned. I think i will also submit it for Vertebrate FOM.

To answer a few questions, while extremely rare, Phlegethontia is the most abundant of Mazon Creek amphibians. I would estimate that several dozen have been collected over the years. Many of the specimens that I have seen are missing the skull. This may be due to decomposition prior to being rapidly buried or possibly just the nature of how Mazon concretions are formed. It is pretty normal for the extremities of larger animals and plants to extend further past the outer edges of the concretion. I was pretty excited when I saw the well preserved skull.

I know this species is much more commonly found from Linton.

This fossil along with almost all Mazon fish and amphibians is a juvenile. For whatever reason we do not find many concretions containing larger animals. Aside from lungfish scales, there is very little evidence of larger fish and amphibians.

We do occasionally find isolated teeth and bones but they are quite rare.

I have read the Phlegethontia could reach over a meter in length!

If I had to guess, I would estimate that I have collected between 50,000 and 100,000 concretions over the years.

I would agree that discovering a new species would also be another "Holy Grail" qualifier. I think i have at least a half dozen undescribed specimens in my collection. I recently donated an undescribed Mazon Creek earthworm which will hopefully one day be named.

 

 

[RCFossils]

Since we are discussing Mazon Creek amphibians, I will share a few pictures of a large (by Mazon Creek proportions) amphibian jaw section with teeth that I purchased several years ago. It is also pictured in the latest Mazon Creek fauna book.

To my knowledge it is the largest jaw that has been collected.