Any ideas?

[Eddy22]

Hi all,

 

Any ideas what this could be, I found a few similar ones amongst the seaweed on a rocky beach in the NE of England, and it seems like something has petrified, can provide more pics if necessary (defeated by the uploader limit).

 

You can almost see scales on it and all the tubes look peculiar but fascinating. 

Size is roughly 8cm long

 

Regards

 

[PFOOLEY]

serpulid tubeworms

[gobbler716]

I have no idea, but this is a beautiful piece!!!

Pfoolery, how old could this be???

[PFOOLEY]

@Eddy22, you can add more photos in the comments.

[NWGeoFan]

Could be a Rugose Coral.

[Fossildude19]

Pretty sure it isn't a rugose coral. 

It looks to me like a bivalve shell valve, encrusted with bryozoans ( the "Scales")  and serpulid worm tubes as Pfooley stated.

It may not even be fossilized. Could be modern. 

[Kane]

Definitely not a rugose coral, but calcareous serpulid tubeworms. As Tim says, it could be modern.

 

Here is a link @abyssunder posted last year explaining more about them: https://natureinfocus.blog/2010/01/13/calcareous-worm-tubes-on-flat-oyster-shells/

[FossilDAWG]

Completely agree this is serpulid worm tubes encrusting a bryozoan-encrusted shell.

 

I don't see anything that resembles a rugose coral, or any coral (rugosan, tabulate, or scleractinian).  There is no indication of septa, tabulae, dissepiments, or any other internal structure that would be expected of a coral.  Corals also don't form such an irregular mass of meandering tubes; where the colony takes the form of a mass of disjunct individual tubes (a growth form termed "phaceloid" or "fasiculate", as opposed to a massive colony of connected coralites which is "cerioid"), the individual corallites tend to be long and relatively straight, not twisting back on themselves.

 

Don

[TqB]

I agree, serpulids and bryozoans on a shell, all modern. There's nothing fossil of that sort on the NE England coast.

 

Great photo and a good piece for study!

[Eddy22]

Thanks ever so much for your replies guys, I'll add a few more posts with more pictures for your deliberation   

[abyssunder]

What can I say beyond what these remarkable people have said? Nothing, except that I agree with them.
It's a nice example of adaptation of tube worms to the environment using the shell material as feeding source, beeing encrusted by bryozoans for the same reason.
Nice examples are shown in Jessica Winder's blog,... the reason why I use that as reference.
Pretty nice examples with good details are also revealed in your excellent pictures, Eddy.

The tiny holes could be made by bioeroders such as those from this link .

 

Thank you for posting here.