Green River Fish contents

[minnbuckeye]

  I had the time of my life at Seth's Quarry this summer. Everyone should experience what the Green river formation is like. Here is a 8 inch fish that I am curious about. Look at the enlarged picture of it's abdomen. I have white dots on the structures to be identified. My guess is intestinal contents, but maybe  release of coprolites as the fish died, or I am even considering eggs???? Eggs are a long shot but it doesn't hurt to ask!! 

 

 

 

 

[Carl]

I think you have a genuine cololite there! Very nice!

[jpc]

cololite = coprolite before it is ejected, as it were.  I think Carl is right.

[JohnBrewer]

Now that IS cool. I see Carl has commented, just waiting for Lori @GeschWhat to see this 

[Miocene_Mason]

The poor fish got "caught in the act"

That is a truly cool find!

[abyssunder]

I'm in the coprolite camp. If I calculate correctly, the coprolites length are between 0.9 cm and 1.2 cm, which is in range for a 8 inch long fish. Any chance to get higher resolution images of them?

Very nice find, BTW.

[Sagebrush Steve]

I'm confused about why there appear to be two separate lower jaws with teeth in them.  Is this normal or was he eating a smaller fish at the time? 

 

Or I suppose it could be the right and left side of a single lower jaw?

[Miocene_Mason]

 

9 minutes ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

I'm confused about why there appear to be two separate lower jaws with teeth in them.  Is this normal or was he eating a smaller fish at the time? 

 

Or I suppose it could be the right and left side of a single lower jaw?

I do spot another fishes vertebral column in the middle section of the fish, but I think the jaw part may just be the opposite side of the normal jaw.

[abyssunder]

WhodamanHD beat me to it.
That surprised me too. I wanted to write, what good preserved the teeth are, when I noticed what you say. I also think that the reddish part of the stomach content may be a vertebral column of swallowed fish.

 

[GeschWhat]

All I can say is WOW!  @abyssunder I think you are right! Both cololite and gastrolites (stomach content). What an awesome find! 

[Sagebrush Steve]

And do we know what species this fish is?  It sort of looks like a Knightia eocaena except for the teeth.  Teeth are not prominent in Knightia.  According to the 1984 edition of Lance Grande's WGS Bulletin 63, they show "at least one row of tiny conical teeth on the maxilla and dentary" but that neither Cope nor Leidy made mention of any teeth in their descriptions.  These teeth seem a little too prominent.  But I will defer to the experts.

[minnbuckeye]

5 hours ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

And do we know what species this fish is?  It sort of looks like a Knightia eocaena except for the teeth.  Teeth are not prominent in Knightia.  

 

@sseth should know. I have not attempted to ID my fish yet. Winter project. This one was bothering me ever since I began working on it.

[abyssunder]

Maybe it's a Eohiodon falcatus, but that's just a guess. Probably I'm wrong.

[Miocene_Mason]

26 minutes ago, abyssunder said:

Maybe it's a Eohiodon falcatus, but that's just a guess. Probably I'm wrong.

That would be one of the few ways to make this even cooler! Those are extremely rare from what I’ve heard. Only one way to tell for sure! @FossilDudeCO

[Sagebrush Steve]

1 hour ago, abyssunder said:

Maybe it's a Eohiodon falcatus, but that's just a guess. Probably I'm wrong.

Interesting suggestion.  Here is the page from Lance Grande's book The Lost World of Fossil Lake, showing Hiodon falcatus.  In the book Grande says that Eohiodon and Hiodon were synonymized and the older name, Hiodon, has taken preference.  The jaws look similar although the backbone vertebrae might be different.  I'll keep looking through his book to see if I spot anything else that might fit.

 

 

Closeup of center photo:

[minnbuckeye]

Thanks to all that replied, especially Whodaman for seeing that "minnow" inside this fish's belly. Once we ID the fish, who will be able to ID it's meal? Now that would really be impressive!!

[Miocene_Mason]

4 minutes ago, minnbuckeye said:

Thanks to all that replied, especially Whodaman for seeing that "minnow" inside this fish's belly. Once we ID the fish, who will be able to ID it's meal? Now that would really be impressive!!

Aww shucks All I did was zoom in a bit!

that would be impressive with the disarticulation, either the size though I would say it's a smal clupeid like knightia or gosiutichthys (probably just butchered the spelling on that)

[abyssunder]

1 hour ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Closeup of center photo:

Excellent feedback! I've used Lance's 1984 document trying to resemble the specimens, but your excerpt photo is much better for resemblance.

 

[Sagebrush Steve]

2 hours ago, abyssunder said:

Excellent feedback! I've used Lance's 1984 document trying to resemble the specimens, but your excerpt photo is much better for resemblance.

 

Grande's 1984 edition of Bulletin 63 has some good photos and a good line drawing of Eohiodon (it was still called that back then), too.  And it has a good list of the identifying features, so I would defer to it for final identification.  Grande himself occasionally logs onto this forum so if we are super lucky he might see this post and comment. @RLG

[Peat Burns]

The dorsal fin looks too far forward to be Eohiodon/Hiodon.  Note that on Eohiodon/Hiodon, the dorsal fin is positioned more or less above the anal fin.

 

I can't tell if it has a divided dorsal fin or if it's just "beat up", but it looks divided.  I'm thinking Mioplosus.

[Shamalama]

I'd agree that your fossil looks like a Mioplosus to me. But, man-o-man, that is a cool fossil none the less. Stomach contents and fecal pellets all associated.... Wow! Congrats!

[sseth]

It is a Mioplosus.  That ingestion is very nice.  We had a few of those found this year.  Very cool!