Dinosaur Fossil Friday

[Tidgy's Dad]

Love the eocrinoid, and I have one of those Triassic crinoids, somewhere. 

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

DFF continued...

 

Pelvic girdle, partial limbs and partial vertebral series from the Scottish Triassic dinosauriform Saltopus elginensis (Dinosaur collections of the NHMUK)

 

Well preserved anterior portion of the jaws of Istiodactylus latidens from the Early Cretaceous of the Isle of Wight (Pterosaur collections of the NHMUK)

 

Metopaster uncatus asteroid from the Chalk of Oxfordshire, England (OUMNH)

 

Very well preserved Tylocidaris clavigera from the Chalk of Kent, England (OUMNH) - note the characteristic club-shaped spines

 

Hope you liked this!

 

Next week… Chalk fossils from Europe - stay tuned, there are some pretty neat ones in store  

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Welcome back to the Dinosaur Fossil Friday! Today, I'll present some fossils (mostly) from European Cretaceous chalk. Enjoy!

 

To start things off, a rather neat Mosasaurus gracilis partial lower jaw from the Chalk of Lewes (England) - Specimen held at the Booth Museum of Natural History

 

Partial eel skeleton (very rare in chalk) and the spines of a Phymosoma granulosum from the Chalk of Stevns Klint (Denmark) - Specimen held at the GeoCenter Møns Klint

 

Nicely preserved columnals and ossicles of Nielsenicrinus sp. from the Chalk of Rügen (Germany) - Specimen held in the private collection of Mirco Baronick

 

Complete test associated with 6 well-preserved spines of the regular echinoid Gauthiosoma princeps from the Chalk of Møns Klint (Denmark) - Specimen held at the GeoCenter Møns Klint

 

 

Stay tuned for more cool Chalk fossils tomorrow!  

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

DFF continued...

 

Well preserved tentacle hooklet (very rare in chalk) of a large belemnoteuthid squid; from the Chalk of Møns Klint (Denmark) - Specimen held at the GeoCenter Møns Klint

 

Partial left dentary of Ichthyornis dispar from the Chalk of western Kansas (USA) - Specimen held at the Fort Hays Sternberg Museum

 

Fragment of a Hyphantoceras reussianum heteromorph ammonite from the Chalk of Aston Hill (Oxfordshire, England) - Specimen held at the Natural History Museum of London

 

3D-prepared test and spines of Hirudocidaris hirudo from the Chalk of Seine-Maritime (France) - Specimen held in the private collection of "@Milanko" (member of a French geology forum)

 

There's more to come later...

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

A few more chalk fossils...

 

Very nicely preserved Palaeastacus dixoni lobster from the Chalk of Clayton (East Sussex, England) - Specimen held at the Booth Museum of Natural History

 

Skull  of Dolychorhynchops osborni from the Chalk of western Kansas (USA) - Specimen held at the Museum of Comparative Zoology

 

Very long series of articulated segments of an Isselicrinus buchii crinoid stem from the Chalk of Møns Klint - Specimen held at the GeoCenter Møns Klint

 

Complete test of Gauthiosoma princeps with a few associated oral apparatus elements (rather rare); from the Chalk of Rügen (Germany) - Specimen held in the private collection of "S.C." (www.steinkern.de, a German fossil platform)

 

 

Hope you enjoyed these fossils from the Chalk!  

[Bone guy]

That lobster is insane! It needs a side of butter.  

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

@Bone guy Meh. not really… I'd rather have "Enchodus and chips", you know? 

[Bone guy]

Tasty  just watch the teeth 

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Yeah, I'll be careful - just remember to remove the chitinous exoskeleton from that P. dixoni lobster & butter combination you'd love  

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

I've kind of ran out of ideas for this week's DFF - I'll post some stuff tomorrow. Hope you don't mind. In the meantime, do you guys have anything to show here?  

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

I'm really sorry guys, I don't have any ideas as to what I could contribute to this week's edition of the Dinosaur Fossil Friday. I hope I'll have more ideas for next one.

 

[Troodon]

The NHM dinolab posted these fabulous pictures abelisaurid theropod Carnotaurus from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina, thought the dino lovers out there would appreciate seeing the original skull

 

 

 

The renound Paleontologist Thomas Holt uses this photo as his Twitter cover.  It's the basal Tyrannosauroid  Dilong paradoxus from the early Cretaceous of China.  Dog size

 

 

 

Raymond Fong posted these photos of a Hell Creek Edmontosaurus showing bite marks on the Caudal vertebrae.   Killed by T. rex or scavenged?  From the museum in Hong Kong

 

 

Filippo Bertozzo posted a photo of the beautiful hadrosaur skull of Brachylophosaurus canadensis from the Oldman Formation of Alberta

 

 

 

Interesting tweet by Jack Horner that:

"Dinosaur accoutrements changed shape during ontogeny. For me one of the weirdest changes was the formation of resorption grooves in toromorph Triceratops orbital horns. Late stage senescent Triceratops may have been hornless, or at least had much smaller horns."

 

Interesting that he uses the word "toromorph" since most if not all Ceratopsian paleontologist would call that  Torosaurus skull.

 

Also the Ceratopsian associated with the Dueling Dinosaurs is hornless and initial observations believe it to be a Triceratops

 

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Hey @Troodon thanks for sharing these! They're wonderful 

I'll also try and contribute today with some material from the Hell Creek Fm.

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Here are a few examples of vertebrate fossils that can be encountered in the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota; most of the specimens are from Butte County, discovered during PaleoAdventures field trips. 

All pictures were taken from here. Enjoy!

 

2 jaws of the stagodontid mammal Didelphodon vorax (rare)

 

Well-preserved, almost complete dromaeosaurid humerus (probably from Acheroraptor sp.)

 

Complete Peckemys sp. (baenid turtle) shell

 

Slightly weathered tooth crown from a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex 

 

Complete, and well-preserved left femur of Thescelosaurus neglectus (ornithopod dinosaur)

 

Rather neat cranium of another baenid turtle, Palatobaena sp.

 

Distal end of an Anzu wyliei (Caenagnathid oviraptorosaur) metatarsal

 

A toothless, but otherwise neatly preserved maxilla from the hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus annectens

 

Rare and nearly complete caudal vertebra from the ornithomimid Struthiomimus altus

 

Vertebra of a squamate reptile, either from a lizard or a snake

 

Very well preserved frontal/parietals of Paleosaniwa canadensis, a varanid

 

 

Hope you liked these Hell Creek Fm. fossils  

 

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Hey guys,

 

This weekend I won't be able to contribute to this week's edition of Dinosaur Fossil Friday, as I will be going to the NHM's in Oxford and then London to go and examine some of the fossils held in their collections. I'll post next week as much of what I saw, 'cause both museums are known to have some pretty cool fossil specimens  

 

Cheers,

 

Christian

[Troodon]

To commemorate the new Jurassic Park movie let me post a few images of hadrosaurs, dinner for the beasts in the movie.  

From the collection of the Museum of Nature,  Ottawa

 

Edmontosaurus

 

 

Thespesius

 

 

Saurolophus

[Troodon]

Dinner from the ROM

Parasaurolophus walkeri

[Miocene_Mason]

I’m always amazed at just how cow-like hadrosaur skulls are, though I should probably be amazed by just how hadrosaur-like cow skulls are!

[Troodon]

 

1 hour ago, WhodamanHD said:

I’m always amazed at just how cow-like hadrosaur skulls are, though I should probably be amazed by just how hadrosaur-like cow skulls are!

Hadrosaurs are called cows of the Cretaceous  but for other reasons 

[digit]

6 hours ago, Troodon said:

Hadrosaurs are called cows of the Cretaceous  but for other reasons 

Does it involve Ben & Jerry's ice cream?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

It's Friday, everyone! Y'all know what that means, right?  A new edition of Dinosaur Fossil Friday!

BTW, for those who'd want 1 or more papers describing any of the material below, PM me your email address and I'll send the papers your way - many of them are too large to be posted on TFF.

Anyways, let's get started!

 

 

A rare example of the primitive cephalopod Nectocaris pteryx from the Cambrian Burgess Shale Formation (British Columbia, Canada). Specimen held at the Royal Ontario Museum.

 

 

Anterior part of a maxillo-premaxillary rostrum from a gnathosaurine ctenochasmatid pterosaur; from the Late Jurassic/Earliest Cretaceous Tacuarembó Formation (Uraguay). This specimen represents the first record of pterosaurs from Uraguay. Held at the Fossil Vertebrate Collections of the Facultad de Ciencias (part of the UdelaR university, Montevideo).

 

 

Internal mold of a heteromorph ammonite, cf. Glyptoxoceras from the Santonian (Late Cretaceous) Smoky Hill Chalk of Lane County (Kansas, USA). This fossil represents the first non-scaphitid heteromorph from the SHC. The specimen is held at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History (Hays, Kansas).

 

 

 

Partial dromaeosaurid pes (or foot) from the Snow Hill Island Formation of James Ross Island, Antarctica. The paper doesn't mention, weirdly, where the specimen is housed. 

 

 

A possible example of old life… in deep space. May I present to you the possible remains of 3.7 billion year old microbial mats, from the Gillespie Lake Member of planet Mars. The specimen is housed, well, not on Earth.

 

 

UV-light photography of a newly named dolichosaur (marine reptile related to mosasaurs), Primitivus manduriensis. The specimen is from the "Calcari di Melissano" (Late Cretaceous, Italy); and is held at the Museum of Paleontology (Sapienza University, Rome).

 

 

 

Well-preserved cranial and post-cranial remains of a juvenile Tuarangisaurus keyesi elasmosaur from the Tahora Formation (Late Cretaceous - Mangahouanga Stream, New Zealand). The specimen is held at the National Paleontological Collection, GNS Science (New Zealand).

 

I absolutely love the next one… *drumroll*...

 

A small bird tooth, entirely replaced by precious opal. The specimen is from the opal fields of Lightning Ridge (mid Cretaceous, Australia), and is held at the Australian Opal Centre (Lightning Ridge).

 

 

Well, hope you liked this  A small gallery of fauna from across the world and across the Phanerozoic.

 

Cheers,

 

Christian

 

 

[Troodon]

With the Jurassic Park raptors backdrop here is what a REAL raptor (Deinonychus) adult killing claw looks like  in the collections of Yale Peabody courtesy of D. Lomax

 

[Troodon]

A few amazing skulls

 

A young Allosaurus skull presented  by jordan mallon

 

 

A very young Tarbosaurus from Mongolia  presented by andrew knapp

 

 

 

Here is Dinogorgon rubidge from Permian of Tanzania  presented by Eva-Maria Bendel

 

 

 

"Big Al" Allosaurus from MOR  presented by S Evers

 

 

 

Anchiceratops ornatus was first discovered in 1912 along the Red Deer River. It has a large rectangular frill edged by large triangular bony projections, as well as large orbital and nasal horns. Presented by the Tyrrell 

 

 

 

Some simply sumptuous synapsids from the Karoo, housed in the National Museum, Bloemfontein including a dinocephalian, Theriognathus, Galesaurus and a big gorgonopsid.  Presented by NHM dinolab

 

 

and

the skull of the Late Triassic sauropodomorph Melanorosaurus from the National Museum Bloemfontein

 

 

Khaan mckennai an oviraptorid from Mongolia presented by João Vasco Leite
 

 

 

The elongated skull and lower jaw of a Baryonyx.  Presented by the Dinosaur Museum 

 

 

 

A rather goofy looking Diplodocus behind the scenes, Morrison Fm..  Presented by Jan Freedman

 

 

 

Skull of the giant Triassic temnospondyl amphibian Mastodonsaurus (skull length approx. 1 m). On display at the Muschelkalkmuseum Ingelfingen (Germany). Presented by Sven Sachs

 

 

Nanotyrannus "the Dueling Dinosaurs" presented by Troodon 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2018 by Troodon
Added skull

[Walt]

On 6/29/2018 at 10:36 AM, The Amateur Paleontologist said:

[TyBoy]

The skulls are amazing  had not seen the Nano dueling dino skull that close, very cool.