Dinosaur Fossil Friday

[Troodon]

Here’s BYU  mid-cervical of a neosauropod from Dry Mesa Quarry. It’s Brachiosaurus late Jurassic of North America.

 

A clutch of dinosaur eggs from France

 

 

Not All Ammonites had coiled shells! This is Didymoceras stevensoni, a heteromorph (uncoiled) ammonite from Late Cretaceous shale in Wyoming, USA from a display at Houston Museum of Natural Science

 

[Troodon]

Cast of a section of the fossilised skin of Dakota, an Edmontosaurus from North Dakota. Held at NDHC, Bismarck, ND

 

he teeny tiny Madagascan dwarf hippo Hippopotamus madagascariensis a modern hippo skull for scale!. It became extinct just 1000 years ago. 

 

A Dapedius fish, Lower Jurassic, Dorset from The Manchester Museum

 

Here is a real fossil of a baby Dinosaur in a dinosaur egg! Courtsey of Schoolasaurus in South West UK who did the prep

 

The short-bodied, long-finned ellimmichthyiform fish Sorbinichthys elusivo from the Cretaceous of Lebanon.

 

 

Li'l baby Pterodactylus from Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin.

 

The world's oldest complete primate skeleton "Ida", Darwinius masillaethe NHM Oslo

 

Here’s a fun comparison for Tyrannosaurus rex tooth on the left, Smilodon fatalis sabre on the right. Saber-cat fangs are really impressive

 

The forelimb and vertebra of the poorly-known sauropod Hudiesaurus from the Late Jurassic of China, in IVPP, Beijing.

 

Skull of pterosaur Dimorphodon in the collection of NHM_London. Approx 190 million years old, from early Jurassic

 

Yeah, brontotheres are pretty cool. Megacerops coloradensis at UMMP

 

[Troodon]

An original Miocene penguin skeleton at BHI.  The limbs and skull, which are removable for shipping and transport.  The skull and lower jaws required a bit of restoration.

 

And finally more proof that T-rex still exists

 

[Bobby Rico]

Hi all

I just wanted to add today some fossil form the Midlands in the uk.

sorry they are not dinosaurs .

1. Best known as the Coseley Spider (Trigonotarbid: Eophrynus prestvicii (Eophrynidae) from the Carboniferous (Moscovian) British Middle Coal Measures of Coseley, UK )

2. Coseley Spider , 3D printed  and The Dudley Bug is a 428 million year old trilobite called Calymene blumenbachii 

3. The genus Charnia was named after Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found. It is a highly significant fossil.

4. More Prehistoric animals are still with us  Giant Eagle  seconds after droppig its dinner a horse into Wyoming's Green River

 

Thank you @Troodon Frank the Miocene penguin skeleton is just stunning and the Murmuration Rex at the end is very cool

[ynot]

9 hours ago, Troodon said:

Reserved

 

I think Ya missed one.

 

The rest are truly astounding, thanks again for the show.

 

18 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

I just wanted to add today some fossil form the the Midlands in the uk.

Nice pieces, thanks for sharing them.

[Tate Museum]

Last week MarleysGh0st suggested we show a few pix from another Lance Fm bone bed.  We were hoping to give you guys a bunch of pix of this site and its fauna, but we have too many things to do here at the office, so here is a teaser.  This is a young hadrosaur dentary found by MarleysGh0st's nephew.  The jawbone is on the edge of the paintbrush.  The textured thing to the left of the brush is a piece of Basilemys, a rare Cretaceous turtle.  There are a few scraps of bone to the right of the jaw.

 

Next week if work doesn't swamp us down... this same piece prepped.  Correction, next week we will be in Tucson... two weeks form now. 

 

[MarleysGh0st]

If the @Tate Museum only had time for one teaser photo, that was a good choice.  So, I invite my nephew to join me on this dig--his first ever fossil dig--and not only does he uncover a whole lot of material in one small spot, but he can identify this one on his own.  "Hey, I think this is a jaw!"

 

Yep, I've got him hooked on the hobby, now. 

 

Let me add a few of my own photos from this site, although I'm afraid I was too busy digging to get as many photos as a should have.

 

Promise Hill (Upper Cretaceous, Lance Formation) is a bone bed that astonished me with its diversity.  After clearing away about three feet of overburden, we hit the fossiliferous layer.  We found leaf impressions in the sediment (still, after 65 million years, really just dried mud rather than rock) and freshwater mollusks like these.

 

 

These shells were very fragile and powdery, although I managed to take a few home after preserving them with Vinac.  Mixed in with these shells, or just below them were the dinosaur bones.  Here's a rib:

 

 

Some unidentified chunks I found:

 

 

And a couple more (the one on the right is a vertebra):

 

 

And here's @jpc's find of the week, a T. rex tooth associated with some freshwater clams. (Plaster-coated thumb for scale.) Since I spend most of my time volunteering for the Paleontological Research Institution, where the collection emphasis is invertebrates, we joked that at PRI we'd keep the shells and throw away the tooth.

 

 

And finally, a pile of just some of our finds, wrapped up for the museum.  The larger bones were protected in plaster casts, smaller packages were made just with aluminum foil and some duct tape.

 

 

I'm signed up for the next Tate Museum dig in June, and I can't wait to get back there!

 

[Troodon]

@ynot  I missed one? That's not possible I don't make those type of errors.  Please check again and I expect an apology   Thanks

 

Appreciate all the additions today they were great  @Bobby Rico @Tate Museum @MarleysGh0st

Thank you all

 

@jpc  Nice T-rex tooth congrat...a "Rex chowder" ..

[ynot]

2 hours ago, Troodon said:

@ynot  I missed one? That's not possible I don't make those type of errors.  Please check again and I expect an apology

Man, My dementia is getting bad! Sorry for the false alarm.

 

Nice frame!

[Troodon]

10 hours ago, ynot said:

Man, My dementia is getting bad! Sorry for the false alarm.

 

Nice frame!

Yours, my dementia in in overload and appreciate all the help I can get 

[oldtimer]

Again a very nice Friday with some impressive photos.

Thanks again.  I love the egg with parts inside.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Thank you very much to all who contribute to this thread. 

I really get a thrill reading this every week. 

 

[Tate Museum]

Thanks for filling in, MarleysGh0st.  

[Troodon]

Fossil Overload these two weeks, with the Tuscon show, so let me continue to pile it on  but will go light!  Like always happy to see others contribute to this weeks post.

 

Dromaeosaur manus and pes digit II ‘killer claw’ from Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta  - ROM

 

 

Leidyosuchus specimen from the Evolving Earth exhibit FieldMuseum

 

 

 

This Daspletosaurus torosus is one of the best preserved theropod skulls in the Royal Tyrrell collection.. Dinosaurs continually replaced their teeth throughout their lives. Teeth at different stages of growth are visible in the upper jaw pictured

 

 

Beautiful type specimen of Linheraptor from China

 

 

 

More Antarctica from last week here they are searching for fossils beneath the frost in Antarctica, like this Thrinaxodon.

 

 

 

An archaeocidarid echinoids here's Archaeocidaris marmorcataractensis, which was described from the Pennsylvanian Subperiod of Texas

 

 

Part of an unpublished Dilophosaurus dinosaur specimen

 

 

That's one Iguanodon pollex... Two Iguanodon pollex... Three Iguanodon pollex... Four Iguanodon pollex , for the uninitiated, Iguanodon thumb claws (spikes); different morphology in the pile

 

 

 

 

[Troodon]

1cm across ammonite, this is little critter

 

 

 

Rare to see big therizinosaur premaxillary tooth

 

 

Phytosaur mount (Redondasaurus) NMMNHS

 

 

Skull of a Centrosaurus CMN8795 from the Fossil Collection Museum of Nature 

 

 

 

Archaeopteryx 12 . High quality photos, some under UV light to show different tissues. The gold-colored material is keratin overtop of the bone claws

 

 

Count how many Psittacosaurus skulls are in this fossil slab.  Mom or Dad with unruly kids 

 

 

Paleontologist for scale: next to the femur of an Argentinean titanosaur.

 

 

 

he Purbeck Beds are rightly famous for their range of fossil fish

 

 

End of femur and vetebral centrum from a large theropod, collected by Arthur Bibbins at Muirkirk quarry (Dinosaur Park) in Maryland, 1894  yep Maryland blue claw crab country

 

 

Spectacular specimen of Champsosaurus at ROM toronto ! Complete with gastralia and skin impressions!

 

 

Dr Carlos de la Torre y Huerta, Cuban palaeontologist, stands next to his specimen of Megalocnus rodens. Research suggests humans arrived on Cuba c6000ya, with this sloth species vanishing about 1000yrs later, in the newcomers’ wake

 

 

 

 

 

[Troodon]

Beautiful 19th century illustration of Dimorphodon fossil, including skull. One of the first pterosaurs to be discovered - from early Jurassic of Lyme Regis in Dorset, UK

 

 

Not All Ammonites had coiled shells! This is Didymoceras stevensoni, a heteromorph (uncoiled) ammonite from Late Cretaceous shale in Wyoming, USA from a display at Houston Museum of Natural Science

 

 

Baby theropod but thats all I know

 

 

Jurassic epoch Stegosaurus ungulatus Marsh skeletal drawing from specimens recovered in Wyoming (Marsh 1896, Plate 52)

 

 

So here's a fossil shark Coprolite (poo) found near Black Ven, Charmouth. This example has some intact convolutions and almost retains it's full original form. It's 190 million years old and is from the Jurassic period!

 

 

Giant wing of pterosaur  Quetzalcoatlus  this mount UTAustin VP Lab. Yikes its big

 

 

The brachiosaurid Brachiosaurus brancai in MfNBerlin

 

 

 

Diplocaulus! The awesomely weird, boomerang-headed amphibian of the early Permian

 

 

The mosasaur block been working on.  Found are the skull bones, chunks of lower jaw, and early cervicals

 

 

[Al Dente]

54 minutes ago, Troodon said:

The brachiosaurid Brachiosaurus brancai in MfNBerlin

That is an interesting skull with the large nasal cavity and concave structure in front of the nasal cavity. It reminds me of an elephant or tapir. Any chance these had long snouts like an elephant or tapir?

[LordTrilobite]

55 minutes ago, Troodon said:

The brachiosaurid Brachiosaurus brancai in MfNBerlin

 

Or Giraffatitan brancai depending on if you split it into the two genera.

 

@Al Dente

There was a theory of some Sauropods having an elephant-like trunk. But that idea isn't seriously considered in recent years as it's fallen out of favour.

[Troodon]

3 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

That is an interesting skull with the large nasal cavity and concave structure in front of the nasal cavity. It reminds me of an elephant or tapir. Any chance these had long snouts like an elephant or tapir?

 

 

1 minute ago, LordTrilobite said:

 

@Al Dente

There was a theory of some Sauropods having an elephant-like trunk. But that idea isn't seriously considered in recent years as it's fallen out of favour.

 

Agree with LT and it would be difficult to see where the attachment point would be.

[doushantuo]

Think it was Darren Naish who blogged on (the absence of)sauropod trunks

[LordTrilobite]

I'll also add some more photos and take the time to highlight another dinosaur. The really weird Carnotaurus sastrei.

Carnotaurus is an Abelisaurid theropod from the Late Cretaceous of South America. For a theropod, like many Abelisaurids, it has quite weird anatomy such as the miniscule arms. It is unknown what the brow horns were used for. It's been suggested this was an animal that was well adapted for running and maneuverability.

 

Here is a really great skeletal image of the Carnotaurus holotype made by Jaime Headden.

 

Cast skeleton in Paris museum of natural history.

 

The holotype skull from several angles.

 

Carnotaurus is also one of the few large Theropods that has actual preserved skin.

 

 

Reconstruction of the lower arm and hand.

[doushantuo]

as regards forelimbs(both free access) :

 

 

 

 

[Troodon]

New pictures posted for this Fossil Friday

 

[Al Dente]

54 minutes ago, LordTrilobite said:

There was a theory of some Sauropods having an elephant-like trunk. But that idea isn't seriously considered in recent years as it's fallen out of favour.

 

51 minutes ago, Troodon said:

Agree with LT and it would be difficult to see where the attachment point would be.

 

36 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

Think it was Darren Naish who blogged on (the absence of)sauropod trunks

What is the purpose of the concavity near the front of this skull? Has there been any speculation? It is very odd.

[ynot]

14 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

 

 

What is the purpose of the concavity near the front of this skull? Has there been any speculation? It is very odd.

Maybe it had a bubble nose like an elephant seal does.