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Fish fragment? Lower Jurassic, Whitby, England.


TqB

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Please could anyone suggest what this is? I'm assuming fish, with little (less than 1mm) white spherules that might be teeth or denticles.

 

From the Jet Rock (Mulgrave Shale Member) - a Lower Jurassic, Toarcian  shale at least partly deposited in anoxic waters. Near Whitby, Yorkshire, UK.

 

(Acquired in an auction as an extra with another fossil that I really wanted so I'm just curious really, I know little about fish!)

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Tarquin

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eroded coleoid statoliths?

(*category wild stab in the dark)

a la Christian Malford? 

edit: typically me,focussing on the wrong thing.

The black mass might be a coprolite

 

 

 

 

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Boy, that's weird. The only thing I can think is coprolite. Especially if those white inclusions are some kind of small invertebrate or parts of a larger organism. 

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Just now, Carl said:

Especially if those white inclusions are some kind of small invertebrate or parts of a larger organism. 

I was thinking fish teeth.

 

Kind of like these...

5b4635da21e27_nanofish-0001.png.f377ce6bf071b6344c95b13fcdbc0275.png

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

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The white specs look like ostracods, almost. :unsure: 

Perhaps regurgitate or coprolite. 

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Interesting! I can't tell if it is a coprolite or not, but that would be my best guess. Some of the little white objects look a bit like tiny bivalves to me. Rather than inclusions, they almost look like they were feeding on what ever this is. :headscratch:

 

Some of the most interesting things in my collection have been freebies thrown in with items I've purchased. 

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Thanks for all the replies!

 

I don't think it's a coprolite... @Fossildude19 Tim, they are ostracod like but I think they were distributed evenly. 

It has a platy, fish armour look about it and there are regular patterns of dimples (perhaps corresponding to missing spherules?).

 

So I'm thinking along the lines of the teeth shown by @ynot, maybe palate? Or shark skin? (Unusual preservation does crop up in these beds.)

 

I've put stars in a row of dimples on the left and you'll see other rows with good enough resolution on your screen:

5b463cf499fc1_IMG_30982.thumb.jpg.057da1028fb04e8f8c910335fa992ad1.jpg

 

Without the stars:

5b463d55547f0_IMG_30983.thumb.jpg.97d3f565dc09873b4079e2735bdf778e.jpg

 

 

And this bit from the middle is different and toothy looking.

5b463e66bc9d8_IMG_31042.jpg.e5761824af6aece6c6dce4d3585b975f.jpg

Tarquin

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The existence of a repeating pattern to the dimples pretty much rules out coprolite or regurgitant. It appears to be crushed as well, having had a more inflated aspect before burial.

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“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Interesting piece (looks like a blob of tar) but the symmetry of the top left three rows of dimples some with the light coloured objects still in.

Might pay to look at some form of echinoid.

 

Mike 

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Honestly the dots remind me of arthropod material. Possible arthropod mixed into a coprolite? Or exoskeleton? 

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I would consider sponge borings on / in a hard substrate, if it was not ruled out.

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maybe seafloor hydrocarbon seepage?

The Whitby is overpressured.....

The more or less polygonal ridges around the patch could be caused by the seepage

edit: so the black stuff could be tar,in essence

second edit: the stuff could actually BE Whitby Jet,come to think of it.

So:the stuff that lies at the origin of that bit of informal lithostratigraphical nomenclature

 

 

 

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I am on the coprolite side of things, I agree that the black mass could be the majority while the white may be some small bits and bobs of a meal. Don't quote me though 

On The Hunt For The Trophy Otodus!

 

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6 hours ago, TqB said:

 

 

 

IMG_3105.jpg

 

 

I will not even venture a guess but the white thing in the lower left corner spirals kinda like a gastropod, at least it doesn't look tooth or ostracod to me. But the linear patterns are confusing.

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The scale and the geological age is totally different in my example compared to the specimen in question, but the shapes might be right for Entobia.

 

Large_chambered_sponge_borings_on_a_Late.thumb.jpg.1c3229ba63be828aee69f0744f2aff42.jpg

excerpt from R. G. Bromley et al. 2009. Large chambered sponge borings on a Late Cretaceous abrasion platform at Cracow, Poland. Cretaceous Research 30: 149–160

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

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Small round,found at possibly a seep location:hydrocarbon seep gastropod opercula?

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, TqB said:

maybe palate? Or shark skin? (Unusual preservation does crop up in these beds.)

Could be a palate, but the ones I have seen that were whole the "teeth" were much more crowded together forming a solid surface.

They do not look like the denticals found on sharks or rays, neither does the black part have the characteristics of skin (or cartilage).

 

I marked up a picture...

yellow are the things that resemble the teeth I posted earlier or depressions where they may have been.They appear to be at different levels in the mass.

red are things that appear to have the same mineral makeup as the "teeth", but have a different shape.

blue area just looks weird to Me.

5b463d55547f0_IMG_30983.thumb.jpg.97d3f565dc09873b4079e2735bdf778e.jpg.7a72391c182e88f424578bbd30596f4f.jpg

I still think it is a coprolite, but could see it being non fossil mineral(?).

 

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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