Latests finds from the Early Cretaceous of England

[Jonwealden]

Juvenile Baryonyx fossil footcast. Only 8cm long.  135 mya.  Bexhill.  Sussex

 

Add more later.

 

 

[Jonwealden]

Theropod coprolite. Large (probable Dino) bone inclusion, along with Lepidotes fish scales. Large partly covered scale is central.

 

Possibly Baryonyx.

 

[Bobby Rico]

Stunning finds I love the foot cast and from a very famous site . Congratulations   

[Dan 1000]

Beautiful finds! Especially the coprolite 

[TyBoy]

Nice finds but not sure how you can assign a weathered footprint cast to a species ?  Ditto on the coprolite.

[Bobby Rico]

3 hours ago, TyBoy said:

Nice finds but not sure how you can assign a weathered footprint cast to a species ?  Ditto on the coprolite.

I think you have to look at the known fauna of that area and compare. If there is very similar looking creature you probably can’t call it with one track. I do think the foot cast has enough features to be recognisable. I don’t know how many different specimens of dinosaur are found there but maybe @Jonwealden does and has done his homework . Ditto on coprolite . 

[Miocene_Mason]

That print is awesome! the coprolite is cool as well, @GeschWhat I think you might like to see this!

[TyBoy]

2 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

I think you have to look at the known furan of that area and compare. If there is very similar looking creature you probably can’t call it with one track. I do think the foot cast has enough features to be recognisable. I don’t know how many different specimens of dinosaur are found there but maybe @Jonwealden does and has done his homework . Ditto on coprolite . 

Footprints to the best of my understanding are not identified to a dinosaur but the type of track like Eubrontes or Grallator, not sure if casts follow that.  The fauna in that area is full of small theropods that would fit that cast.  Same situation with Dino eggs.

[Bobby Rico]

34 minutes ago, TyBoy said:

Footprints to the best of my understanding are not identified to a dinosaur but the type of track like Eubrontes or Grallator, not sure if casts follow that.  The fauna in that area is full of small theropods that would fit that cast.  Same situation with Dino eggs.

I thought you named a theropods foot print a Grallator because you could not identify the owner. Let’s wait to see what the other say.

[siteseer]

I think if there are at least a couple of theropods of roughly the same size known from the layer, then it would not be possible to say with certainty which genus a footprint/cast belonged to.  Dinosaur genera are based on teeth and bones.  Footprints are given a separate set of names because they are evidence of an animal that cannot be compared character-by-character to bones or teeth.  There are of course tooth prints in the fossil record but they are not always assignable to a taxon because not enough characters are preserved.

 

 

 

[Jonwealden]

11 hours ago, TyBoy said:

Nice finds but not sure how you can assign a weathered footprint cast to a species ?  Ditto on the coprolite.

The fossil cast is very well preserved considering its sea and sand exposure.. I have found many truly weathered fossil foot casts which one could be forgiven for interpreting as curious lumps of rock.  

Regarding species, there were Allosaurid here. The larger Theropod casts i have come across do fall into two fairly distinct profiles. The one above differs from the Allosaurid i have found here.  The infant/juvenile cast in this thread conforms with the adult cast profile of Baryonyx. The very lightweight dromaeosaurs were far less likely to leave prints deep enough to form casts in my opinion.

I will post more fossil casts for general comparison.

 

Re the Coprolite, the Lepidotes inclusions along with (in my opinion) a Dinosaur bone fragment indicates Baryonyx, based on its known predatory fossil evidence. I did state possible.

[Jonwealden]

 

 

 

 

[Jonwealden]

 

[Jonwealden]

 

[Jonwealden]

Now look how this adult (what i think is Baryonyx) resembles  the juvenile cast, compared with those typical Allosaurid profiles

 

 

The middle digit is longer, but this could be down to age and stance. Nonetheless, there is a distinction. There is apparently weathering to the middle digit in the juvenile fossil. One can see that the outer two digits have the claw similarly preserved as here in this pic.

 

[Jonwealden]

Infant Iguanodontid foot cast fossils

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

You have got some beautiful casts. You don’t want very weathered specimens in your collection so I suggest you send them to me. I am happy to help. 

[Jonwealden]

Compressed Shark skull, with 8 inch fin spine preserved.  The Orbit and a Mandible with Teeth is preserved. The Jugular canal recess is behind the Orbit.

 

Phone cam pics.Apologies.

 

There is skin preservation on the reverse which i very finely preserved, shown in next post.

 

 

 

 

[Jonwealden]

Skin denticles, like iron filings.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jonwealden]

[Jonwealden]

10 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

You have got some beautiful casts. You don’t want very weathered specimens in your collection so I suggest you send them to me. I am happy to help. 

 

 

Thanks all for your comments.

 

 Not got the room so can only salvage the better examples  

[Jonwealden]

This small Pterosaur foot cast has a straight ridge beside it...i wondered if this was possibly a wing imprint created as it waddled about.

 

 

[Jonwealden]

135 million years old Human - like foot, possibly  Pterosaur.  Size 10 (uk).

 

 

 

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[Bobby Rico]

36 minutes ago, Jonwealden said:

 

 

Thanks all for your comments.

 

 Not got the room so can only salvage the better examples  

Your welcome thank you for showing us. If you get the chance please add the location of your finds, it makes the post even more interesting. All the best Bobby 

[Troodon]

Very nice footprints some of which I would love to have in my collection. Thanks for posting.

 

Interesting discussion, I'm not one that likes to assign species names to ichnofossils like footprints, coprolites or eggs since there is no way to prove it unless there is indisputable scientific evidence to the fact.   Like an oviraptor found on a nest of eggs where there is a direct association.  Why an ichnogenus was created to identify fossils like footprints of unknown orgin.   It takes the guess work out.

 

Attached find a paper that examines cast footprints from the Wealden Group to help shed some light on this.   I'm reading this for the first time and learning as I do.

 

A review of footprints from the Wessex Formation (Wealden Group, Lower Cretaceous) at Hanover Point, the Isle of Wight, southern England, JEREMY A. F. LOCKWOOD1, MARTIN G. LOCKLEY and STUART POND

bij12349.pdf

 

Most large ornithopod footprints are best assigned to the ichnogenus Caririchnium or in some cases Amblydactylus

 

Comments from paper on fig 7 :

The majority of the aforementioned ornithopod casts (Fig. 7) conforms quite closely to Caririchnium morphology (Fig. 12C), especially those (e.g., Figs 2C, and 7I,K,N,O,R,W,X)

 

Some tracks (Figs 2E, 7D) are very transverse: i.e. much wider than long, and in this regard they resemble Amblydactylus

 

Some casts (e.g., Fig. 7L,T) may represent theropods, having thinner digits and a stronger mesaxony (Lockley, 2009). Figure 7Y has a markedly thin digit III and is 68cms long. If theropodan this would equate to those of the largest Tetanurae. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between theropod and ornithopod prints in Lower-to mid-Cretaceous assemblages