Jump to content

Shark, Ray and Bony Fish Vertebrae


Recommended Posts

As an update to this post, Dr. Michael Newbrey came to my house this Saturday and picked up the specimens shown above in this post.  He also looked through the other specimens that I had from this site and I gave him a good number of additional specimens that he felt were of scientific interest.

 

The specimens are tentatively going to be donated to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County if I can provide all of the documentation that the museum requires for the donation.  If you have landowner permission to collect a property, try to get that permission in writing.  Many of the major museums require the landowners where the specimens were found to sign a "Deed of Gift" in addition to the collector.  If you collected specimens, years ago like I have, with land owner permission, and the landowners are now deceased or moved to who knows where, a signed document by the landowner, granting permission to collect, helps prove that you did indeed have permission to collect the property.  Without some proof of land owner permission, some of the major museums will not accept the donation.

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 2

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

As an update to this post, the specimens in this thread were donated to the South Carolina State Museum.  However, Covid really delayed the curation of the specimens and the study.  Dr. Newbrey had several students who were going to help with the study of the shark and ray centra, but Covid and his school closing to in person classes delayed all of that.  Things seem to be getting back somewhat on track.  Dr. Newbrey will again be coming to my house this summer to pick up additional Eocene shark and ray centra from Virginia that I've collected since his last visit.

 

Below is the recent update that I received from Dr. Newbrey:

 

 

"............. My student who was interested in the ray centra disappeared with the pandemic. The second student who wanted to work on Pristis has started their literature review and he is compiling age and growth data from extant Pristis. We are trying to track down a dataset from an extant Pristis for comparative material. I will let you know if we get our hands on them. I don’t have any Fisher/Sullivan fossil specimens at CSU yet.  My undergraduate student is eager to examine the Fisher/Sullivan fossil specimens and get his research going with data from fossils.  I have not yet received any new updates from David about getting the centra on loan. I will write and ask for an update in about a week and copy you on the email."
 

 

The last part of his update is why I'm giving him additional specimens, so his student has something to look at until my original specimens are available from the South Carolina State Museum.

 

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 2
  • Enjoyed 2

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

I’m getting my next donation of fish vertebrae (many thousands) from the Eocene of Virginia together.  I only pick the very good condition ones from the matrix or I would spend forever searching a trip’s worth of matrix.  Below is a picture of the bony fish vertebrae drying on my dining room table after ultrasonically cleaning them.  There is a good bit of acid in the formation from all the pyrite, so I want to make sure that I remove it from these specimens.  It is also easier for the researchers to study the specimens with all the sand and loose matrix fully removed.  The downside of the ultrasonic cleaning is that a few of the specimens get damaged/destroyed by the cleaning.  I still have hundreds of cartilaginous fish vertebrae (shark and ray) to ultrasonically clean.  I don’t find nearly as many of these as the bony fish vertebrae.

 

 

I saw a post just recently here on TFF that had a bony fish atlas vertebra.  I really don’t remember seeing similar vertebrae before and I find many thousands of bony fish vertebrae in the Eocene matrix that I search.  So I’m going to take a quick look through these bony fish vertebrae to see if I just haven’t payed enough attention to notice an atlas vertebra or if I’m just not finding them for some reason.

 

 

1749829870_BonyFishVertebraedonation2022.thumb.JPG.79e4ee58fbb88ab6c880a3d259297278.JPG

 

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 2

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, MarcoSr said:

I’m going to take a quick look through these bony fish vertebrae to see if I just haven’t payed enough attention to notice an atlas vertebra or if I’m just not finding them for some reason.

Would be really odd not to be finding atlas verts in a sample size this great.

 

I have seen dozens of fish atlas verts while picking through matrix or bone bags from the Montbrook site. I just had a quick look through my imagery and I was neglectful and never took a single photo of one of these atlas verts. :DOH:

 

They are quite distinctive from the "normal" verts even from just the centrum (which is likely all you have in your sample). Instead of being basically symmetrically spool shaped, one end will have two pads at about a 45 degree angle where it articulates with the back of the skull. Oddly, it seems impossible to pull a good representative image from internet searches. Once you see one the distinction will be quite apparent and you'll notice them from then on.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • Enjoyed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also struggled to find pictures online.  I did save a side-view photo of my vert on my gallery the other day, but it appears I didn't name it right.  It is fixed now, so it should at least show up on the forum if you search for "fish atlas vertebra". 

  • Enjoyed 1

Fin Lover

 

image.png.e69a5608098eeb4cd7d1fc5feb4dad1e.png image.png.e6c66193c1b85b1b775526eb958f72df.png

image.png.7cefa5ccc279142681efa4b7984dc6cb.png

My favorite things about fossil hunting: getting out of my own head, getting into nature and, if I’m lucky, finding some cool souvenirs.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, digit said:

Would be really odd not to be finding atlas verts in a sample size this great.

 

I have seen dozens of fish atlas verts while picking through matrix or bone bags from the Montbrook site. I just had a quick look through my imagery and I was neglectful and never took a single photo of one of these atlas verts. :DOH:

 

They are quite distinctive from the "normal" verts even from just the centrum (which is likely all you have in your sample). Instead of being basically symmetrically spool shaped, one end will have two pads at about a 45 degree angle where it articulates with the back of the skull. Oddly, it seems impossible to pull a good representative image from internet searches. Once you see one the distinction will be quite apparent and you'll notice them from then on.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

19 hours ago, Fin Lover said:

I also struggled to find pictures online.  I did save a side-view photo of my vert on my gallery the other day, but it appears I didn't name it right.  It is fixed now, so it should at least show up on the forum if you search for "fish atlas vertebra". 

 

On 12/5/2022 at 3:36 PM, MarcoSr said:

I saw a post just recently here on TFF that had a bony fish atlas vertebra.  I really don’t remember seeing similar vertebrae before and I find many thousands of bony fish vertebrae in the Eocene matrix that I search.  So I’m going to take a quick look through these bony fish vertebrae to see if I just haven’t payed enough attention to notice an atlas vertebra or if I’m just not finding them for some reason.

 

Marco Sr.

 

I looked at the vertebrae in the paper plate above with the large vertebrae and found two bony fish atlas vertebrae and what looks like an atlas vertebrae attached to a piece of bony fish skull.  See the below pictures.

 

Nice bony fish atlas vertebra (16 mm x 16 mm x 12 mm)

 

 

864827885_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra16mmx16mmx12mm1.thumb.jpg.42aac675133e7e2a5b11267394cefb09.jpg

 

294032535_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra16mmx16mmx12mm1a.thumb.jpg.e266df28b3b41b7b0067b0b4cf7b1d19.jpg

 

 

Somewhat eroded bony fish atlas vertebra (16 mm x 14 mm x 10 mm)

 

 

1173651434_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra16mmx14mmx10mm2.thumb.jpg.05cb59fb1377478893fe49178c3c9cf2.jpg

 

1698766427_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra16mmx14mmx10mm2a.thumb.jpg.5ce3859ac127889deb60d3127769de59.jpg

 

 

What looks like a bony fish atlas vertebra attached to a piece of bony fish skull (26 mm x 16 mm x 11 mm).  With the matrix around the base of the vertebra, it is difficult to tell for sure.

 

 

928883659_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra26mmx16mmx11mm3.thumb.jpg.d03291ad771b2012d2552ecae6f29a6f.jpg

 

 

 

I just started to look at small vertebrae in one of the paper plates above and almost immediately found another bony fish atlas vertebra.

 

Small bony fish atlas vertebra (3 mm x 4 mm x 4 mm)

 

 

1933369125_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra3mmx4mmx4mm4.jpg.3d92aee28695989da5bd1c1059f7a523.jpg

 

1253970069_1262022TFFPostAtlasVertebra3mmx4mmx4mm4a.jpg.b468e15764ad12143aae35a0e1715d68.jpg

 

 

I really can’t believe that I’ve been picking thousands of bony fish vertebrae from Eocene matrix from Virginia for years and never payed enough attention to them to notice the different looking atlas vertebrae.  I want to thank @Fin Lover .  If not for her TFF ID post, I wouldn’t even know about them.  Bony fish vertebrae are usually not very diagnostic.  I wonder if bony fish atlas vertebrae might be more diagnostic.

 

Since I had my Dino-Lite microscope out to take the atlas vertebrae pictures above, I decided to take pictures of a few of the uncommon/rarer specimens that I pulled from the Virginia Eocene matrix over the last two days.  These specimens won’t be part of my next donation.

 

Two Hexanchus upper teeth that each have a little damage but still uncommon teeth from the formation.

 

Hexanchus cf collinsonae upper lateral (8 mm x 7 mm)

 

 

751325078_1262022TFFPostHexanchuscfcollinsonaeUpperlateral8mmx7mm8.thumb.jpg.2a4d3154bee43c78fa27358e1902d342.jpg

 

 

Hexanchus cf collinsonae upper symphyseal (7 mm x 4 mm)

 

 

1872022092_1262022TFFPostHexanchuscfcollinsonaeUppersymphyseal7mmx4mm9.thumb.jpg.4ca53a730d68fb9b84c6c9dcd4e0d7bd.jpg

 

 

Another uncommon species, a really nice cookie cutter tooth.

 

Isistius trituratus  (5 mm x 4 mm)

 

 

1843003819_1262022TFFPostIsistiustrituratus5mmx4mm6.thumb.jpg.cffd1d27285ec48fa33540d6e45479f6.jpg

 

 

A rare paleo whale shark tooth.

 

Palaeorhincodon daouii (3 mm x 2 mm)

 

 

1717288578_1262022TFFPostPalaeorhincodondaouii3mmx2mm5.jpg.c5a939464df6d95056859c054a859faf.jpg

 

 

An unusual small bone (5 mm x 3 mm) that I need to figure out and ID.  Any ID suggestions are welcome.

 

 

1725260032_1262022TFFPostbone5mmx3mm7.jpg.88e20a52384f7f7a5a6719d06fa31025.jpg

 

 

Marco Sr.

  • Enjoyed 4

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, MarcoSr said:

I wonder if bony fish atlas vertebrae might be more diagnostic.

There does seem to be a lot of variation between not only mine and yours, but even between the few you found, so that is a good question.  Mine looks more like your last, smaller one.

 

And nice little teeth!

  • I Agree 1

Fin Lover

 

image.png.e69a5608098eeb4cd7d1fc5feb4dad1e.png image.png.e6c66193c1b85b1b775526eb958f72df.png

image.png.7cefa5ccc279142681efa4b7984dc6cb.png

My favorite things about fossil hunting: getting out of my own head, getting into nature and, if I’m lucky, finding some cool souvenirs.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Fin Lover said:

There does seem to be a lot of variation between not only mine and yours, but even between the few you found, so that is a good question.  Mine looks more like your last, smaller one.

 

And nice little teeth!

 

I noticed the variation, and went back on-line and extensively searched for bony fish atlas vertebrae and really didn't find much again.  So I then looked at lots and lots of pictures of trunk and tail bony fish vertebrae and pictures of bony fish skeletons.  I just wasn't seeing bony fish vertebrae that looked like your specimen or mine.  I came to the conclusion using what Ken said (one end will have two pads at about a 45 degree angle where it articulates with the back of the skull) that our specimens had to be bony fish atlas vertebrae and that there was a lot of variation in bony fish atlas vertebrae.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup. Those do match my concept of atlases (atli? :P) with the flattened pads on one end of the vert. You can imagine a fair bit of variation in the shape of fish skulls and that no doubt leads to a diversity of shapes in that first vertebra.

 

Also enjoyed seeing the older ancestor to the Isistius triangulus with which I am much more familiar. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • I found this Informative 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that what these Peace River vertebrae are . . . atlases (likely shark or ray)?  I had not considered that possibility.

2043538329_fishvertebraPRG2.jpg.e64f4a1cbe8afeb82ef168f74d6701d2.jpg

-------------------------------------------------------

1694886612_fishvertebraPRG2B.jpg.8f9cc6141a9fc06f2a08e6d9983cf538.jpg

 

  • I found this Informative 1

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup. Pretty textbook atlas. Confusing when you see them at first and then it all makes perfect sense in retrospect.

 

Here is another interesting position (vert #2 equivalent to our 'axis vert') of a Snook (Centropomus sp.) which shows where the long axis of the vert shifts from vertical to horizontal. I did manage to take some photos of this oddity when I came across a specimen picking through the bone bags from the Montbrook fossil site. We pulled a cataloged specimen to compare it with for these images.

 

P9086026.jpg   P9086025.jpg

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • Enjoyed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, digit said:

Yup. Pretty textbook atlas. Confusing when you see them at first and then it all makes perfect sense in retrospect.

 

Here is another interesting position (vert #2 equivalent to our 'axis vert') of a Snook (Centropomus sp.) which shows where the long axis of the vert shifts from vertical to horizontal. I did manage to take some photos of this oddity when I came across a specimen picking through the bone bags from the Montbrook fossil site. We pulled a cataloged specimen to compare it with for these images.

 

P9086026.jpg   P9086025.jpg

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

Ken

 

Wow, very interesting.  Thank you for posting these vertebrae.  I can't believe how much I missed by not looking at all of my bony fish vertebrae closer.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have such rich micro-fossil material from that site that it is hard to focus on everything at once. Glad you are getting around to the osteichthyes component and finding it to produce a rich source for expanding your fossil information envelope. ;)

 

BTW: Since the Montbrook site is so rich in ichthyofaunal remains we are having to climb that learning curve down here. Our main researcher at UF has moved on to Berkeley and so I don't have as ready a resource to pose ID questions to anymore. If you have any good specialist contacts in that field I'd appreciate a PM with some contact info. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • Enjoyed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2022 at 12:52 PM, digit said:

You have such rich micro-fossil material from that site that it is hard to focus on everything at once. Glad you are getting around to the osteichthyes component and finding it to produce a rich source for expanding your fossil information envelope. ;)

 

BTW: Since the Montbrook site is so rich in ichthyofaunal remains we are having to climb that learning curve down here. Our main researcher at UF has moved on to Berkeley and so I don't have as ready a resource to pose ID questions to anymore. If you have any good specialist contacts in that field I'd appreciate a PM with some contact info. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

Ken

 

My longtime bony fish expert and friend is mostly now working with dinosaurs and dinosaur tracks.  

 

My new fish experts aren't doing a whole lot with the fish material that I keep donating.  Things were moving along until Covid hit.  Things still aren't anywhere close to being on track.  I think they are trying to catch up for two lost years of their labs being closed and not having normal access to museum collections.

 

If you find some new contacts, please let me know.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, it's a sad story too often repeated.

 

Anyone else out there who has professional contacts with any researcher focusing on Osteichthyes or Chondrichthyes to be able to help with identifications would be most welcome. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • I Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2022 at 12:25 PM, digit said:

Yup. Pretty textbook atlas. Confusing when you see them at first and then it all makes perfect sense in retrospect.

 

Here is another interesting position (vert #2 equivalent to our 'axis vert') of a Snook (Centropomus sp.) which shows where the long axis of the vert shifts from vertical to horizontal. I did manage to take some photos of this oddity when I came across a specimen picking through the bone bags from the Montbrook fossil site. We pulled a cataloged specimen to compare it with for these images.

 

P9086026.jpg   P9086025.jpg

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

Ken

 

I looked closely at a few bony fish vertebrae this morning as I was picking matrix.  I found the below vertebra which looks like an axis vertebra, vert #2, based upon your pictures and description.  There are probably hundreds of axis and atlas bony fish vertebrae from a lot of species in the thousands of specimens that I have donated/will donate.  I really hope these specimens get studied.

 

 

2122781066_Vert2equivalenttoouraxisvertwhichshowswherethelongaxisofthevertshiftsfromverticaltohorizontal2x3x2mn1a.jpg.86cb5e22ad5fc17bf52a9cd0fed2feca.jpg1475844903_Vert2equivalenttoouraxisvertwhichshowswherethelongaxisofthevertshiftsfromverticaltohorizontal2x3x2mn1.jpg.6678f1c58288d9aa1e0e16dce7febd2b.jpg

 

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is pretty neat! I am glad I came across this post (as I am with pretty much all of your posts...). I have never enjoyed collecting fish verts, but it would be interesting to hear what the researchers find. Hopefully everything starts to speed up soon. :fingerscrossed:

 

You are one generous guy, Marco. 

 

Thank you for sharing,

 

-Micah

  • Thank You 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree...hopefully some good research will come from this very generous donation.  You are donating more than you first realized and maybe it will lead to us one day being able to identify fish from atlas and axis verts. :)

  • Thank You 1

Fin Lover

 

image.png.e69a5608098eeb4cd7d1fc5feb4dad1e.png image.png.e6c66193c1b85b1b775526eb958f72df.png

image.png.7cefa5ccc279142681efa4b7984dc6cb.png

My favorite things about fossil hunting: getting out of my own head, getting into nature and, if I’m lucky, finding some cool souvenirs.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

I found the below vertebra which looks like an axis vertebra, vert #2, based upon your pictures and description.

Matches my sole example of the Snook axis. I have no idea if this reversal of long axis on either end occurs in other fish families. Would love to have a Osteichthyes specialist to bounce questions off of as I can keep coming up with more gaps in my fishy knowledge that I'd love to plug.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

  • I Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...