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What is so special about the Keichousaurus?


aplomado

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I am not aware of any other non-fish vertebrate fossil that is easily available fully articulated (correct me if I am wrong!)

 

Why?  What is so special about the Keichousaurus from China?  

 

Articulated reptiles seem to extremely rare, and yet there appears to be a enormous exception for the Keichousaurus!

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Fossilization is about the conditions of the area at the time the creatures get buried. 

For good preservation of articulated specimens, you need a low energy, bacteria/scavenger free deposition. Pretty rare occurences. 

Black shales, mudstones, limestones, are indicative of an oxygen free or depleted environment. 

Usually these occur in deep lakes, or shallow lagoons/swamps.  It is just a matter of luck that the formation these come from was such an environment.

 

These PDFs may shed some light on their depositional environment. 

 

LINK 1

LINK 2

 

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    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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5 hours ago, aplomado said:

I am not aware of any other non-fish vertebrate fossil that is easily available fully articulated (correct me if I am wrong!)

Apateon and it’s kin are easily available if you know where to look, and usually articulated. I have a few sent by a friend.

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“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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19 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

Apateon and it’s kin are easily available if you know where to look, and usually articulated. I have a few sent by a friend.

You are right!

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  • 2 months later...

Thank you for asking this question, it was something I was wondering about as well. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/3/2019 at 12:36 PM, WhodamanHD said:

Apateon and it’s kin are easily available if you know where to look, and usually articulated. I have a few sent by a friend.

 

 

Right, and back in the 80's to maybe early 90's, numerous skeletons of Mesosaurus (Early Permian of Brazil) were available for sale and a number of those were also beautifully intact.  Sometimes, an artful preparator dug out a limb or two (pressed against and underneath) and repositioned it to make the specimen more saleable.  The Brazilian government stopped export of fossils sometime in the 90's. 

 

Some Triassic pachypleurosaur skeletons from Switzerland were also for sale during the 80's.

 

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