Lower Carboniferous fish finally prepped

[Archie]

Hey everyone, been meaning to post this paleoniscoid fish here that I found way back in 2011 and finally got round to properly prepping a few weeks back. It was my first complete Carboniferous fish from a site in my hometown and definitely still my favorite! When it split out the head, tail and fins all stayed on one half of the split and the body on the other. I cut the body out and stuck it down as tightly as possible and used a combination of acetic acid and a needle under a microscope to slowly expose the scales, really pleased with the result and might attempt it with more fish now! The species has been identified as Elonichthys robisoni and it was found in a Lower Carboniferous, Visean, freshwater limestone deposited in a shallow lake in a basin that is now the Forth Estuary. This species is the most common actinopterygian in deposits of this age in this basin. The object behind the fish's head is a coprolite which this bed is crammed full of, this one is on the smaller side but it is probably rhizodont. You can also just see the edge of a sand injection to the right of the fish going off the plate, glad this missed the fish or it would have cut right through and distorted it!

[Fossildude19]

Wow Sam! 

Excellent results!    

Look at those teeth in that jaw! 

SWEET! 

Awesome find and prep, sir.
Definitely use this technique again!!!

[Archie]

3 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Wow Sam! 

Excellent results!    

Look at those teeth in that jaw! 

SWEET! 

Awesome find and prep, sir.
Definitely use this technique again!!!

Thanks very much Tim!

I'd been trying to pluck up the courage to prep this for years lol, so glad I finally have and it didn't ruin the fish! 

Just got to work out how to deal with fish that aren't in limestone now!

[Tidgy's Dad]

The teeth have come out very nicely indeed.

Nice fishy.

Good job. 

[RJB]

Very nice.  Wish I had your patience when I started prepping.  Looking forward to seeing more of your prep jobs. 

 

RB

[Archie]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

The teeth have come out very nicely indeed.

Nice fishy.

Good job. 

Thanks Adam! 

Luckily the entire skull and all those teeth split out perfectly and needed no prep at all!  

52 minutes ago, RJB said:

Very nice.  Wish I had your patience when I started prepping.  Looking forward to seeing more of your prep jobs. 

 

RB

Thank you!  

Oh there's definitely a good few fossils in my collection that would look a lot nicer now if only I had more patience haha!  

[Manticocerasman]

excellent preppjob, the details are incredible

 

[doushantuo]

thx for posting ,Arch!

[Plantguy]

Interesting find. Great prepwork! Does the coprolite have any discernable contents...scales, bone bits, etc?

Regards, Chris 

[Archie]

Thanks guys!  

 

3 hours ago, Plantguy said:

Does the coprolite have any discernable contents...scales, bone bits, etc?

Actually this coprolite doesn't seem to have any have scales or bone bits so maybe its not from a predatory fish after all. Most of the coprolites in this bed are full of lovely inclusions of scales and bones though, heres a particularly scaly one and another with a couple of shark crusher teeth.