Echinoid ID Please

[TheodRouge]

So yes, I went fossil hunting for the first time with two friends two days ago behind my friend’s grandma’s house in some farmland and we had a blast finding fossil shells of echinoids and gastropods and whatnot. Before we left though, my friend’s grandma gave us this really well preserved fossil of an echinoid (at least compared to our finds) and asked us if we could perhaps find out how old it is. I tried to do some research on the web but its an absolute maze but I stumbled across this forum. So im hoping that through identification, we’ll be able to find out about how old it is because i feel like its the least we could do for my friend’s grandma who entrusted us with this amazing fossils of hers. Anyways, imma get straight to it now.

 

Its was found in some farm land which has some sedimentary rock underneath all the soil. The excavation of this rock to till the ground better has created quite a few piles of this rock here and there which also contain fossils of sea snail shells, some really round looking clams, and echinoids just like the one in the pictures. The rock surrounding the fossils are a really light orangey color and is really easy to chip at or scrape. Probably limestome but not sure cuz im still new to this. This is all located in the Philippines up in the mountains on the island of by the way. It’s 13.5 cm across what I believe is its “front end” to its “back end”, 11cm wide, and about 3 cm tall.

 

Again im new to this so if there are any details that still need to be mentioned or if some additional pictures are needed, please ask because I would feel really bad if i didnt grant this sweet old lady her request. T^T 

 

Any info about how old it could possibly date would really mean alot but other info on it would be really great too ^-^

Edited June 6, 2019 by TheodRouge
Almost forgot the measurements sorry

[FranzBernhard]

Welcome to TFF from Austria! Maybe you are the frist member from the Philippines !

 

Congratulations to your successful first fossil hunting trip and thanks for sharing this beauty of an echinoid!

I can not help with identification, but there are many very knowledgeable echinoid experts on this forum, who could give it a name. Then you would have also an approximate age.

 

Meanwhile, try googling for geologic maps of your area. This will also give an indication of the age of your specimens.

 

Franz Bernhard

 

[DPS Ammonite]

Consider Eupatagus sp.

 

 

[TheodRouge]

1 hour ago, FranzBernhard said:

Welcome to TFF from Austria! Maybe you are the frist member from the Philippines !

 

Congratulations to your successful first fossil hunting trip and thanks for sharing this beauty of an echinoid!

I can not help with identification, but there are many very knowledgeable echinoid experts on this forum, who could give it a name. Then you would have also an approximate age.

 

Meanwhile, try googling for geologic maps of your area. This will also give an indication of the age of your specimens.

 

Franz Bernhard

 

Thanks for the welcome! I tried looking for such maps but I wasnt able to find anything that provided much insight but thanks anyway.

[TheodRouge]

52 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Consider Eupatagus sp.

 

 

Ooooooh looks really close! Really looks like it could be in that genus from what I’ve found when I searched for images in the web

[caterpillar]

It's a Spatangus

[Mark Kmiecik]

I found this: Eupatagus mooreanus 

 

[Scylla]

Maybe this PDF of sea urchins of the Philippines may help? At least it is interesting to read.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317730856_Sea_Urchins_of_the_Philippines&ved=2ahUKEwiZgrrJ-tXiAhUquVkKHeh9ADUQFjATegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2AgEE3TMFYW3JCyTLpu3_d

[caterpillar]

10 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

I found this: Eupatagus mooreanus 

 

 

Not the same

[MikeR]

I would love to see pictures of the fossil shells you found.

[hemipristis]

Welcome to TFF neighbor!  Sweet echinoid.  I have only seen a few from the Philippines, and they were squashed

 

 

[Ludwigia]

On 6.6.2019 at 2:25 PM, caterpillar said:

It's a Spatangus

Can you please describe to us why you are so certain that this is a Spatangus?

[Megaselachus13]

Although the distribution of tubercles and the height of the profile is different, the shape of the ambulacral areas resembles Breynia. 

Also the geographical distribution seems adequate.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/data/echinoid-directory/taxa/taxon.jsp?id=333

 

 

[TheodRouge]

On 6/7/2019 at 5:19 AM, Mark Kmiecik said:

I found this: Eupatagus mooreanus 

 

Maybe but it doesn’t seem tp have have that dent in its front that gives it that “heart” shape

[TheodRouge]

On 6/7/2019 at 7:00 AM, Scylla said:

Maybe this PDF of sea urchins of the Philippines may help? At least it is interesting to read.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317730856_Sea_Urchins_of_the_Philippines&ved=2ahUKEwiZgrrJ-tXiAhUquVkKHeh9ADUQFjATegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2AgEE3TMFYW3JCyTLpu3_d

Interesting for sure. This is surprising actually cuz i thought all that anyone wanted from urchins in the Philippines was to eat them XD Anyways, based on typing some of the names of the families in google, its DEFINITLY part of Spatangoida which are commonly known as heart urchins. Sadly searching further, i barely found any articles on the specific genera (thats plural for genus right?) and the differences between them. Not alot of research done on them I guess which is understandable because admittedly, they aren’t the most exciting creatures in the world and that theres not a whole lot to study about them. All i got was some basic heart urchin anatomy and that they are detrivores.

[TheodRouge]

19 hours ago, MikeR said:

I would love to see pictures of the fossil shells you found.

Sure man i’ll show what i took home with me. Heres pictures of a fossil snail shell (which is my proudest find btw) and a clam fossil which had its upper and lower half slide past each other giving it a wierd shape (i know it looks like a weirdly rounded rock but im 94% sure its a clam in there). I decided to leave chunk of rock i found with the snail shell because im scared i might mess up if i do anymore chiseling to it plus i feel that ot gives it a nice aesthetic. We actually found A BUNCH of those clam fossils but they were absolutely everywhere and just looked like some rounded limestone. I took the one i did because of the unique shap it had. We actually found some more echinoid fossils but all that we found were mostly broken up and in fragments.

[Max-fossils]

Welcome to the forum! 

That's a very nice sea urchin! I can't help you with the ID of that gorgeous sea urchin, but finding out the age might be easier if we have a good idea of the fauna in which it was in. You said you found lots of fossil shells. If you can show us some pictures of them, we might be able to identify (to family/genus... probably not species) them and look at when those species were alive. Assuming that this sea urchin comes from the same spot, we can then hopefully say the age of your echinoid too (which could perhaps help finding a more confident species name too).

So, please show us some pictures of the fossil shells you found! 

Best regards,

Max

 

EDIT: seems like you were posting some pictures just while I was asking for them  

Ok, so unfortunately the shells you found are steinkerns (internal molds). So it's not the actual shell that's preserved. This makes it very hard to come up with a good ID for them, and hence determining the age through this will be difficult. They're still very nice though, good finds! 

Edited June 8, 2019 by Max-fossils
New post while writing mine

[Scylla]

This link has a geologic map of the Philippines. If we knew which island and what part of it you were on we should be able to tell roughly how old the rock is in that area. You can just use the map yourself too.