Unknown Fossil from the Silurian, Gotland / Sweden

[uli123]

Hallo,

in diesem Jahr fand ich ein problematische fossilen im Steinbruch von Bungenäs, Gotland / Schweden (Slite-Gruppe, Wenlock, Silur), hat jemand eine Idee, was das sein könnte? Meine erste Idee war , dass es ein Fragment eines Kopffüßer sein könnte , aber ich bin nicht shure!

Grüße Uli

[DPS Ammonite]

“Hello,
This year I found a problematic fossil in the quarry of Bungenäs, Gotland / Sweden (Slite Group, Wenlock, Silur), does anyone have any idea what that might be? My first idea was that it could be a fragment of a cephalopod, but I'm not shure!
Greetings Uli”

 

Hello Uli, welcome to the Forum. It sort of looks like a hyolithid that has a ringed body and round operculum. Although, hyolithids are not reported from the Silurian. 

 

http://paleontologylib.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000029/st137.shtml

[dalmayshun]

no idea as to identiy, but beautiful fossil. I am so impressed it has not been crushed or distorted. 

[grandpa]

Thanks DPS, I learned something new again today.  Thank you.

I didn't even know of these creatures, sitting here in my parochial Penn and Cretac. deposits in Texas.

You mention that they "are not reported from the Silurian".  In attempting to expand my knowledge of these curious creatures a bit, I went to Wikipedia and found the statement below.  If they were extant from the Cambrian to the Permian, they must have existed in the Silurian too but just not have any discovered specimens from the Silurian, correct?  Perhaps this would be a first discovery of a Silurian specimen. (?)  Is that a possibility?

           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyolitha

From Wikipedia:

"The first hypolith fossils appeared about 540 million years ago . . . Hypolith abundance and diversity attain a maximum in the Cambrian, followed by a progressive decline up to their Permian extinction."  Ref:

Malinky, J. M. (2009). "Permian Hyolithid a from Australia: The Last of the Hyoliths?". Journal of Paleontology. 83: 147–152. doi:10.1666/08-094R.1.

 

Thanks,

 

Grandpa

[FossilDAWG]

I am inclined to think this is a siphuncle of a nautiloid, perhaps something like a discocerid.  Some Silurian nautiloids had very short, slightly curved shells with much of the interior space filled with a relatively large dense siphuncle.  This siphuncle was filled with deposits that made it quite heavy.  In contrast, the camerae (chambers) were quite fragile.  The buoyant (floating) camerae and massive (sinking) siphuncle kept the animal in a balance that allowed them to crawl over the sea floor.  The fragile camerae (made up of the exterior shell and the septa) were most often fragmented after death, so the massive siphuncles are by far the most commonly found fossil.  The septa formed "connecting rings" where they attched to the siphuncle inside the shell, and these can superficially look very much like the suture lines you usually see on the surface of nautiloid fossils.

 

BTE that is a very beautiful fossil! 

 

Don

[Auspex]

My first thought was Belemnite phragmacone, but obviously that would be way out of date.
I think FossilDAWG is on the right track.

[uli123]

Hello to all, thank you for the help but it will probably remain a mystery until further notice

Uli