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So I had a few hours off the other day and decided to hit a favorite spot in the Glen Rose Formation. The Glen Rose is Lower Cretaceous (Albian) and can be very fossiliferous. For those familiar with this formation the particular layer I was hunting is near the top of the Lower Member in what is known as the "Salenia texana" zone. As the name implies it is abundant with the echinoid Leptosalenia texana. But it also produces another handful of echinoids, some common and some rare. I was hunting(hoping) for the rare ones... Now let me tell you it has been a long hard summer and this week was the topper with my wiener dog Bacon getting snake bit in the back yard and things at work being extra hectic and, well just life in general in this time of plague... So I was DUE BIG TIME for a good hunt. Within the first five minutes I knew it was going to be good. We recently had some good rain and there were no footprints in sight. And it was bright and clear and perfect "urchin" light. Some of you know just what I mean by that. Sharp clear sunlight at the right angle makes those tubercules pop, even when half buried in the marl. My first good find was a fossil I had been looking for for a while and one that I got skunked on at the last PSA field trip. Jamie Lynn and a few other club members found them and I was teasing them about it. It was a comatulid crinoid cup. Not an echinoid, but another weird echinoderm. Comatulids are stemless crinoids, aka feather stars. From there I started finding those Leptosalenias of which I only brought home the best ones. Lots of other good specimens of bivalves, gastropods, serpulids, etc started filling the bag and then I looked up and there it was, bucket list, holy grail of the GR, a CIDARID! Now I have several "pieces" from there but this one was obviously complete. It was still tucked into the marly layer and hadn't been fully washed out and broken up yet. As I removed it I found it was a bit squooshed, but otherwise intact. The species is Paracidaris? texanus (Whitney & Kellum). Smith & Rader(2009) placed it tentatively in Paracidaris, but it is probably a good ID. Spines and loose plates are common but articulated specimens are few and far between. That was it, I could have gone home right then and there, but I kept going. I was rewarded with a medium sized Tetragramma (semi rare) that will need lots of cleaning and a few more Leptosalenias. Eventually my alarm went off and it was time to head home. A great afternoon in Central Texas.

A recent acquisition that I bought just because it's beautiful. Impressions of cidarids crop up quite often in Cretaceous flint but I've never been lucky enough to find one (and I live in the wrong area). Probably Temnocidaris sp., Upper Cretaceous, Santonian, Kent coast, southern England. Test fragment 13mm across

I found this little jewel a while back, but never found out what species it is. Can anyone tell me what genus species it is? This is a close up of an ambulacral and pore area. I don’t think I can get much better on the close up picture quality. I do have a number of pics from other angles if needed. Thanks in advance for your input.