Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'listracanthus'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
    Tags should be keywords or key phrases. e.g. otodus, megalodon, shark tooth, miocene, bone valley formation, usa, florida.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Fossil Discussion
    • Fossil ID
    • Fossil Hunting Trips
    • General Fossil Discussion
    • Partners in Paleontology - Member Contributions to Science
    • Fossil of the Month
    • Questions & Answers
    • Member Collections
    • A Trip to the Museum
    • Paleo Re-creations
    • Collecting Gear
    • Fossil Preparation
    • Is It Real? How to Recognize Fossil Fabrications
    • Member-to-Member Fossil Trades
    • Fossil News
  • Community News
    • Member Introductions
    • Member of the Month
    • Members' News & Diversions
  • General Category
    • Rocks & Minerals
    • Geology

Categories

  • Annelids
  • Arthropods
    • Crustaceans
    • Insects
    • Trilobites
    • Other Arthropods
  • Brachiopods
  • Cnidarians (Corals, Jellyfish, Conulariids )
    • Corals
    • Jellyfish, Conulariids, etc.
  • Echinoderms
    • Crinoids & Blastoids
    • Echinoids
    • Other Echinoderms
    • Starfish and Brittlestars
  • Forams
  • Graptolites
  • Molluscs
    • Bivalves
    • Cephalopods (Ammonites, Belemnites, Nautiloids)
    • Gastropods
    • Other Molluscs
  • Sponges
  • Bryozoans
  • Other Invertebrates
  • Ichnofossils
  • Plants
  • Chordata
    • Amphibians & Reptiles
    • Birds
    • Dinosaurs
    • Fishes
    • Mammals
    • Sharks & Rays
    • Other Chordates
  • *Pseudofossils ( Inorganic objects , markings, or impressions that resemble fossils.)

Blogs

  • Anson's Blog
  • Mudding Around
  • Nicholas' Blog
  • dinosaur50's Blog
  • Traviscounty's Blog
  • Seldom's Blog
  • tracer's tidbits
  • Sacredsin's Blog
  • fossilfacetheprospector's Blog
  • jax world
  • echinoman's Blog
  • Ammonoidea
  • Traviscounty's Blog
  • brsr0131's Blog
  • brsr0131's Blog
  • Adventures with a Paddle
  • Caveat emptor
  • -------
  • Fig Rocks' Blog
  • placoderms
  • mosasaurs
  • ozzyrules244's Blog
  • Terry Dactyll's Blog
  • Sir Knightia's Blog
  • MaHa's Blog
  • shakinchevy2008's Blog
  • Stratio's Blog
  • ROOKMANDON's Blog
  • Phoenixflood's Blog
  • Brett Breakin' Rocks' Blog
  • Seattleguy's Blog
  • jkfoam's Blog
  • Erwan's Blog
  • Erwan's Blog
  • marksfossils' Blog
  • ibanda89's Blog
  • Liberty's Blog
  • Liberty's Blog
  • Lindsey's Blog
  • Back of Beyond
  • Ameenah's Blog
  • St. Johns River Shark Teeth/Florida
  • gordon's Blog
  • West4me's Blog
  • West4me's Blog
  • Pennsylvania Perspectives
  • michigantim's Blog
  • michigantim's Blog
  • lauraharp's Blog
  • lauraharp's Blog
  • micropterus101's Blog
  • micropterus101's Blog
  • GPeach129's Blog
  • Olenellus' Blog
  • nicciann's Blog
  • nicciann's Blog
  • Deep-Thinker's Blog
  • Deep-Thinker's Blog
  • bear-dog's Blog
  • javidal's Blog
  • Digging America
  • John Sun's Blog
  • John Sun's Blog
  • Ravsiden's Blog
  • Jurassic park
  • The Hunt for Fossils
  • The Fury's Grand Blog
  • julie's ??
  • Hunt'n 'odonts!
  • falcondob's Blog
  • Monkeyfuss' Blog
  • cyndy's Blog
  • pattyf's Blog
  • pattyf's Blog
  • chrisf's Blog
  • chrisf's Blog
  • nola's Blog
  • mercyrcfans88's Blog
  • Emily's PRI Adventure
  • trilobite guy's Blog
  • barnes' Blog
  • xenacanthus' Blog
  • myfossiltrips.blogspot.com
  • HeritageFossils' Blog
  • Fossilefinder's Blog
  • Fossilefinder's Blog
  • maybe a nest fossil?
  • farfarawy's Blog
  • Microfossil Mania!
  • blogs_blog_99
  • Southern Comfort
  • Emily's MotE Adventure
  • Eli's Blog
  • andreas' Blog
  • Recent Collecting Trips
  • retired blog
  • andreas' Blog test
  • fossilman7's Blog
  • Piranha Blog
  • xonenine's blog
  • xonenine's Blog
  • Fossil collecting and SAFETY
  • Detrius
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • pangeaman's Blog
  • Jocky's Blog
  • Jocky's Blog
  • Kehbe's Kwips
  • RomanK's Blog
  • Prehistoric Planet Trilogy
  • mikeymig's Blog
  • Western NY Explorer's Blog
  • Regg Cato's Blog
  • VisionXray23's Blog
  • Carcharodontosaurus' Blog
  • What is the largest dragonfly fossil? What are the top contenders?
  • Test Blog
  • jsnrice's blog
  • Lise MacFadden's Poetry Blog
  • BluffCountryFossils Adventure Blog
  • meadow's Blog
  • Makeing The Unlikley Happen
  • KansasFossilHunter's Blog
  • DarrenElliot's Blog
  • Hihimanu Hale
  • jesus' Blog
  • A Mesozoic Mosaic
  • Dinosaur comic
  • Zookeeperfossils
  • Cameronballislife31's Blog
  • My Blog
  • TomKoss' Blog
  • A guide to calcanea and astragali
  • Group Blog Test
  • Paleo Rantings of a Blockhead
  • Dead Dino is Art
  • The Amber Blog
  • Stocksdale's Blog
  • PaleoWilliam's Blog
  • TyrannosaurusRex's Facts
  • The Community Post
  • The Paleo-Tourist
  • Lyndon D Agate Johnson's Blog
  • BRobinson7's Blog
  • Eastern NC Trip Reports
  • Toofuntahh's Blog
  • Pterodactyl's Blog
  • A Beginner's Foray into Fossiling
  • Micropaleontology blog
  • Pondering on Dinosaurs
  • Fossil Preparation Blog
  • On Dinosaurs and Media
  • cheney416's fossil story
  • jpc
  • A Novice Geologist
  • Red-Headed Red-Neck Rock-Hound w/ My Trusty HellHound Cerberus
  • Red Headed
  • Paleo-Profiles
  • Walt's Blog
  • Between A Rock And A Hard Place
  • Rudist digging at "Point 25", St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria (Campanian, Gosau-group)
  • Prognathodon saturator 101
  • Books I have enjoyed
  • Ladonia Texas Fossil Park
  • Trip Reports
  • Glendive Montana dinosaur bone Hell’s Creek
  • Test
  • Stratigraphic Succession of Chesapecten

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Found 12 results

  1. I'm happy to announce i possibly found the most complete Listracanthus to date. And we may finally get a proper ID for this strange creature. I thought this was regurgitation, but while prepping i believe i ran into cartilage. So i will stop prepping and give this to a professional, or at least let someone with more experience look at this. Unfortunately the rest is in a giant wall of black shale that i won't be able to get back to until next Spring/Summer. The denticles are up to 6mm thick and associated with smaller denticles. I will get more pictures under a scope when i get a chance. God willing i will recover the rest of this creature in 2019. Happy hunting! Possible cartilage
  2. Yesterday I went on a combined field trip with ESCONI and LOESS to the Starved Rock Clay Products pit in Utica, Illinois. ( @connorp was there too!) This open pit exposes the Pennsylvanian Mecca Quarry black shale, Francis Creek shale, Colchester Coal, and an underclay below the coal- an assembly of strata that have produced world-renowned fossils elsewhere, including Mazon Creek fossils further east and complete sharks from the Mecca Quarry Shale in Indiana. At this location, unfortunately, the concretions are almost all blanks but the black shale does produce isolated fauna including bivalves, brachiopods, cephalopods, and shark teeth and scales. The underclay also contains petrified and pyritized wood and root traces. About 30 of us gathered at a nearby McDonalds before heading to the pit- dark clouds on the horizon brought intermittent hard rain that kindly let up by the time we reached the pit floor. My interest for this trip was in the black shale, with hopes of finding shark material in particular. With the recent rains everything was muddy, and the black shale could be found in chunks strewn along the slumping highwall. Some folks were splitting the shale, but I did not have any luck with that-all of my finds were already exposed. The mud really made it hard to see whether or not there were fossils in the exposed black shale, but I was happy to be able to find a few pieces worth taking home- as often seems to be the case for me when fossil hunting, I found my best stuff in the first hour and virtually nothing the rest of the time I was there.
  3. I am excited to share with my friends on The Fossil Forum a significant discovery that I made last week. In 1870 an unusual spine like structure was described from a Pennsylvanian aged black shale site in Illinois. The fossil was believed to belong to an unknown chondrichthyan (shark) that is unlike anything anyone has ever seen. For over 150 years, these denticles have shown up in sites around the world. This animal ranges from the Pennsylvanian to the Triassic meaning that it survived the Permian extinction. Researchers have been perplexed and frustrated as aside from a few patches of scales, no articulated material has ever been found. Dr Rainer Zangerl spent many years extensively collecting black shale sites in Illinois and Indiana. He claims to have found a specimen in Indiana only to have it disintegrate in front of him. He described it having had an eel like body covered in the feathery denticles. I am pleased to announce that I have found what appears to be a complete well preserved specimen. For almost 20 years, I have been searching several black shale sites in North central Illinois. The shale is very similar to the Mecca Quarry black shale found at sites in Indiana.I have posted pictures in the past of various other fossils that I have found at the site. The denticles are relatively abundant but I have never seen any other signs of this mystery shark. Last week, I made a last minute trip out to a site that I occasionally collect and spent a few hours splitting slabs of shale. I was not having much luck and getting ready to call it a day. I decided to open one last large slab. I took a whack and it split perfectly. There in front of me was probably the most scientifically significant fossil that I have ever found. I knew almost immediately what it was but could not believe what I was looking at. A small shark like animal with an elongated eel like body and various spines. The majority of the fossil is covered by a thin layer of black shale so it does not look that impressive. Once prepped, the preservation should be fantastic and similar to other fish that I have shared from these shales.. I am in the process of searching for a researcher who wants to describe it. The fossil appears to be relatively complete from head to tail. I will keep this thread updated as things progress. Without further delay please enjoy being some of the first people to ever see what Listracanthus looked like.
  4. From the album: Muncie Creek Shale Phosphatic Nodules

    https://i.ibb.co/K0N2mGV/20211117-194532-HDR.jpg https://i.ibb.co/KmZQM6p/20211117-194520-HDR.jpg This is the largest I have found out of the 3 specimens I have (One isn't shown in this album due to being incomplete). the othe two exhibit Yellow hues
  5. Hi Everyone, I’d like to share a few posts on the shales I’ve been hunting recently in Kansas City, Missouri. Long story short – my neighbor is digging a ‘pond’ to China. He has massive equipment from his business and so far he’s dug through about 35 feet (~10.6 M) of material. My land matches his where the dam to the pond is and I saw shale in it which really surprised me since I’ve never found shale on my property. Even in the creeks and gullies. I would also like to say that I have been really inspired by the posts from @connorp and @deutscheben about the shale they find in Illinois and wanted to show a similar collection from a specific location/member in Missouri. Here’s a rough Lithology table of my area: The pond was dug through the Winterset Limestone member through the Stark and I believe through the Galesburg shale members and into the Bethany Falls Limestone from the top of the hill we both live on! It’s absolutely magnificent. I asked him if I could take some of the shale that he went through and all he said was, ‘take it all,’ and so I did. I passed on the limestone since its way more readily available to collect in the area and I hadn’t ever hunted through shale. I’ve gone through about 250 lbs (113 kg) of shale within the last few weeks and would like to sporadically present my findings as I can make time for it. Completely unrelated to his digging I listed and sold my house and land and am moving my family to Texas. All of this has happened within a month or so. I feel that this last hurrah into shale is a way for me to say goodbye to the state I’ve lived almost my entire life in thus far. Here’s one of my wheelbarrow loads of shale. I am no scientist but will do my best to assign at least some family or species to my finds. I love the adventure of findings fossils, prepping them can be therapeutic at times and insanely frustrating at others, and assigning species is my least favorite. Probably because I am not naturally good at it. If you see a species you feel is wrongly identified please feel free to share. It’s my weak point so I’d appreciate anything that helps me get better at it. The Galesburg layer is really hard to hunt from because it’s mudstone/claystone at the top then turns into harder grey shale at the bottom. It brakes vertically into rounded blocks instead of horizontally when you try to cut or split it and destroys the fossils that it contains. At the slightest addition of moisture it crumbles and the paper thin fossils are lost. This is a chunk of it I accidentally left out one night that succumbed to the dew from one evening and following morning. It’s filled with material I am having a hard time placing but I am calling it plant material until I can more accurately identify it. Unfortunately I didn’t get hunting till a few weeks after this layer had been dug out and the vast majority if it returned to mud. Without future ado, let me begin my adventure into Missouri shale. Here’s what I believe may be part of a Calamites plant. From what I am calling the Galesburg claystone. Scale in cm/mm. Here is another unknown that I believe is some type of plant stem. The Galesburg material is so much harder to deal with that I have a lot of it in storage now to go through at a later point.
  6. So.....I was splitting my last piece of Pennsylvanian stark shale member, between Winterset and Bethany Falls limestone from a 2x2' 2" thick piece, I found some cool conodonts, a lot of scolecodonts, and amassing a pile of split shale, when I came upon yet another listracanthus/fish spine, about 5-6cm in length and very slender (2-3mm in width). I have both positive and negative pieces (depicted here). I scan all of these to see the pattern, faint impressions of a wider segment (as seen in photo 6 ), and in this particular specimen noted the shiny black cracks and creases surrounding the fossil. I see this very commonly in shale (and my understanding is it reflects rapid cooling of heated material?). In addition however, I saw what simply appeared to be conglomerations of, for lack of a better term, "worms" (Circled in blue in photo 2 and red in photo 6). Now stay with me on this one! Under microscopic evaluation numerous ''nematode" shaped objects adjacent to the spine are present, measuring 0.3-0.8mm in length are noted. Most are broken but there are some mostly intact. Several demonstrate fine "annelid" rings, (denoted by arrows) but I don't think these are annelids? At first I thought the preservation was too good to be real, but I have denoted numerous impressions in the shapes of worms, even to the point of the "rings". In reviewing nematode and annelid taxa, I don't see any mouthparts to make these polychaetes, and found reference to "ringed" nematodes. I hope someone can confirm or tell me if these are something else. I have placed circles (blue and red) around the groups, and arrows on salient features of impressions and the worms themselves. Also labeled a couple more intact individuals with an "N", but most are broken. If this is a reasonable observation, then this is one of the coolest things I have ever found!!!!! Fingers crossed I am on the right track!!!....Worst case, it is a plant piece with adjacent plant nematodes, which are very common nowadays and worst worst case, I am totally off track . There are 13 photos, with some seemingly one image but if you look close, they are separate if that helps. as always, thanks all!!! Have fun with these and let me know!! Bone
  7. Over the past year, I've become fascinated with the often bizarre fish and sharks of the Pennsylvanian. Fortunately, my home state of Illinois is a great place to hunt for such fossils. I've shared several of these in other posts before, but wanted to put everything together in one thread. Probably won't have much to post for a few months after this, but once summer rolls around, I should hopefully have plenty of new finds to share. I would say there are three major settings in which you can find fish fossils in Illinois: Mazon Creek, black shales, and limestone. I have not had luck at Mazon Creek yet, but hopefully that will change. So I'll start out with the black shales. These specimens, my first fish fossils, were collected in August 2019 from the Mecca Quarry Shale exposed at a clay quarry in Utica, IL. This shale directly overlies the Francis Creek Shale (i.e. Mazon Creek) at this location. The three specimens below are stomach ejecta from some kind of fish, and are composed mostly of partially digested fish scales. In addition, I found this very nice pair of associated acanthodian fin spines. The top fin has an area showing damage, possibly due to predation.
  8. Bonehunter

    What is it and what do I do next?

    So building up my conodont collection and getting a scope to get better pics, but I found a 6-8' Pennsylvania shale shelf with huge intact pieces. I found this 2 x 2 1/2' piece with this central fossil fish? Under magnification (photo 4 and 5) there are scales/skin along the "spines"-that picture is at the central aspect of photo 2. I found the positive impression piece several yards away, though there are positive and negative pieces in both. Off one of the "spines". Off the end of one it a short, pointed spine? I can try to get a photo of that. My questions are 1. What is it?- fish? Listracanthus? urchin spines? 2. There appears to be some sort of decomposition of original tissue around some of the spines. Is that a reasonable observation and can anyone explain? 2. How do I clean it further?- the rest of it appears to be under a shale layer at the 7:00 position in photo 2 and 10-11:00 position in photo 3 there is ~12-18" of more shale along that margin 3. Should I just take/donate this to a lab and have them do it? I don't think this is earth shattering, but if its wholly there, could be interesting Thanks for any input! really appreciate the expertise on the forum!! Bone
  9. I was fortunate to be able to take two trips recently to the Marmaton group in Northern Missouri and wanted to share my trip report with the forum. It's hard to find information on the Marmaton in Missouri, and I struggled with the geology and understanding what members within the Marmaton I was seeing, but I had a great time non the less. I grew up in this region and have some ‘insiders’ information on a few spots I wanted to check out just from spending time running around the countryside as a kid. The first was in a local creek in the township I grew up in that contains concretions we called ‘dragon eggs.’ I was curious if they would contain fossils so on my first trip in early September I committed to breaking one open. First, here are a few pictures of the site: I was able to break this one open, and it did contain fossils! The blue line on the lower left marks a very thin layer of limestone that the concretions seem to form right above. Here are a few more pictures of the concretions for reference. A particularly large one: And one that is just cracked: Unfortunately for me only the very first one I broke had any fossils. I spent several hours hoping another would reveal some but luck was against me at that point I guess and I failed to find a single one. Frustrated I spent the remainder of the evening searching through the fallen limestone exposures. The next post will contain some of the specimens from the single fossiliferous concretion and the limestone.
  10. Last weekend I decided to take a short drive to Vermilion County, IL and get outside for a little bit. I haven’t been able to do any fossil hunting since COVID-19 reached our shores, so I had a few iffy sites less than 40 minutes from home in mind as I was driving. The first two proved fruitless, but I decided on a whim to take a new road over a local river in hopes of finding some exposures there. The river was running high with verdant growth all around and dragon and damselflies filling the air. As I looked down from the bridge I saw sandy shore, concrete bridge abutment, and then a small section with some intriguing rocks scattered along the river’s edge. Once I made my way down to river level, I found that the black rocks visible above were pieces of black shale and coal. I was excited! I had been thinking of black shale since collecting some on an ESCONI trip last year and reading @connorp’s posts about black shale finds. This shale was much more fragile and bedded than the Mecca Quarry Shale I found last year, so I was able to split it easily by hand. I was too excited, so I forgot to take any in situ photos (I took the ones above on my way back to the car). Before too long, I spotted the unmistakeable shape of a dermal spine from the iconic black shale chondrichthyan fauna Listracanthus hystrix- a strange shark relative covered in spiny denticles. I spent about 30 minutes searching this small exposure and turned up several more Listracanthus, the inarticulate brachiopods Lingula and Orbiculoidea, fish scales, and some mysterious spine fossils. Unfortunately, almost everything was tiny (less than 1 cm) and I don’t have a macro lens for my phone yet, so photos of most of them will have to wait. Here is everything I kept after trimming the matrix down: I will share some more pics of the best Listracanthus in my next post.
  11. Our shark adaptation education program for elementary students follows up the Cladodonts with three of the craziest looking early sharks and three that we think kids will love learning about. The Eugeneodontid "sharks" may not be sharks but they are just too cool not to teach the kids about. Bizarre is interesting and I also love talking about evolutionary extremes. The best part of these next animals is that they each allow my son to really stretch out as an artist and create some weird looking creatures. The kids will learn that Edestus were large, predatory shark-like fish that are related to modern ratfish. We will quickly cover the tooth whorl which is where the term Scissor-tooth comes from. I have been reading theories as to how the teeth were used and I think it will be fun to discuss possible feeding methods with the kids. We will not spend much time on Listracanthus because there is not much information about them. I have seen them described as being eel-like and covered in the "feather" denticles. This is one that is really about the artwork so my son is the star with this species. Can not wait to see his finished rendition. I think the kids will really love Stethacanthus. I know it is a cladodont but we separate it in the presentation. The Anvil Shark is a wild creature. The anvil shaped, denticle covered spine, patch of spine on its head, and the whip-like projections from the pectoral fins are adaptations that are open to debate. Asking open ended questions with this species will be more fun than giving the kids theories. What do you think the spines were used for and what do you think those whips are all about? The kids will guide the presentation about Stethacanthus. While we wont be adding any additional Cladodont fossils any time soon, I do hope to add either Caseodus or Campodus to our collection before the end of spring. I like the Eugeneodontids as artistic subjects for my son so we will pick up more of these fossils as we progress. Our presentation fossils Pic 1- Edestus heinrichi. This is an Illinois coal mine fossil, dated to between 360-320 mya. Another personal favorite. These are not common and it is pretty cool to be able to show this one to students. Pic 2- Listracanthus. A "feather" denticle from the Pennsylvanian-Desmoinesian in Iowa. Not the best example as it is difficult to see but a good photograph will help. Still it is cool just to have the Feather Shark in the program ! Pic 3- Stethacanthus altonesis. One of the two teeth we have from the Caney Shale Formation in Oklahoma. Again, it is just too cool to have Stethacanthus fossils. I do not know how rare they are or anything but it is just such a freaky little creature.
×
×
  • Create New...