Search the Community

I bought this Solnhofen fossil at the Denver Mineral, Gem and Fossil Show this year. Each wing is 6cm long and the body, head to tip of abdomen is 8cm long. It did not come with an id but the vendor contacted his person in Germany who said he would call it Stenophlebia amphitrite. However, I'm seeing online an expected wingspan for that species of 170mm, which this one would fall short of (even if it had its wings on the right!) This is my first fossil purchase. I was impressed with the threads I read on this forum before going to the show last week and so would also be interested in critique of the fossil itself -- perhaps that needs to be posted though in a different discussion? Thank you in advance for guidance on id as well as thoughts on the fossil itself. Doug

The invertebrates: Some ammonites, Solnhofen floating crinoid Saccocoma, moroccan ordovician eocrinoid Ascocystites, orthoceras, one trillobite and more.

New specimen from Solnhofen. Mini ammonite and fish Fin. Is it possible to determine the species?

Gastropod or little ammonite? Localization Solnhofen, Germany. Thanks.

Solnhofen ammonite. What species is It?

The fossils from these two places look remarkably similar. If I'm looking at a shrimp fossil for example, is there an easy to identify which location it's from?

I have in my collection this metriorhynchid crocodile tooth from upper jurassic layers (Malm) or Painten in Germany. My question is whether this tooth can be further determined by type. given the round shape my best guess is Dakosaurus. Given the small size of 1.2 centimeters, a juvenile? It lacks the flattening common to Geosaurus and the triangular shape common to Cricosaurus. Who thinks along with me?

Unknown tooth (6 mm) from Solnhofen (Mühlheim, Lkrs. Eichstätt) Germany., no carinae are visible. I think about fish, anyone have an idea? Fish or reptile? Unfortunately no better photos.

Hi All, So I am lucky enough to have a day in Germany at the end of this next week. I will be in Zurich but am going to take a day to visit either Solnhofen or Holzmaden to collect fossils. For those who have been to those places, do you have any suggestions on which to choose? I plan to go to the commercial quarries open there associated with the museums. I wish I had time to visit both but that is not an option. Any suggestions? I would love to find some Jurassic marine fossils at one of these spots. Thanks for the help!

Hello, I saw this Dragonfly from Solnhofen for sale today and wondered If its real or painted, as it has only two wings (I remember that Dragonflys have normally four and not a set of horns) and it appears to bend with the rock underneath. Its also only one picture to maybe hide some details, so im pretty sure its fake. Sice : 7,5×14 cm @oilshale, @rocket, @Ludwigia

Hi forum, while waiting for the preparation of the fossil in my other topic i started cleaning a new piece, collected in the same quarry, Solnhofen (DE) i collected it because it showed the classic depressions typical of the presence of a fossil underneath, as you can see in the first picture while digging, it keeps popping out teeth (and i'm really happy about it). can you please tell me what animal it is so i can search some pitures online and better understand the shape below the rock before keep digging? i know it is still dirty, especially on teeth, i still have hours to work on it thanks a lot Best regards Paolo

Hi forum, i recently went to Solnhofen quarries (DE). I found some cool pieces and an amazing little shrimp! This one piece instead is something a little new to me. It looks half bones half cartilage...i can't tell. It should be something fish-related but i can't tell, it can be something totally different. I'd like to know which part of the body it is to better understand how to continue preparation wihout damaging it. The big middle bone looks strange, very thin and transparent on the border and more thick and orange/brown in the center. same as the cartilaginous part in the left. no clue i report some flash/noflash picture also in different angles. the sand around is a little dark because it is wet. the total uncovered length is about 4cm Thanks a lot Best regards Paolo

Hello, I was gifted this fish about a year ago without a label, finding location, or any information. But it kinda looks like some sort of perch to me. the fish measures 7cm in lenght. Thanks for any help !

Hi Everyone! A couple of days ago I returned from a fieldtrip to the Solnhofen region in Germany. The trip was organized by my fossilclub the BVP as well as my friend and professional paleontologist Jonathan Wallaard who led the trip. During our 4 day stay we visited 3 different quarries and the Burgermeister-Müller-Museum in Solnhofen. The Solnhofen Limestone is probably one of the most famous Konservat-Lagerstätte in the World. Dating back to the late Jurassic, Tithonian around 152 - 150 million years ago. During this time this area was a tropical archipelago in the Tethys Sea with many small islands and shallow lagoons. Due to its exceptional preservation we have an extensive record of the marine fauna as well a some knowledge of terrestrial species which inhabited the islands (which should have been located around 30 km from the mainland if I heard correctly from one of the quarry owners.) These seas were home to multiple species of ammonites, belemnites and squids; crinoïds like the free-floating Saccocoma; Echinoïds and Starfish; Horseshoe crabs, lobsters, crabs and schrimps; as well as sponges, corals, jellyfish, bivalves, gastropods and brachiopods (which are relatively rare finds.) But also a large diversity of bony fish (some of which could reach multiple meters in length), Hybodont sharks, Chimaera's as well as marine reptiles like the Ichthyosaur "Aegirosaurus", marine crocodiles, turtles and Pleurosaurus. The islands were home to Cycads and Araucariaceae trees, but also by many insects like dragonflies and beetles, reptiles like Sphenodonts and Squamates. Though the most famous of its inhabitants must have been the pterosaurs like Pterodactylus and Rhamphorhynchus as well as some dinosaurs like Compsognathus, Juravenator, Sciurumimus, Archaeopteryx and Alcmonavis. Our first day of digging was on friday (may 19th) at the BGM hobbysteinbruch in Solnhofen which is part of the Mörnsheim Formation (150,8 - 150 mya). https://www.solnhofen-fossilienatlas.de/siteinfo.php?section=sites&siteid=75&sitename=Solnhofen Hobbybruch The main fossils that could be found in this quarry were ammonites, aptychi, coprolites as well as fish. Our group of around 30 people assembled at the quarry at 10 o'clock and after a few words from the quarry owner and Jonathan we set of to dig. An overview of the quarry before we started digging. A couple of minutes later... Jonathan pointed me and my good friend Tom to a good place to dig and so we started cleaning debri so we could start digging. Since the Plattenkalk is layered it is always a good stategy to find some plateaus where so can hack away chunks which you can later split (which I suppose most of you already know). Pic of my hole in which I was working Unfortunately it turns out that the spot I picked must have been a public toilet as pretty much everything I found the first half of the day where coprolites, which turned into a running joke that day I was lucky enough to find a fish early one, though still entirely entombed in the rock but Jonathan warned us to look for bones into the cracked stones and that's how I managed to find it. Will require quite some prep work though. Later that day I started finding multiple Aptychi, Ammonites as well as a rare Bivalve. A plate with 3 ammonites (probably Neochetoceras steraspis) An ammonite with the Aptychus still in place which was found by one of the other members. Our club founder Luc, found this large piece of decorative slab which almost looked like it is petrified wooden dining table. Not a fossil but still cool as heck. And Tinneke managed to find a lovely fish jaw which was excavated by the help of Jonathan. While I didn't take pictures of the following, quite some members found fossil fish (some around 40 cm in lenght) and crustaceans like schrimp.

Dear members of the fossil forum I am contacting you because I need help in identifying an interesting specimen that I am currently preparing. The find is larger than I initially expected and seems to extend over the entire slab. Originally I thought it was the humerus of a pterosaur (Rhamphorhynchus sp.), but on closer examination under a stereomicroscope I noticed strange "nodules" on the surface of the bone. As far as I know, these are atypical for pterosaurs. The further I dissected, the stranger and more confusing the specimen became. I would never have expected to come across the parallel pieces, some of which lie under the bone and have a T-shaped cross-section. It comes from a limestone quarry in Mühlheim and I have been given permission by the owner to take it home for further examination and preparation. However, even he is at a loss as to what this "structure" is. Based on the colouring in the transverse fracture, he suspects that it could be a reptile rather than a fish. After extensive internet research, I have ruled out the possibility that it is a plant, an arthropod or an echinoderm, but I am happy to be corrected. Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to your comments. Kind regards DrGrant

This piece is supposedly a horseshoe crab ( Mesolimulus walchii) from the Solnhofen limestone of Germany. It is Jurassic and the description says there has only been mild color enhancement. Is this fossil real? Any fabrication? Thanks for the answers!

Hello everyone, and I hope you've had a good weekend. I have purchased this brittle star found in the Solnhofen Limestone. Here are the two images they have provided - in any case, they're probably higher quality than my phone would be able to take. They have labelled it as an unidentified species, and that it is known to have grown to a maximum of 3 centimeters across. The slab my specimen is on is 3 cm itself. What should I label it as in my display cabinet? Thanks for the help, it has been much appreciated over the last few weeks.

H Forum, these 2 speciments come from the eichstatt quarry (DE, next to the most famous Solnhofen quarries) the first one should be well preserved enough to try an accurate specie ID the second one, i'm not sure it is a fish, but the curved body and the strong orange color should indicate a bad preserved little fish Thanks a lot Paolo

Hi Forum this speciment was collected in the Eichstatt quarry (next to solnhofen) DE. I have no idea what it could be. It seems like to have some sort of exoskeleton because there are dark mineral structures on the edges (the dark spots). I attached 2 macros collage to make the details more visible (the last 2 images). This is both positive and negative. It is about 2.5cm long. In the beginnig it looks to me like a little fish, but after quarry dirt cleaning (it was a rainy day) i am not that sure, some sort of invertebrate? Thanks a lot Paolo