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Hi all, Last weekend I took a trip, again, to the Florissant Fossil Quarry. The quarry doesn’t normally open until Memorial Day, but I went with the Colorado State University entomology club. I successfully lobbied for the club to take a field trip there, and the club got the trip funded by the student’s association so we got to go in as a by-appointment special group for “free” (at least for us). Perhaps this whole process is a story I’ll tell another time. Anyway, for those not familiar in the upper Eocene Florissant Formation fossils of insects and plants are highly abundant, but fossils of vertebrates are exceptionally rare. This is despite being a superficially similar depositional environment to the Green River Formation, where fish fossils are abundant. Well, after countless total hours of splitting in the quarry over the years I’ve finally come across a vertebrate fossil - the head of a teleost fish! This is exciting simply because fish fossils are very rare in this rock unit. The shale breaking split the fossil, so presumably the body is still out in the quarry somewhere. There are of course fish described from Florissant, but I’m not familiar with them. The only identification I can readily make is teleost. Thought I’d share a rare find! My “white whale” for the Florissant Formation is still a spider fossil. There were three spiders found by entomology club participants, but of course I was not one of them. Of course I’d find the way more rare thing, but not the thing I wanted 😀

These tiny teeth (?) have me stumped, as did a bit of the Cabezon fauna I am working on. This site has been very helpful in identifying some of the rarer fossils, and I am asking for your help once again. At first glance, I thought these four dots were fungal or some other type of current plant material, but examining them under a microscope I am pretty convinced these have enameloid structures. Any idea of what they could be from? I am assuming some form of teleost at this time. Thanks for all of the help, past, present, and future!

Hey all! This small jaw fragment was in the thousands of fossils pulled out of anthills. I am assuming it is a teleost. Other than several species of sharks, rays, and sawfish, there are pycnodonts, enchodus, and Protosphyraena. This looks like nothing I've found yet. Any ideas?

Hey everyone Hope you're all doing well! While looking through unprepped/untouched blocks of chalk from last year's fieldwork session in the Late Cretaceous of Møns Klint (Denmark), I found one block that showed a little trace of fish bone. I scraped a bit around it with some dental tools, and managed to reveal the whole fossil. And I'm having quite some trouble identifying it... Could anyone help me? I've included pics and details of the specimen below. Pics: Note especially the 'ridges' in the upper half of the fossil Full details: -Location: Møns Klint, Isle of Møn, Denmark -Stratigraphy: Occidentalis belemnite zone, Hvidskud Member, Møns Klint Formation, White Chalk Group. -Age: Upper part of Lower Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous; ~70 million years old -Measurements: ~5mm largest width; ~4mm height -Possible interpretations so far: partial fin element, partial scale. Most recently, I considered it to be the partial scute of a Dercetidae fish (based on Wallaard et al. 2019 and Friedman 2012)... But I'm really unsure... Taken from Wallaard et al. 2019 Taken from Friedman 2012 I'd be really grateful for any help identifying my specimen