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I decided to travel to and visit my twin brother this past weekend. Sometimes, he's on-call for his job on the weekend and he happened to get a call for a job that would take 2 or 3 hours to finish. I didn't feel like sitting around a nursing home for some hours, so I decided to take the chance and visit a crinoid locality close by while I waited for him to get free. The area got a lot of hard rain and some severe weather during the weekend as well. With that in mind, I was hopeful some easy pickings would be washed out or weathered out from my last visit. A couple hours spent scouring the weathered hillside resulted in some okay finds. The first rock I flipped over had a nice Azygocrinus calyx on it exposed. Azygocrinus was the first crinoid I ever found while young, and that was what sparked my interest in crinoids. I set it aside with my keep pile, and kept on flipping bigger rocks over. I ended up finding another calyx exposed on a bigger block of limestone within a few minutes. It is only missing a few calyx plates, and looks like it will prep out nicely. I haven't counted plates or bothered trying to ID this yet. Another nice calyx was spotted exposed atop a nice washed out pile. I believe it is an Uperocrinus calyx. An easy clean up there. Another recently washed out calyx was readily exposed. I believe it is a Macrocrinus. A couple of other partial calyx bits were littered about. I left them in place. A partial Agaricocrinus. I believe this is a partial Physetocrinus. The last rather interesting find is what I think is an Evactinopora bryozoan. I posted it in the fossil ID section, but last I checked there was no consensus yet. I don't think it is crinoidal, but who knows. It looks like it has the classic 4 rays like Evactinopora grandis has. My brother finished up and gave me a phone call after 2 hours or so. After picking up my keep pile, I left back for town to smash him in some Super Smash Bros. That's all for now, thanks for reading.

This tooth was labeled as Orodus but I wanted to get some other opinions. I see quite a few different Paleozoic tooth morphologies that are called Orodus which can be a little confusing. I am not saying the Orodus ID is incorrect but I see some things that remind me of a Hybodontiformes tooth. Burlington Limestone Biggsville Quarry Biggsville, Illinois The tooth measures 5mm across.

Hi, I found this little tooth today in some more limestone. Its the smallest yet, and I'm kind of surprised I even saw it. My eyes are trained to see calyxs not these lovely teeth, so it's a great treat to find it. I'm also pretty new with these teeth, so I'd rather not guess and figured I would ask you lovely folks with more experience. I cannot tell which, but it looks maybe like a Deltoptychius or Deltodus to my eye? It's about 11mm in length. Good chance I'm wrong too, and it maybe not even he ID-able! Anyways, I appreciate opinions as always. -JG

Hi there, last fossil hunting trip I went on a week or so ago I found some nice fossils and than this. I was hunting some Burlington limestone/ chert that day. Not exactly sure what this is, a possible bryozoan encursting part of a brachiopod valve? I find a lot of pieces of brachiopod valves in the crinoidal layers, where this was laying so that would be my guess. Hopefully it shows, but the entire top side is covered in tiny pits. Thanks for the help, Jackson. I know this was collected from the Burlingtong Limestone. Heres an Azygocrinus rotundus I found about a foot away from the original posted ID piece for formation reference.

Greetings, all! I am currently writing a thesis involving fossils from the Burlington Limestone near its type section along the Illinois/Iowa border. To demonstrate the diversity of the crinoidal remains from the limestone (over 400 species have been described from the Burlington alone!), I am looking for photographs of articulated crinoids. Do any of you have any that you would like to let me include in my thesis? If possible, I would like high-res images of crinoids identified to genus or species with a scale bar/ruler present in the image as well as the collection/locality info. I can't guarantee that I will use every image posted, but if I use your image, then I will acknowledge you in my acknowledgements and give you credit for the image. Thank you for your time & assistance! -Elasmohunter

Here is another Mississippian shark tooth that I need some ID help with. I am still waiting for a bit of information from the seller but I am pretty sure this is a Burlington Limestone tooth from the Biggsville Quarry, IL. I had asked the seller if he had any Venustodus teeth and he sent me a few pictures of this one. It looks similar to other venustodus teeth I saw as I researched this but it looks a little different from others that had the same ID. It certainly seems to be a really nice tooth and one the kids would like learning about ! My gut says this is probably what I am looking for and the sellers ID is correct. I do not fully trust my gut with Mississippian shark teeth though lol So I thought it best to put this to the forum and see what my fellow TFF members think. Any thoughts on this one ??

Again, this was a surprise found in the Burlington Limestone while looking for the ever present crinoid. It is hollow and of a color that I had never seen. Any thoughts are welcomed. Mike

This was discovered while hunting in the Burlington Limestone in no other than Burlington, Ia. If anyone has hunted this formation, they would know 90% of the rock is made up of light colored crinoidal debris. Occasionally a brachiopod s encountered and they may be darker than the crinoids, but pale against this. I know there is a fish layer in the Burlington and am hoping that this may be the ID.