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Upcoming Prep Project - The Green River Bird


Ptychodus04

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6 minutes ago, jpc said:

I love Anneavis anneae.  The author of the paper named it for his wife, nit once, but twice; genus and species.  


That’s cool! I’m trying to get my hands on the paper so I can compare the measurements of the holotype to this bird.

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14 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:


That’s cool! I’m trying to get my hands on the paper so I can compare the measurements of the holotype to this bird.

This is a great project. Very interesting.

I think this is the paper describing Anneavis if you haven't found it yet.

sandcoleidae.pdf

Edited by connorp
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14 hours ago, connorp said:

This is a great project. Very interesting.

I think this is the paper describing Anneavis if you haven't found it yet.

sandcoleidae.pdf 5.95 MB · 4 downloads

Thanks for sharing this reference. This is very helpful.

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On 12/25/2022 at 1:38 PM, Ptychodus04 said:

The further along in the prep I get, and the more papers I look at. the more I'm leaning towards Coliiform. It compares very favorably to Anneavis anneae, Long toes, largish talons, short tarsometatarsus, and a distinctly bowed Metacarpal 1 in the carpometacarpus. A. anneae is known from one specimen and the head is missing but this bird's head looks a lot like the only other Coliiform bird from the GRF, Celericolius acriala.

 

If it is A. anneae, that's pretty exciting (not as much as a holotype) as it would be the first paratype for the species.

 

Might be worth reaching out to Jingmai O'Connor at the Field Museum about that; I know she's working a big project right now revising the Green River avifauna. 

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16 hours ago, jdp said:

 

Might be worth reaching out to Jingmai O'Connor at the Field Museum about that; I know she's working a big project right now revising the Green River avifauna. 


My client had been in contact with Lance Grande. He’s the one who suggested we look at Coliiformes.

 

Here’s a current status pic. I’m at 95 hours as of yesterday. The tracheal ring sitting on the left wing popped off with a bit of matrix while I was prepping around it yesterday. Thankfully, I was able to recover the piece. I’ll prep it separately since I have bits of bone on the opposing pieces from the split that will go to whatever museum gets the specimen.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the bird prep since the last update. The rib on the far left of the photo and several of the tracheal rings popped as I was making a pedestal for them so, they got set to the side to go with the extra bits. Feathers are coming out nicely but the matrix gets really sticky in places. This makes further prep of such thin features relatively impossible. I pushed some abrasive at 2 psi and this barely took off the matrix but still damaged the feathers. Any lower and the abrasive doesn’t have enough percussive force to remove the matrix.:duh2:

 

I’m just under 140 hours into this beast with at least 100 hours to go. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting this finished before the Tucson show at the end of the month unless I get a break and find some areas that prep faster.

 

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140 hrs with 100 more to go!  Thats some real dedication!  It's really looking like a bird now and cant wait to see it all finished up. 

 

RB

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Looking really good, Kris!

 

It is looking more and more like a bird. 

 

Cheers and Shalom,

 

-Micah

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6 hours ago, RJB said:

140 hrs with 100 more to go!  Thats some real dedication!  It's really looking like a bird now and cant wait to see it all finished up. 

 

RB

It’s definitely a slow one!

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what an awesome feather to add to your (already very feathery) cap of cool specimens you've been involved with

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“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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The left side wing is really taking shape. Feathers on the body are seeming to be pretty non-existent. My current theory is that the bird putrified and the body popped. This would explain the patchy feathers on the body area in multiple layers and the massive shifting of ribs and tracheal rings across the left side of the specimen.

 

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Slowly but surely, I’m finding more and more feathers on this beast. The real struggle is the sticky matrix right on top of them! I have to try to get a larger section opened up and the get it to pop. The risk here is that the feathers can pop with the matrix! Not a low stress endeavor.

 

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7 hours ago, jpc said:

very nice.   Even has tracheal rings!

 

Those things have been a pain. I tried to keep them in place on the wings and the pedestals keep popping off. I have half a dozen off to the side.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't been too active on TFF for a bit, but I've seen this specimen's progress through Instagram, it's a really amazing fossil and the prep work is incredibly skillful!

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8 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

You sure are making your daily bread with this project :)

Yah, and it’s eating my lunch at the same time!

 

3 hours ago, RJB said:

Feet are gorgeous!  Some really nice work Kris.  I dont envy you with fighting the feathers though.

 

RB


They are the hardest thing I’ve ever prepped. The matrix got really sticky on the left side. I’m going to have a hard time making that wing look even.

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20 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

The matrix got really sticky on the left side. I’m going to have a hard time making that wing look even.

Black marker pen.  and a hardy har har.  Actually, I know a guy who has used a black marker to color a part of a fossil.  No, not me.

 

RB

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