Let's see your rarest specimen!

[Jaybot]

As the title states:  Let's see your rarest specimen!

 

Please feel free to share why it's rare.. i.e., is it rare in that locality?  Is it rare in association with other specimens?  Or is it just plain impossible to find?

Looking forward to my socks getting knocked off 😀

[rocket]

Hi Jaybot, a nice idea, what is yours? I am curious about it 🧐

[Ammonit]

Devonian crinoidea from Voronezh region, such are very rare and poorly described .

That's why this sample is the most valuable to me.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Ammonit

[FranzBernhard]

Well, I have some rare specimens - rare for the formation and based on my limited collecting in that formations. But its all about gastropods, bivalves and some plants.

But, hey, lets resurrect that one:

What is it? I still don´t know, and its a one of a kind thing still today:

Franz Bernhard

[Isotelus2883]

1. A Harpidella spinafrons from the Penn-Dixie Quarry, I believe this species has only been found in the Tully Fm, and it is to my knowledge not reported from the Bayview Coral Beds, where I found it.

2. An articulated and essentially complete Skehanos quadrangularis, from Quincy. At the spoil piles where I found it, the rock is very fragmented so finding something this complete is pretty rare.

[Baking Geologist]

My avatar, an unidentified crinoid calyx from a IN-37 road cut south of Bloomington, IN collected in the mid 1980’s.  Probably Harrodsburg formation. It changes pretty quickly to Salem Limestone as you head up the hill if I remember correctly.  

[Jaybot]

3 hours ago, rocket said:

Hi Jaybot, a nice idea, what is yours? I am curious about it 🧐

Well, I'm still currently prepping my rarest find (a not well described Ammo), but I will post it here once I'm done.   Until then, this has to be my next rarest find in my area (Kansas City):

 

 

A fragment of a Giant Beaver incisor.  Haven't seen too much Giant beaver stuff found in Kansas (Kaw River).  I've only been hunting for a year now, so I don't have as impressive as a collection as the rest of y'all.

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Jaybot

[Tidgy's Dad]

2 mm long hen's tooth.

Inside one of wifey's cakes.

[C2fossils]

A Drum fish mouth plate found on the Ks. River.

[ThePhysicist]

Here are previous threads on the subject of rarity:

 

https://www.thefossilforum.com/topic/100524-show-us-your-rarest-or-most-incredible-partial-fossils/

https://www.thefossilforum.com/topic/109778-the-most-rare-fossil-on-your-collection/

 

I've changed my answer since the last time it was asked, in part because I mis-identified a shark tooth, and have significantly expanded my collection. Here are a couple of things some might call "rare" or "uncommon":

 

The Maastrichtian shark, Galagadon nordquistae

These are only described from the Hell Creek formation, are tiny (1mm in size) and require sieving many gallons of sand before searching the resulting concentrate under a microscope to find them. I currently have 7 after sieving over 20 gallons of sediment.

 

The troodontid, Pectinodon bakkeri

Troodontids are uncommon dinosaurs to find, their fossils usually making up < 1% of the faunal diversity in their respective paleo-ecosystems. I currently have 5.

Edited December 16, 2023 by ThePhysicist

[JamieLynn]

I am LOVING this thread! How great to see everyone's "best" finds 

[Ludwigia]

I already showed my lobster fossil in one of those previous threads, but I suppose I could mention this one as well here.

[FF7_Yuffie]

Mine would be my Triassic pterosaur tooth from Aust Cliff.

 

The person I got it from has only found two in over a decade of collecting there. 

 

 

[Thomas1982]

This association of a DIpleura and an Eldredgeops is pretty unusual:

[piranha]

On 12/15/2023 at 11:48 AM, Isotelus2883 said:

Harpidella spinafrons from the Penn-Dixie Quarry

 

 

Adrain & Chatterton 1995 reclassified Otarion spinafrons (Williams in Cooper & Williams 1935) as: Harpidella spinafrons

 

Lerosey-Aubril, Feist & Chatterton 2008 have reclassified it again: Otarionella spinafrons

 

 

Adrain, J.M., Chatterton, B.D.E. 1995
The Otarionine Trilobites Harpidella and Maurotarion, with Species from Northwestern Canada, the United States, and Australia.
Journal of Paleontology, 69(2):307-326

Cooper, G.A., Williams, J.S. 1935
Tully Formation of New York.
Geological Society of America Bulletin, 46(5):781-868

 

Lerosey-Aubril, R., Feist, R., Chatterton, B.D.E. 2008
The Ontogeny and Systematics of the Otarionine Trilobite Otarionella from the Devonian of the Montagne Noire, France and the Maider, Morocco.
Geological Magazine, 145(1):55-71  PDF LINK

[FF7_Yuffie]

A theropod tooth from Kazakhstan. Unknown species. I have a second, smaller one on the way too. And I am very pleased to have got them.

[MarcoSr]

I've donated a lot of my rare specimens.  The below donated partial primate jaw from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia, US, is my favorite all-time collected rare specimen.  The paper written on it states in the ABSTRACT: "The first known primate fossil from the Atlantic Coastal Plain" and in the DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: "Considering its geographic separation from other known North American, as well as European, omomyids, it almost certainly represents a previously unknown species."

 

My pictures of the specimen before I donated it:

 

 

 

 

 

The paper written on it:

 

 

Rose Perry Prufrock Weems 2021 Early Eocene Omomyid from the Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia First Fossil Primate from the Atlantic Coastal Plain.pdf

 

 

Marco Sr.

[Jaybot]

On 12/25/2023 at 5:31 AM, MarcoSr said:

I've donated a lot of my rare specimens.  The below donated partial primate jaw from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia, US, is my favorite all-time collected rare specimen.  The paper written on it states in the ABSTRACT: "The first known primate fossil from the Atlantic Coastal Plain" and in the DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: "Considering its geographic separation from other known North American, as well as European, omomyids, it almost certainly represents a previously unknown species."

 

My pictures of the specimen before I donated it:

WOW!  Now that 'knocks my socks off'!   Finding a new species has got to be on every fossil hunter's 'bucket list'.  Thank you for sharing!

[Yoda]

The seller (one of my regulars who I consider very reliable) told me this is the first time he has seen an 

Aphlebia from Crock Hay

in 40+ years 

 

 

[rocket]

During my really long time collecting I found several really rare species, so it is not possible to say what´s the rares... Many of them are known only with one single specimen and had been published... One I can show here. We really do not know where it belongs to. Stratigraphic position is upper cretaceous, upper middle santonian. Size is approx. 7 cm, complete preserved leave with counterpart in a special type of nodule.

Might be we go to publish it in 2025, found a colleage who has had some good ideas where it could belong to.

[Bobby Rico]

As there has been a few trilobites already here, I thought I would add my rarest in my collection.  

 

British Middle Ordovician Trilobite from Bron-y-Buckley woods outside Welshpool, Wales 

Broggerolithus broggeri . This location is known as the famous Trilobite Dingle. Very very rare.

 

 

I also got for Christmases a unerupted Desmostylus hesperus mammal  molar that might be rare. I do have a few British ammonites that are considered rare to.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Bobby Rico

[Alvaro]

Berriasella jacobi , an index fossil that represents the very start of the Cretaceous. 

It have a diameter of 9 cm. 

In the place where it was found, it is very rare to find complete Ammonites, as most of them are fragmented or in an impossible-to-work matrix. There are very few that are intact, and those that are, are of a small size. This makes this practically complete and large specimen very unusual for the area where it was discovered.

 

[trilobites_are_awesome]

Mine has got to be this Pseudodechenella nodosa From the Rockport quarry Alpena MI.

This is the only one of this species from this locality I know of.

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

This an interesting topic the world "rare" has a few factors  that may not be so obvious.  Like this a Xipheroceras multiblock , in fact the two words not usually associated together. Xipheroceras is not an unexpected ammonite but a number of them found together is quite a rarity 

 

Nodule of Xipheroceras

a small piece of driftwood and a Belemnite phragmacone .

Lyme Regis , Dorset. UK

 

Edited January 4 by Bobby Rico

[Bobby Rico]

Rare but ugly, Frechiella Subcarinate 

Northamptonshire uk

 

 

Edited January 4 by Bobby Rico