June 2014 Finds Of The Month

[JohnJ]

The weather will be perfect somewhere this month to go fossil hunting.... Search in places less traveled; search for the overlooked smaller finds; search with more patience. Let's see what kind of beauty and science you share with our members this time! Good hunting and take care in the field.

Carefully read the rules below, make sure you include all the required information, and submit your fantastic fossils!

Please remember that we recently introduced another qualification to the current rules. Make a note of Rule #5: Before and After Preparation photos must be submitted for Prepped specimens not found during the Month of the Contest. In addition to keeping the contest fair, this new qualification will encourage better documentation of our spectacular past finds. Best of luck to all and good hunting!

Entries will be taken through June 30th. Please let us know if you have any questions, and thanks for sharing more of your fossils and research this month.

To view the Winning Fossils from past contests visit the Find Of The Month Winner's Gallery.
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Rules for The Fossil Forum's Vertebrate and Invertebrate/Plant Find of the Month Contests

1. You find a great Vertebrate Fossil or Invertebrate/Plant Fossil! Only fossils found by you.

2. Post your entry in the Find of the Month topic. Use a separate post for each entry.

3. Your Fossil must have been found during the Month of the Contest, or significant Preparation of your Fossil must have been completed during the Month of the Contest.

4. You must include the Date of your Discovery or the Date of Preparation Completion.

5. Before and After Preparation photos must be submitted for Prepped specimens not found during the Month of the Contest.

6. You must include the common or scientific name.

7. You must include the Geologic Age or Geologic Formation where the Fossil was found.

8. Play fair and honest. No bought fossils. No false claims.

Shortly after the end of the Month, separate Polls will be created for the Vertebrate and Invertebrate/Plant Find of the Month.

In addition to the fun of a contest, we also want to learn more about the fossils. So, only entries posted with a CLEAR photo and that meet the other guidelines will be placed into the Poll.

Within a few days, we will know the two winning Finds of the Month! Now, go find your fossil, do your research, and make an entry!

[evannorton]

I will get this month started. I had this concretion open over the weekend. It was found at Mazon Creek Pit 11 in an unopened concretion.

This is the first milipede - I have ever found - and I am very happy with the preservation.

I hope you enjoy it.

You can reference Richardson's Guide to see that finding one of these is quite rare.

Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Myriapoda, Class Diplopoda, Superorder Onsicomorpha

Geological Time: Pennsylvanian (~300 m.y.a.)

Amynilyspes wortheni - "Pill Bug"

[Stocksdale]

Very cool find, Evan!

[Missourian]

Whoa.... Ok, the bar is set really high right off the bat.

[Auspex]

Uff da! This is a museum piece!

[Lmshoemaker]

I would like to submit this Glyptambon verrucosus cephalon found at the end of last April from the Waldron shale formation. I started prep on it last month but just finished today:

From the field:

After preparation:

Edited June 10, 2014 by Cryptidsaurian

[caldigger]

Do you think the rest of it is still in there?

[Lmshoemaker]

Do you think the rest of it is still in there?

Nope, I abraded a bit around the rear of the cephalon just to be sure, but there was nothing where the first thoraic segment should have been.

[digit]

Since we don't have any vertebrate fossils yet this month I'll kick things off with my Leptarchus Leptarctus ancipidens left mandible with p4-m2 in place. This fossil was unearthed during the 2014 Thomas Farm volunteer dig with the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH). Other than a few Parahippus odds and ends it was the only significant piece we found for the 2 days we dug there. The exploits of its discovery and preparation can be found in a separate topic: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/45220-thomas-farm-volunteer-dig-spring-2014/

Frankly, all I did was to dig in the grid cell that Dr. Hulbert directed me and my wife to work in and the only credit I can take is not to have clumsily destroyed the specimen (I dug rather cautiously for my first time volunteering on this dig). I decided to enter it here only because mustelid fossils like this one are apparently relatively rare and this specimen was in reasonably good shape. Much thanks go out to Kristen MacKenzie, the Associate Collections Manager at FLMNH who did such a good job of prepping this piece which now resides as UF 295000 in their vertebrate collection (I hope to visit the specimen this summer).

In situ with the pedestal formed awaiting jacketing:

Lingual view of prepped specimen:

Labial view of prepped specimen:

For the record, the fossil was unearthed at the Thomas Farm site on 6 April 2014 and was prepped from 6-9 June 2014 at the Florida Museum of Natural History by Kristen MacKenzie.

Cheers.

-Ken

Edited June 28, 2014 by Auspex

[Rob Russell]

Hey folks,

I would like to enter this insect fossil I found back in the spring of this year. I collected it, and several others, already opened and laying on the surface of the ground. It sat in Tupperware container, along with about fifty other opened fossils, until 6/8/14. I sat down that day and cleaned the calcite from them all. Not thinking I had anything superb in nature I didn't take any photos of all the calcite covered nodules. I hope that doesn't disqualify me from entering. I never thought to take a before picture.

Anyway here's my entry. Its an insect. Possible Diaphanopterodea prochopteridae from the Francis Creek shale of Mazon Creek. Mid Pennsylvanian in age.

Thanks for your consideration in my entry!

Edited June 14, 2014 by Rob Russell

[PFOOLEY]

Invertebrate

Spathites Puercoensis

Discovered: June 14th, 2014

Late Cretaceous (Turonian) Carlile Shale

New Mexico, USA

[evren]

Rob, that insect is fantastic! I'm glad it's in your hands.

[mikeymig]

digit,

Nice jaw and good for you for finding it. I (if it was even up to me) would have left the jaw in the matrix and jacketed the outside of it to keep it stable. I read a little about your dig with FLMNH and found out the age of this jaw was Miocene and I don't think that every forum member knows that a Mustelid is a weasel like a badger, otter, mink, or wolverine. What is the size of this specimen and do you know what type of Mustelid it is or what it looked like?

thanks

mikey

[digit]

digit,

Nice jaw and good for you for finding it. I (if it was even up to me) would have left the jaw in the matrix and jacketed the outside of it to keep it stable. I read a little about your dig with FLMNH and found out the age of this jaw was Miocene and I don't think that every forum member knows that a Mustelid is a weasel like a badger, otter, mink, or wolverine. What is the size of this specimen and do you know what type of Mustelid it is or what it looked like?

That's exactly what we did. At first I thought it was a Parahippus jaw bone as these are relatively common at the Thomas Farm dig site. I uncovered enough of it to see the teeth (when I first realized it was a jaw bone). Dr. Hulbert noted that it was a carnivore tooth and not herbivore (which ruled out horse) and dug it out a bit more to see how much of the jaw (dentary) was likely there. As it was more fragile than the more sturdy metatarsal and calcaneum bones we had found earlier and more importantly was a much rarer find than the ubiquitous mini-horse fossils, jacketing was definitely called for.

It was found near the end of the first day of my dig and I didn't have enough time to fully form the pedestal for jacketing as there was a lot of micro fossils in the surrounding matrix. Only about half of the specimen was uncovered before jacketing and the Paleo Tissue (wadded-up moist toilet paper) was used to cushion the top of the specimen (and protect it from contact with the plaster from the jacket).

The Thomas Farm site dates from the early Miocene Epoch (Hemingfordian Land Mammal Age) which is about 18 mya. Correct you are about the mustelids being a family of small carnivores including badgers, ferrets, minks, otters and wolverines. The specimen turns out to be Leptarchus ancipidens from an extinct mustelid subfamily known as the Leptarctinae which were badgerlike animals. The specimen I found was about 7.5 cm in length--about the right size for a badgerlike carnivore. Though there are not too many fossils from this species from the Thomas Farm site there is a nice specimen from 1957 illustrated on page 208 of The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida book.

Cheers.

-Ken

[mikeymig]

Thanks Ken. I have that book and will check it out later today. Congrats on a rare and wonderful find!

mikey

[TOM BUCKLEY]

This is a phyllocarid (shrimp). Found on 6/13/2014. Only "prep" was gluing a few pieces back together.

Ceratiocaris acuminata.

Ridgemount Quarry, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada.

Bertie Limestone Formation, Willimsville "A" Member.

Upper silurian

I sat in a pool of water popping slabs of limestone out of the quarry floor. I picked this uncomfortable spot because it just looked like it might contain critters.

Thanks for the extrication assistance Malcolm!

The pictures are of the positive and negative as well as a close-up of the carapace to show the striations. The carapace has been displaced and resides in the front of the animal at a 45 degree angle from normal. The phyllocarid is 4.5" along the curve. It is complete.....down to the tail spikes.

Anyone have cocktail sauce?

Edited June 24, 2014 by TOM BUCKLEY

[TOM BUCKLEY]

Ooooops. Here's that last photo:

Edited June 24, 2014 by TOM BUCKLEY

[digit]

Cool looking shrimp. I can't seem to get the thumbnail to show the high-res version (getting a 404 error). Maybe some lingering issues from the forum moving to its new home? Looking forward to seeing it in all its glory.

Edit: Images working much better now...cool shrimp!

Cheers.

-Ken

Edited June 24, 2014 by digit

[TOM BUCKLEY]

Cool looking shrimp. I can't seem to get the thumbnail to show the high-res version (getting a 404 error). Maybe some lingering issues from the forum moving to its new home? Looking forward to seeing it in all its glory.

Edit: Images working much better now...cool shrimp!

Cheers.

-Ken

Thanks Digit. I changed the pictures. I'm glad they're working better for you now.

Tom

[Fossildude19]

Ooooops. Here's that last photo:

Excellent find, Tom! Congratulations on this.

Regards,

[TOM BUCKLEY]

Excellent find, Tom! Congratulations on this.

Regards,

Thanks Tim

[jgcox]

On June 20th at Ridgemont quarry, Stevensville, Ontario, Canada I found this 6" Eurypterus Lacustrus Harlan in the Upper Silurian Bertie Group, Williamsville "A" Waterline. It is 6" in length and will need gluing, cleaning and sawing the slabs for prep.

[digit]

I love eurypterids! On my bucket list but these seem so uncommon that I'm sure it will linger on that list for some time.

Don't forget to post a photo or two when you have completed the work on it.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Adam.morris08]

I would like to enter my ammonite on the off chance

Found 2/3 months ago but prepped this month.

It's either aegoceras capricornus or oistoceras filignum.
Lower jurrasic
190mya
Green ammonite bed, Dorset.

Before:


After:

[TOM BUCKLEY]

On June 20th at Ridgemont quarry, Stevensville, Ontario, Canada I found this 6" Eurypterus Lacustrus Harlan in the Upper Silurian Bertie Group, Williamsville "A" Waterline. It is 6" in length and will need gluing, cleaning and sawing the slabs for prep.

A word of caution. It loks like you've got some cuticle hanging on and as this can be quite delicate, be careful while washing. I had a similar specimen and glued the cuticle in place and then coated with a consolident.