Years ago I posted a picture of a fossil crinoid Myelodactylus convolutus (Hall, 1852) that is normally seen coiled up. This fossil specimen was elongated as when it died it was attached inside a colonial Entelophyllum eruciforme (Davis) coral. After reading up on this type of crinoid, this is a very rare occurrence of the crinoid preserved in this position to find in the fossil record (normally fossilized curled up). This next picture shows the fossil with a scale. It is about 5 cm long. Note the remaining holdfast at the bottom of the crinoid fossil that anchored it to the coral. Each of t ..read more

Recently, the The J. Paul Getty Museum of Los Angeles, California, USA made almost 88,000 images available under the Creative common Zero license as part of their Open Content Program. They state "Making images from Getty's collections freely available for study, teaching, and enjoyment." So I decided to see what if there were any fossil images and thankfully, there were. One image I found was labeled as a Homalonotus delphinocephalus trilobite fossil found in the Silurian Period limestone of the Wenlock formation of Dudley, England. The fossil is listed as 6.25 inches (15.875 cm) and was in ..read more

  Today I am posting about a modern gastropod and not a fossil. It is called Babylonia areolata (Link, 1807) snail and it can grow up to 6 cm in size. The creatures live in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and exist down to about 10 meters. They are important food source in some countries.  A co-worker had a vial of the shells that someone brought back as a souvenir from a ocean beach vacation. She gave them to me as I was curious as to what the shell species was. My guess is the snails were caught and cooked and the shells cleaned and then sold to become souvenirs in beach side shops ..read more

 Here are some pictures of a recent find at one of our work sites in Bullitt County Kentucky USA. It appears to be from the Louisville Limestone or might be dolomite. It dates to the Silurian Period. Thanks to Levi for the fossil and now we will try to remove some of the matrix to see if any patterns are left from the shell that might give a clue as to what this creature was and maybe its name. The bottom of the rock has an imprint of a bryozoan fossil ..read more

  In Sunday's Courier-Journal newspaper there was an article about the future of Stansbury Park and what the University of Louisville (U of L) would like to do with it. It was mentioned that in 2017 Churchill Park was leased to U of L for development of soccer fields and is thus not a park any more. Mention of Churchill Park triggered the memory of the October 23, 2023 blog post on Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston (1858-1946) and when in 1921 he and his brothers donated family properties that would become Ballard Square, Churchill Park, and George Rogers Clark Park.  So I decided to vi ..read more

  Nice close up picture of the ventral view of Glyptambon verruscosus (Hall, 1854) trilobite compound eye fossil. Fossil was found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana USA. It dates to the Silurian Period. Thanks to Kenny for the images ..read more

Michelinoceras (Foeste, 1932) cephalopod fossil shown in the pictures. Fossil was found in Floyd County Indiana USA. The fossil dates to the Mississippian Period. Thanks to Kenny for images.   ..read more

  Paraconularia (Sinclair, 1940) with Cypricardinia (Hall, 1860) pelecypod fossils shown in the pictures. Fossils were found in Floyd County Indiana USA. The fossils date to the Mississippian Period. Thanks to Kenny for images ..read more

This image is of Hexanchus griseus (Bonnaterre, 1788) fossil shark teeth on display at Mace Brown Museum of Natural History (August 2017). This extinct animal was also known as a sixgill cow shark. It dates to the Pliocene Epoch (about 4.5 million years ago), Neogene Period. The fossils were found in Beaufort County, North Carolina, USA. The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History is located at the College of Charleston, 202 Calhoun Street, 2nd Floor, Charleston, South Carolina 29424. Learn more at their blog: http://blogs.cofc.edu/macebrownmuseum ..read more

  This image is of fossil teeth on display at Mace Brown Museum of Natural History (August 2017). It was found in Cross Formation, Pregnall Member of Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA and dates to the Paleogene Period in the Eocene Epoch (36-34 million years ago). The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History is located at the College of Charleston, 202 Calhoun Street, 2nd Floor, Charleston, South Carolina 29424. Learn more at their blog: http://blogs.cofc.edu/macebrownmuseum ..read more