Bicidiocrinus wetherbyi Crinoid Calyx

Over the weekend my cousin went fossil hunting in Grayson County, Kentucky USA for Mississippian Period fossils. He got extremely lucky and found a nice crinoid calyx. It appears to be a Bicidiocrinus wetherbyi (Wachsmuth and Springer, 1886). It was found in the Glen Dean formation.

 

A retired professor at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Don Chesnut has a number of posted images on the Internet that were used to help determine the identify of this specimen. See links to pictures from his Masters thesis on the Mississippian echinoderm Bicidiocrinus (Strimple, 1975) from the Sloans Valley member below:

http://www.donchesnut.com/travels/geologyb/glyb187c.jpg

http://www.donchesnut.com/travels/geologyb/glyb151c.jpg

He has a series of pictures (the Bicidiocrinus images about 1/3 down page) of Sloans Valley Member (Paragon Formation) echinoderm images on the University of Kentucky web server found at this link:

http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/stratigraphicfauna/sloansvalleymacrofauna/pages/sloansvalleyechinodermata.html

Thanks to Kenny for the images for this blog posting!

Here is another nice crinoid calyx found in this same formation:

https://twitter.com/Clarkeocrinus/status/431883895701651456/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Clarkeocrinus/status/433059548425773056/photo/1

https://twitter.com/Clarkeocrinus/status/365284391955611648/photo/1