When I go on trips I sometimes try to find fossils or minerals from that area as a memento. My last trip to Arizona I found this plate in a museum gift shop. Unfortunately, it had no identification label so I do not know its name, location where found, geological formation, or time period. Since it was in a gift shop it must be from an area where fish fossils are commonly found and sold to collectors. Areas I find on the Internet as sources of fish fossils are Green River, Wyoming, Liaoning/Hubai, China, and Ceara, Brazil.
The fish does sort of look like a
Dastilbe crandalli found in the Santana Formation of Ceara, Brazil. Fish from that area date to the Lower Cretaceous Period.
The matrix had 2 other fish remains on it. One is of the tail and rear vertebra and the other fossil on the other side of the plate is a jumbo of parts which includes some of the rib bones.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastilbe
3 comments:
The lack of provenience is always a downer, but your fossil is still quite neat. To my uninformed eye, your tentative identification seems to have a lot going for it. Body shape doesn't seem right for something like Knightia from the Green River which is what I'm familiar with.
Thanks for the comment. It is always a challenge when obtaining a fossil with no label. Maybe one day I will have more information to make a better identification.
After a closer look with a microscope it seems to have all the parts of a Knightia. The 3 lower fins spaced correctly, and the small spiny looking bones on the bottom between the lower fins. I could not find and brazil fish that were not in a nodule.
I will try to submit a closer photo to show the 3 lower fins.
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