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Monday, January 26, 2015

Unidentified Fish Fossils

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:

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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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