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:

Tony Edger said...

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.

Michael Popp said...

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.

Kenny said...

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.