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Sunday, March 5, 2023

Troosticrinus reinwardtii Blastoid Fossil

 

Troostocrinus reinwardtii (Troost, 1835) blastoid fossil Plate 3 figures 2-4 drawn by Major Adolphus Heiman (1809-1862) from A Critical Summary of Troost's Unpublished Manuscript on the Crinoids of Tennessee by Elvira Wood 1909. This very distinct blastoid was found in the Silurian Period aged Brownsport limestone of Tennessee. It was assigned U.S. National Museum number 33071.

Troost's Original drawings of Pentremites reinwardtii from 1835 work

Gerard Troost (1776-1850) originally called this fossil Pentremites reinwardtii (Troost, 1835) in On The Pentremites reinwardtii, A New Fossil; With Remarks on the Genus Pentremites (Say), and Its Geognostic Position in the States of Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky in Geological Society of Pennsylvania (1835). It appears he named the species after a Dutch botanist Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773-1854). The genus Troost used was named by his friend from Philadelphia and New Harmony, Indiana Thomas Say (1787-1834).

 The holotype fossil Troost found back in the 1830s now resides at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. See photographs of it below that were taken sometime in 2010.

 

Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Specimen Catalog Number:  USNM PAL 33071 Specimen GUID:     http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3fda37982-30dd-4c41-aa35-c48973890252 Photographer Suzanne McIntire. Specimen housed in the collections of the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Specimen Catalog Number:  USNM PAL 33071 Specimen GUID:     http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3fda37982-30dd-4c41-aa35-c48973890252 Photographer Suzanne McIntire. Specimen housed in the collections of the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution