Cephalopod Fossil Almost as Tall as Door

While on a recent visit to the Musée de Mineralogie (Mineralogy Museum) located at the MINES ParisTech, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel 75006 Paris France, a saw the most amazing fossil. It was a straight shelled cephalopod fossil that was over a meter long. I think the label listed in French read Orthoceras Paleozoic.

The fossil reminds me of the Ordovician cephalopod fossils we find in Kentucky but on a so much larger scale. I was surprised to find it in a mineral museum and not one on paleontology.

If you get a chance visit the museum in Paris and see this specimen for yourself. The museum appeared to be located on the 2nd floor of a university building and it appeared to be staffed by students and professors. There was a small admission fee. The brochure describes it as the cases and architecture as being from the middle 19th century (no A/C). Over 4,000 specimens are on display that belong to a collection of over 100,000 with some added to the collection over 250 years ago.

Learn more at their web site: www.musee.mines-paristech.fr

The Anning Ichthyosaur Skull Fossil

The Natural History Museum in London England has a special hall for the marine reptiles found along the country's south western coast. One the country's most famous paleontologists is credited with finding a number of these intact skeletons, Mary Anning. Her story starts off with her brother Joseph finding a relatively intact head of an ichthyosaur (Temnodontosaurus platyodon) in 1810 or 1811. The above picture is of this skull. The rest of the body was found by Mary a few months later in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England. The creature existed in the Lower Jurassic Period. It is specimen R1158 purchased from Bullock's Museum Piccadilly in 1819.

The fossil was documented in 1814 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society entitled "Some Account of the Fossil Remains of an Animal More Nearly Allied to Fishes Than Any of the Other Classes of Animals" by Everard Home. Read June 23, 1814. The fossil was illustrated in publication as well. See image below.

Learn more at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning

http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/104/571.full.pdf+html

Stegosaurus Fossil at British Museum

These pictures are of a Stegosaurus stenops fossil on display at the British Natural History Museum in London. The display lists this as the most complete Stegosaurus fossil ever found. It was found at the Red Canyon Ranch, Wyoming, USA in 2003. The animal lived in the Late Jurassic Period (155-150 mya).

Images taken August 2016.

Learn more about acquisition here:
http://www.culture24.org.uk/science-and-nature/dinosaurs-and-fossils/art506464-natural-history-museum-acquires-worlds-most-complete-stegosaurus-fossil-skeleton

British Natural History Museum Dinosaur Directory:
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/dino-directory/index.html