Fossil Lake Bee or Wasp Fossil

 

The picture is of an wasp or bee fossil. The specimen was found at Fossil Lake, Wyoming, USA. It existed in the Eocene Epoch about 54.8 to 33.7 million years ago. The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PE 60849.

Digging The Past Event

Saturday, August 29, 2020 The Falls of the Ohio State Park held their Digging the Past event. It has been several years since I had last attended back in 2015. In the past I always enjoyed identifying what people found in the collecting piles and elaborating about the minerals or fossils. The downside is the place to do this was at the cleaning screens and by the end of my shift I was quite wet and sometimes muddy.


This year everyone was in masks and social distanced so I only identified a couple of things. I volunteered to give a talk about fossil collecting but ending up talking to 2 people. While I was there I would estimate at least 100 people visited. Most of my time was spent speaking with exhibitors, helping with fundraising by selling fossil/mineral egg cartons or working around the presentation area.

At the end I went in the collecting area which was really muddy and my Estwing rock hammer split apart large pieces of Waldron Shale. It was almost impossible to find fossils in the muddy shale. Splitting the rocks helped in that I found several Eucalyptocrinus crinoid holdfasts, Metopolichas breviceps trilobite cephalon and Dalmanites pygidium.

Outside of the rocks, I found a small Stegerhynchus brachiopod and Platyostoma gastropod. The crowds would have probably been larger if no Covid epidemic and the weather being overcast with it looking like it was going to rain most of the morning. It was nice to be back and I got some exercise walking along the river front and breaking rocks.

Here are some links to past events I have participated at the Falls of the Ohio State Park:

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2015/09/digging-past-event-2015.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2014/09/digging-past-event-at-falls-of-ohio.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2013/08/earth-discovery-day-august-2013.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2012/10/earth-discovery-day-2012.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2011/09/fossil-festival-fun.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2011/09/2011-falls-fossil-festival.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2010/09/fossil-festival-2010.html

Damselfly Fossil

The Field Museum of Chicago has an amazing exhibit of insect fossils. The one pictured above was found in 1988 at the Green River Formation of Fossil Lake (Lincoln County), Wyoming, USA. The image is of a damselfly fossil called Zygoptera sp. (Selys, 1854). It existed in the Eocene Epoch about 54.8 to 33.7 million years ago. Damselflies started appearing in the fossil record of the Permian Period.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PE 51414.

Learn more from the museum's Brain Scoop You Tube channel featuring Emily Graslie explaining more about this special research fossil site.