The image above has recently been prepped, the picture below is what it looked like before. I originally posted this on August 12, 2020. Field of view (FOV) is about 5 mm.
The images show a snout beetle or weevil insect fossil of the Order Coleoptera, Family Curculionidae found in the Florissant Formation of Teller County, Colorado, USA. It dates to the Eocene Epoch of the Paleogene Period. Thanks to my cousin Kenny for the image who prepped it. His cousin Doug found this fossil.
On Friday, July 24, 2020 the American Museum of Natural History streamed live a presentation by Melanie Hopkins Associate Curator in the Division of Paleontology and PhD student Ernesto Vargas-Parra. They hosted a brief virtual tour of part of the museum's trilobite collection on the fifth floor.
At around 1:45, it looks like they start off with a famous locality for Cambrian trilobites from Utah. Around 8:20 in the video, a Silurian Trimerus trilobite fossil shows up maybe from New York's Rochester Shale. The next plate has quite a few trilobites mixed with brachiopods with maybe some being Calymene. At 9:40 a cluster of Silurian Dalmanites trilobite fossils followed by a box with three more Trimerus and ending with one large Trimerus. What looks like an Estonian graptolite fossil shows up at the 12:20 mark in the video. It looks somewhat odd to me being white as all the graptolite fossils I tend to find are black. By the time the video is at 18 minute mark, I think they are looking at Moroccan trilobite fossils.
I visited the museum in July 2018 and I do not recall very many trilobite fossils being no display so this video was a great way to see the collection area that few members of the public get to see. When I was there, I found a display case in the lower level with some wonderful display grade specimens. See picture above. I have documented most of the fossils seen in the case in previous postings on this blog.
If the video player does not display in your browser, here is the direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x4xI9KupaY Recently, every Friday at 1 PM EST they present another museum video, hopefully we will get to see some more of the fossil collection.
Today, I found a great video series being created by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York city. During the Covid epidemic, the museum is publishing videos every Friday at 1 PM EST as live stream. The last video was presented by fossil fish researcher Allison Bronson. She does a great job narrating a video tour of the Hall of Vertebrate Origins at the museum. I was there in July of 2018 and I wished I had watched a video like this before my visit. After watching the video, I missed taking pictures of at least two special specimens she highlighted. Have to go back now :)
I am weak on my understanding of fossil fish and vertebrates in general as we do not find a lot of those fossils in the Louisville area. When I was in this museum section, the Devonian shark Cladoselache caught my attention (see posting here, to know why):
https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2010/07/cladoselache-shark-fossil.html
After seeing her talk about the shark at the 7:20 mark, I realize I am pronouncing its name wrong.
It was amusing at the 22:05 mark in the video, Allison talks about the happy tortoise which is one of the most photographed specimens in the museum. As it turns out, I blogged about the Geochelone atlas specimen in December 2018, so count me in that large group of photographers!
https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2018/12/geochelone-atlas-tortoise-fossil.html
If you cannot see or use the embedded video viewer in this blog post, here is the direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRuy7KfvqWs&t=479s
