Apiocrinites elegans Crinoid Calyx

Here are some pictures of crinoid calyx cups of the Apiocrinites elegans. They were found in Albarracin, Spain. The creatures date to the Jurassic Period.

The larger cup is about 3.8 cm wide at its largest point. Note the worm tube on the smaller calyx cup.

Thanks to Herb for letting me photograph them.

How To Be A Megalodon Shark

Over the Christmas holiday I asked my young nephew what kinds of games there were to play on a smartphone. One of the games he so quickly installed on my phone was Hungry Shark Evolution from Future Games of London. This game has over 10,000,000 downloads in Google Play store. It is a very fun game. If you are looking for something to play on your smartphone to help pass the time at the airport or some waiting room, this app might fill that need.

The evolution part of the game is you start as a reef shark and with experience and gold found in the game, the player evolves into a Mako shark then Hammerhead shark, then Tiger shark, then Great White shark, and finally a Megalodon.  The game is addictive and has excellent art and game play on the Moto X phone.

The game also has some alien ice sharks one can get for lots of gold and emeralds collected in the game. Personally, I would have tried to model an arthrodire and mosasaur after the Megalodon before creating extraterrestrial sea creatures for the game. Since the software company is from England it would be neat to see them animate some of the ancient creatures whose fossils are found around Lyme Regis and Dorset.

Fossil Fireplace

Every so often I visit a local retired geology professor to chat about fossils. He has a unique fireplace in his study that was mortared together with various fossils. Here are few pictures of some of the fossil embedded in the fireplace. All the images were taken with a Motorola Moto X smartphone.

I think the first image might be a model of a charophyte or some sort of Astylospongia fossil. Next is some sort of model of a foraminifera.

The next two images are of colonial coral fossils.

Last is some sort of pelecypod fossil.