This is the "Fossil Friday" post #75. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected]. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!
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We have a repeat contributor this week and this specimen is another rare Mazon Creek animal. Commonly known as sea scorpions, when you think of eurypterids, you probably think of the giants of the Silurian and Devonian periods, which are typically found in and around western New York and Ontario. But, Mazon Creek had a species of eurypterid, Adelphthalmus mazonensis. We did a species spotlight back in Mazon Monday #16. This particular specimen is owned by James Alann, who sent us pictures of an absolutely unbelievable spider fossil about a month ago, which we highlighted in Fossil Friday #71. He also sent us a story about how he came to own this one.
I may have brought this 4” eurypterid nodule to the ESCONI meeting as well that night. I did not find this, but rather it was bought from a local fisherman back in 2004. He had found it 20 years earlier while shore fishing one of the lakes back in the Area 1 club. He told me that he sat down on the ground to eat his lunch and felt the nodule under his right cheek. He said that he recognized it as one of those “round fossil rocks” that those pesky collectors were always looking for and grabbed his fishing pliers to give it a whack. It opened perfectly with one hit! He thought it was an insect fossil, so he threw it in his tackle box, brought it home, and forgot about it until he met Tom Testa in town 20 years later, who offered to ID the fossil. Testa told him not to accept anything less than $300 for the fossil. Needless to say, I couldn’t get the money out of my pocket quick enough! Bob Masek worked on this fossil a little bit as well bringing out the edge of the tergites a little better as well as the right paddle.
Stunning specimen... thanks for the contribution, Jim! How does it feel to have two once in a lifetime fossils?!?
