This is Mazon Monday post #199. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected]. Thanks!
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We have a nice Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri from the Mazon Creek fossil deposit for this week's Fossil Friday. M. scheuchzeri is a seed fern (Pteridospermatophyta), which is a group of plants that went extinct during the late Cretaceous Period. They first show up in the fossil record during the late Devonian. Specimens are large and tongue shaped. The namesake for M.scheuchzeri is Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a Swiss physician and natural scientist in the 1700's.
M. scheuchzeri is fairly common, but can be extremely common is some localities such as the Mazon River in Morris. In the book "The Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area", it was called Neuropteris scheuchzeri. The genus name was changed in the 1977 after extensive studies of European examples showed differences from Neuropteris in the frond architecture and the cuticle. For more information, see Mazon Monday #39.
This particular specimen was collected in 2022 from the Pit 3 Mazon Creek locality in Braidwood, IL. It's not uncommon for M. scheuchzeri pinnules to exhibit insect damage and this one displays a nice large bite on the side.
