Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils

[sundial]

Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils … the first creature with a mouth, gut and anus … 555 million years

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-ancest...n-fossils.html

dunk

[TheFlyingBanana]

Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils … the first creature with a mouth, gut and anus … 555 million years

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-ancest...n-fossils.html

dunk

Fascinating. As a lifelong collector of fossils I recognise it's significance, but have to say I find Trilobites a little more, well, interesting. And the earliest are nearly as old - 520-540 million years.

I have some like these - incredible variety and the extraction techniques are so far ahead of where they were when I first started collecting as a two year old boy. It takes incredible skill with an air pen to do this, and they aren't cheap! I find it astonishing that you can even see the texture of the primitive eyes in someting so ancient.

[IMG] [/IMG]

[Velorum]

Fascinating things

Have you read Richard Fortney's excellent book?

Sent from my SM-G970F using TZ-UK mobile app

[Griswold]

WOW TFB, I didn't know you could get them like that. The only ones I've ever seen have been the usual embedded ones. It must take a serious amount of effort and, especially, time to extract them.

[TheFlyingBanana]

Fascinating things

Have you read Richard Fortney's excellent book?

Sent from my SM-G970F using TZ-UK mobile app

I haven't - is it Earth: An intimate history you are referring to?

[sundial]

I started buying / studying fossils 35 years ago and once found a complete 50cm diameter ammonite in a Peterborough brick pit - I was not allowed to keep it - the leader of the museum's fossil enthusiasts' group 'retained' it. Nowadays I seldom buy fossils because there are so many fakes on sale. If specimens on sale appear too cheap and too 'neat' they are likely fakes. Fake fossils are big business in China … both carved and stick-on … they can look genuine to rookie collectors. If you want to start collecting fossils, start studying and search for genuine specimens in suitable locations e.g. in quarries, cliff sites, and brick clay pits.

From my fossil collection … Keichousaurus hui, a Pachypleurosaur marine reptile from the Middle Triassic of Guizhou, South China … just 20cm in length.



But is it genuine? Purchased from a dealer 15 years ago.

dunk

[guinea]

I took my kids fossil hunting this weekend. We got loads of bivalves, gastropods and tower snails. No shark teeth which disappointed my 6 year old - but we loved the day out.

We'll definitely be going again when the situation allows it.

Even the young fossil I have in my hand is at least 10x older than humanity.

[earlofsodbury]

Fascinating. As a lifelong collector of fossils I recognise it's significance, but have to say I find Trilobites a little more, well, interesting. And the earliest are nearly as old - 520-540 million years.

I have some like these - incredible variety and the extraction techniques are so far ahead of where they were when I first started collecting as a two year old boy. It takes incredible skill with an air pen to do this, and they aren't cheap! I find it astonishing that you can even see the texture of the primitive eyes in someting so ancient.

Trilobite compound eyes are remarkable things - in some, each individual lens is a single flawless calcite crystal, nothing like it exists today - insect compound eyes are entirely organic.

Fascinating things

Have you read Richard Fortey's excellent book?

I have few claims to fame - and those trivial - but I worked with Richard Fortey for 11 years when I was a curator at the NHM's palaeo dept. Genuinely lovely fella, and still active in the field nearly two decades post-retirement.

WOW TFB, I didn't know you could get them like that. The only ones I've ever seen have been the usual embedded ones. It must take a serious amount of effort and, especially, time to extract them.

The highly elaborate species in OP's pic are commonest in Morocco and Tunisia - a lot of the work is done by kids with their pin-sharp eyesight. They're found by cracking rocks open and looking for rows of dots in the rock - the two halves containing what you *hope* is a complete individual are then glued back together and the entire thing painstakingly excavated with airbrasives and consolidants.

From my fossil collection … Keichousaurus hui, a Pachypleurosaur marine reptile from the Middle Triassic of Guizhou, South China … just 20cm in length.

But is it genuine? Purchased from a dealer 15 years ago.

dunk

Sadly there are a LOT of fakes nowadays - when I moved from the NHM to Oxford, I used to handle most non-entom enquiries, and never saw a genuine Keichousaurus. Always hard to say from a photo - but if yours *is* a fake, it's a good quality one. The best are assemblages of real bits with a bit of paint and modelling. Works of art in their own way.

[Dapper]

I have few claims to fame - and those trivial - but I worked with Richard Fortey for 11 years when I was a curator at the NHM's palaeo dept. Genuinely lovely fella, and still active in the field nearly two decades post-retirement.

Ha, I wonder if I know you. Was at the NHM 1973-1990.

[sundial]

Trilobite compound eyes are remarkable things - in some, each individual lens is a single flawless calcite crystal, nothing like it exists today - insect compound eyes are entirely organic.




I have few claims to fame - and those trivial - but I worked with Richard Fortey for 11 years when I was a curator at the NHM's palaeo dept. Genuinely lovely fella, and still active in the field nearly two decades post-retirement.




The highly elaborate species in OP's pic are commonest in Morocco and Tunisia - a lot of the work is done by kids with their pin-sharp eyesight. They're found by cracking rocks open and looking for rows of dots in the rock - the two halves containing what you *hope* is a complete individual are then glued back together and the entire thing painstakingly excavated with airbrasives and consolidants.



Sadly there are a LOT of fakes nowadays - when I moved from the NHM to Oxford, I used to handle most non-entom enquiries, and never saw a genuine Keichousaurus. Always hard to say from a photo - but if yours *is* a fake, it's a good quality one. The best are assemblages of real bits with a bit of paint and modelling. Works of art in their own way.

Fake trilobites https://www.paleodirect.com/fake-tri...w-to-identify/

Fake ammonites http://www.fossilmuseum.net/collect/fossilfakes.htm

Google 'fake fossils' for more examples … it's a racket

I now have access to freshly excavated clay in a Peterborough brick pit where there are plenty of genuine fossils. Unfortunately with C'virus restrictions I'm unable to visit in the foreseeable future. But looking forward to finding e.g. sharks' teeth, ammonites and possibly some plesiosaur fragments.

dunk

[Dapper]

I haven't - is it Earth: An intimate history you are referring to?

Probably this one:

[Velorum]

Probably this one:

That's the one!!!

Sent from my SM-G970F using TZ-UK mobile app

[TheFlyingBanana]

Probably this one:

Great - thanks for that. I'll get it ordered.

Incredible and fascinating creatures.

[Brian]

Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils … the first creature with a mouth, gut and anus … 555 million years

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-ancest...n-fossils.html

dunk

Fascinating stuff - shame that we can't see the genome.

B