Ichthyosauria

'Ichthyosauria – long fish shaped reptiles with a long thin snout lined with sharp teeth, the ichthyosaur is characterised by very large eyes. This Mesozoic reptile evolved into a highly specialised predator with a rapid swimming style and keen eyes.'

This is a place to hold some of my musings - mostly about palaeontology. I’m not one of the many knowledgeable geologists/palaeontologists who post blogs so I expect to drawl on about things that have amused me.

Thursday, 7 July 2011

Fish Ancestry


 
My goldfish Attenborough gets a bit lonely on his own so I decided to introduce him to some of his ancestors. I’m not sure how fish lineages work so I just showed him some of my fish fossils. 

 
The fish on the left I bought from a fossil fair and is Knightia eocaena a relative of a modern herring. It’s from the Green River formation, Wyoming, USA. The Green river formation is DEFINITELY on my ‘to visit’ list especially after reading this article in geo times . Here is the national monument website. The formation is Eocene inland lakes (it’s called green River after a modern river) here are some details of the fossil formation.

 
The fossil on the right looks less impressive but I was very excited when I found it. It’s from Monmouth beach, Lyme Regis I thought it was a bit of fossilised wood when I picked it up. I was on an OUGS (Open University Geological Society) trip so I could get it identified by the leader as a section of fish scales. I’m not sure which species so I will take it to the NMS when it reopens to get it identified.

 
Attenborough wasn’t very interested in the fossils so I gave him some bloodworms instead – he obviously prefers invertebrates.

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