FOSSIL INDEX

TRILOBITE

These are small, enrolled Acastoides trilobite fossil from Morocco. They're Lower-Middle Devonian in age, or around 380 million years old. Trilobites enrolled for defensive purposes and are often found preserved in this posture. They range in size between 1/4" and 1/2".

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

 

PHACOPID TRILOBITE

These are authentic trilobite fossils that were collected from Mt. Issomour, Morocco. Most of them are phacopid species (Austerops, Morocops, etc), but there are a few other species mixed in. They were found while digging through the weathered rock layers to get down to the solid rock layers to quarry.

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

 

FOSSIL FISH VERTEBRA

These are fossil fish vertebra from the massive phosphate deposits in the Oulad Abdoun Basin of Morocco. These vertebrae maybe Cretaceous to Eocene in age depending on what layer they were collected from. There is likely many species of fish present but many of them are likely from Enchodus.

They come from the massive phosphate deposits in the Oulad Abdoun Basin near Khouribga, Morocco. These deposits are mined for phosphate, one of Morocco's biggest exports. The fossils are collected as a byproduct of the mining operations, saving them from certain destruction by the rock crusher.

 

FOSSILIZED SHARK TEETH

This is a great mix of shark teeth. The mix is primarily composed of sand shark teeth with some otodus, and cretolamna shark teeth.

 

ORTHOCERAS

Orthoceras fossils are the remains of an invertebrate, an animal that has no backbone, that belongs to the Phylum Mollusca. This is a broad grouping of animals that include snails, slugs, oysters, clams, octopus, and squid.

Orthoceras was an ancient cephalopod that lived about 370 million years ago. The name means straight horn, referring to the characteristic long, straight, conical shell. The preserved shell is all that remains of this ancestor of our modern-day squid. There is some confusion around the name. Scientifically orthoceras is a genus name used only for a particular extinct nautiloid cephalopod from the Baltic states and Sweeden. However it is commonly used to refer to any species of extinct nautiloid cephalopod with a straight cone shaped shell.

 

FOSSILIZED HEMIASTER ECHINOIDS

Echinoids are sea urchins, they are members of the phylum Echinodermata, which also includes sea stars, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, and crinoids. Like other echinoderms they have fivefold symmetry (called pentamerism) and move by means of hundreds of tiny, transparent, adhesive "tube feet".  Sea urchins or urchins are small, spiny, globular animals. They inhabit all oceans. Their shell, or "test", is round and spiny, typically from 3 to 10 centimetres (1.2 to 3.9 in) across. They move slowly, feeding mostly on algae.
These Hemiaster Echinoids fossils are cretaceous in age.
FOSSILIZED CRINOID STEMS
Crinoids are filter feeders. Most crinoids obtain their nutrition by spreading their feeding arms to sieve the passing sea water for microscopic organisms and detritus, they  are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk. Crinoids comprise three basic sections; the stem, the calyx, and the arms. They inhabited and flourished in the warm shallow seas of the Paleozoic era.
FOSSILIZED SEA SNAILS
Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod mollusks, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the absence of a visible shell.

 

 

FOSSILIZED GASTROPOD

Gastropods, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large taxonomic class within the mollusk family. The class Gastropoda includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes from microscopic to large. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and sea slugs, as well as freshwater snails and freshwater limpets, as well as land snails and land slugs.
The class Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. There are 611 families of gastropods, of which 202 families are extinct and appear only in the fossil record.

 

 

FOSSILIZED BIVALVE CLAM

Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusks. The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the seafloor or riverbeds. Clams have two shells of equal size connected by two adductor muscles and have a powerful burrowing foot. They live in both freshwater and marine environments; in salt water they prefer to burrow down into the mud and the turbidity, of the water required varies with species and location.

 

 

FOSSILIZED RAY TEETH

Fragmentary teeth of the ancient Ray, Myliobatis. These pieces all come from the lower Eocene phosphate beds of Morocco.

 

 

 

 

FOSSILIZED BONE FRAGMENTS

These small bone fragments are mostly assorted fish bones. 

 

 

 

 

FOSSILIZED DUGONG RIB BONES

The dugong is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatee. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's sea cow, was hunted to extinction in the 18th century.

 

FOSSILIZED AMMONITE

Ammonoids are extinct spiral shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living coleoids,  (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids (such as the living Nautilus).The earliest ammonoids appeared during the Devonian, with the last species vanishing during or soon after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. They are often called ammonites, which is most frequently used for members of the order Ammonitida, which represented the only living group of ammonoids from the Jurassic onwards.

 

FOSSILIZED TRILOBITE IN MATRIX

Trilobites were a very diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. They first appeared in the fossil record in the Early Cambrian (521 million years ago) and went extinct during the Permian mass extinction (250 million years ago). They were one of the most successful of the early animals on our planet: over 25,000 species have been described, filling nearly every evolutionary niche. Due in large part to their hard exoskeletons (shells), they left an excellent fossil record.

 

 

FOSSILIZED FISH IN SHALE OR SLATE

The most common place to find fish fossils is in sedimentary rock created over millions of years from sediment deposited in water. Condensing of these sediments (such as minerals, bones and organic material) removed moisture, and under pressure, cemented the grains together.

 

 

MOSASAUR TEETH

Mosasaurs are an extinct group of large aquatic reptiles within the family Mosasauridae that lived during the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. They belong to the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes.
During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period, with the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs, mosasaurids became the dominant marine predators. They themselves became extinct as a result of the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago. 
Mosasaurs breathed air, were powerful swimmers, and were well-adapted to living in the warm, shallow inland seas prevalent during the Late Cretaceous period. Mosasaurs were so well adapted to this environment that they most likely gave birth to live young, rather than returning to the shore to lay eggs as sea turtles do.
FOSSIL BRANCH CORAL
These fossilized branch coral pieces come from the Sahara desert, in Africa. They are from the Devonian period: 416-359 million years ago. Colonies of branch coral consist of thick upright, and sometimes horizontal, branches growing from a sprawling or encrusting base. There are side branches and small branchlets which resemble knobs. The corallites are evenly spread. The color of this coral varies, and may have been pinkish-brown or some shade of green.
ENCHODUS TOOTH OR FANG
 Enchodus is an extinct genus of aulopiform ray-finned fish related to lancetfish and lizardfish. Species of Enchodus flourished during the Late Cretaceous, and there is some evidence that they may have survived to the Paleocene or Eocene; however, this may just represent reworked Cretaceous material. Enchodus species were small to medium in size, large species reached 172.2 centimeters (67.8 in). One of the genus' most notable attributes are the large "fangs" at the front of the upper and lower jaws and on the palatine bones, leading to its misleading nickname among fossil hunters and paleo ichthyologists, "the saber-toothed herring". These fangs, along with a long sleek body and large eyes, suggest Enchodus was a predatory species.
FOSSILIZED SEA URCHIN
The main feature of echinoid fossils are the set of five ambulacra on the test radiating out from a central point, forming a distinctive five-petalled pattern. The earliest echinoid fossils date from the late Ordovician period, some 450 million years ago. The group has a rich fossil record, their hard tests made of calcite plates and their spines being found in rocks from every period since then. Echinoids from the Paleozoic era had thin tests and their fossils are often incomplete, consisting of groups of plates or isolated spines. Later echinoids had more robust tests and fossilised well, usually with the spines detached from the test. Fossils of echinoids are common in rocks from the Jurassic and Cretaceous age, especially from late Cretaceous chalk. In the White Cliffs of Dover in southern England, the echinoid fossils that are present can be used for dating the various chalk strata in which they occur. This is because they are relatively abundant and well-preserved compared to other fossilised animals, and can be differentiated by type between different ages.
GONIATITE BUTTON
Goniatids, informally goniatites, are ammonoid cephalopods that form the order Goniatitida, derived from the more primitive Agoniatitida during the Middle Devonian some 390 million years ago. Goniatites survived the Late Devonian extinction to flourish during the Carboniferous and Permian only to become extinct at the end of the Permian some 139 million years later. 

All goniatites possessed an external shell, which is divided internally into chambers filled with gas giving it buoyancy during the life of the animal. An open chamber at the front of the shell provided living space for the goniatitid animal, with access to open water through a ventral siphuncle. The general morphology and habit of goniatites was probably similar to that of their later relatives the ammonites, being free swimming and possessing a head with two well developed eyes and arms (or tentacles).

Goniatite shells are small to medium in size, almost always less than 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) in diameter and often smaller than 5 centimeters (2.0 inches) in diameter. The shell is always planispirally coiled, unlike those of Mesozoic Ammonites in which some are trochoidal and even aberrant (called heteromorphs). Goniatitid shells vary in form from thinly discoidal to broadly globular and may be smooth or distinctly ornamented. Their shape suggests many were poor swimmers.

 

 

RAY TAIL SPINE

The caudal "barb" or "spine" is actually a modified scale known as "dermal denticles" on sharks and rays. The barb is a unique weapon in that it not only can stick its attacker, but also can transmit a venom from the mucus coating on the barb.

WHALE EAR BONE

Surprisingly, whale ear bones are rather common in the later fossil record. They seem to have been of denser bone than the rest of the whale skeleton, so they were better preserved. The auditory bulla is a bony cover for the delicate middle ear bones and tissues. In humans it is part of our temporal bone. Whales have several adaptations in their ears for hearing underwater. They have no external ear opening. They use instead the lower jawbone to transmit vibrations to the ear complex (something like what many snakes do). They have a pad of fat to enhance these vibrations for the tiny ear bones (tiny relative to the massive size of the whale).