The warmer weather is back, but sadly not well timed since I will be back teaching and grading through the last 5ish weeks of the semester. That said, I had some time off this week to look more closely at my finds from the Ordovician out east, and found two surprises. The first and lesser surprise was this. I had picked up this thin plate on account of a scattering of 3-4 tubercular bumps with an intention to see what it was all about. You never know: it might be something like an echinoderm. After a bit of abrasion, I could rule out starfish and claim this is a fragment of Bufoceraurus, bringing me to 15 encountered species of trilobite so far in 2024. The bigger surprise is much smaller (as in, a few millimetres). I need to trot out the better camera as the iPad zoom leaves something to be desired, but this is the cranidium of a very rare cheirurid, Kawina trentonensis, which is only known by... its cranidia. I've added the image from Hessin's book below my specimen to show how it favourably compares. So, not only the 16th trilobite encountered in the field for 2024, but also my first new species of the year.
It's great to get a running start on the fossil season, although it remains to be seen if my luck holds. Historically, the season starts out strong, falls into a ditch by summer, and then picks up a bit in the autumn. Pending the weather in March, I may go on a quick day trip on the train to the lower mid-Devonian to find a few more of the usual suspects in Onandaga material, and then in mid-April I have designs on some other Ordovician spots. Then, it's teach a week in May and maybe back on a train for more fossil fun. Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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