A number of years ago I picked up a large plate of shaly limestone at the James Dick quarry in Gamebridge, Ontario. It comes from the Verulam formation and I knew it was a special find as I could see what looked like crinoid stems on it but with slightly different shapes to the stems. It turns out that after a good cleaning by my friend Malcolm the crinoid stems are actually carpoid stems. Carpoids are odd echinoderms that are cousins to crinoids. These particular fossils are called Syringocrinus paradoxicus and are fairly rare to find. There are no complete specimens on the plate but plenty of stems and calyx plates scattered about.
As a bonus, there is a small Archaeocrinus sp. crinoid off to one side of the plate. Thanks go out to Kevin B. for the ID on this small fossil (the calyx is maybe 1cm in width).
The Verulam formation is Ordovician in age (late Ordovician, Katian/Mohawkian stage).
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