Partial placoderm plate from the Arkona formation

I have never found much in the way of fish remains at Hungry Hollow, Ontario, but once I did find a small fragment from a bony placoderm plate.  Placoderms were early, shark like fish that had external bony armor around their heads. There are a few species known from the middle Devonian aged rocks found at Hungry Hollow (Arkona formation and Widder formation) but this is just a fragment so I doubt I could narrow the species down.

I found this piece near the base of a slope of eroded Arkona formation and could not find any trace of more uphill. You can tell it is bone due to the pale blue color (evidence of the phosphate mineral Vivianite) and the spongy structure within the piece.

Top surface - this is what would have been the outer facing portion of the bone. Note the bumps, perhaps they helped streamline the fish for swimming purposes?

Two side views of the bone showing the spongy nature.

This was the interior side of the bone

I collected this specimen from the Arkona formation which is Devonian in age, Givetian stage.

Hyneria lindae tooth from the Catskill formation

Pennsylvania is fortunate to have some rocks that record a rich record of fish as they were starting to diversify.  There are a few well known exposures of the Catskill formation which will yield fossils of these early fishes and one of them is called Red Hill. I have been collecting at that site once as part of an organized field trip. The site is managed by local authorities and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and limits the number of collectors who visit. The fossil below was found at the site but not by me. I purchased it as I was not lucky enough to find one for myself. It is a tooth from a fish called Hyneria lindae which was an lobe finned fish. Those were the fish that eventually went on to learn to crawl onto mudflats and became Amphibians and Reptiles. 

Hyneria lindae was a good sized fish with an estimated length of 10' in larger specimens. It was a top predator in it's ecosystem and the tooth below shows you why. It is a long tooth but missing the very tip. Were it a little wider and flatter you'd think it belonged to a shark, but as it is one could almost see it in a Crocodile or Theropod dinosaurs mouth. Suffice to say, it looks like a tooth that a predator would have.

I've posted a scale from this giant fish on a previous blog post.

Here is a great page from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences that shows some of the fossils of Hyneria lindae and talks about how an artist came up with a painting of this long extinct creature.

The rocks at Red Hill are Devonian in age (upper Famennian stage) at about 360 myo and belong to the Duncannon member of the Castskill formation.

Carcharias cuspidata teeth from the Belgrade formation

These are the last of the teeth that I have been profiling that came in a bag of mixed shark teeth labelled as "Belgrade Quarry, NC".  The two teeth shown here were a bit easier to ID for me although I still needed to get confirmation from the Fossil Forum.  I recognized these teeth as belonging to a Sand Tiger shark, but the Fossil Forum member "Sixgill Pete" was able to further ID them as Carcharias cuspidata which is very common in the Belgrade formation.

Specimen #1 -

Specimen #2

The Belgrade formation is dated to the early Miocene epoch of the Paleogene period.

Carcharhinus sp. teeth from Bone Valley

Here are three teeth that I found in a bag of mixed teeth labelled "Belgrade Quarry, NC".  I believe they are from a Carcharhinus sp. shark based on comments from member "Sixgill Pete" on the Fossil Forum. That member suggested these teeth were possibly from a Carcharhinus obscurus which is an extant species known as the Dusky Shark. Based on some comments from members of the Fossil Forum, these teeth likely come from "Bone Valley" in Florida (based on color of the fossils, which is not a reliable rule but it is often a good guide) and are middle Miocene to Pliocene in age.

Specimen #1

Specimen #2

Specimen #3

As I mentioned earlier , these teeth came in a bag labelled as "Belgrade Quarry, NC". That quarry exposes sediments from the Eocene to the Miocene.  Carcharhinus obscurus is not generally acceped to have evolved until the late Miocene epoch so it's likely these teeth are from a different quarry

Hemipristis serra teeth from the Belgrade Quarry?

The teeth of the extinct Snaggletooth shark (Hemipristis serra) are fairly easy to ID from the tooth shape alone.  Triangular in shape, usually angled to one side, and with large serrations along the edges, particularly along the edge that was facing towards the back of the jaw.  Below are three teeth, two laterals and a frontal, that came in a bag of mixed teeth marked "Belgrade Quarry, NC".

Specimen #1 - right side lateral tooth

Specimen #2 - left side lateral tooth

Specimen #3 - frontal tooth

As I mentioned earlier , these teeth came in a bag labelled as "Belgrade Quarry, NC". That quarry exposes sediments from the Eocene to the Miocene.  Hemipristis serra is known from that quarry but the color of these teeth seem to indicate a different source. Perhaps the Lee Creek quarry, also in North Carolina, where this species is known to be found in the Yorktown formation (late Miocene-Early Pliocene)?

Mioplosus labracoides fish head from the Green River Formation

I purchased this fish fossil from a collector just because of it's size and preservation. The collector didn't know what the genus of fish it was but I did a little digging and I think it's a Mioplosus labracoides. The fossil was collected from the Green River formation near Kemmerer, Wyoming (Paleogene, Eocene epoch, Ypresian stage). I have not yet found any Mioplosus fossils myself so this filled a hole in the collection as well as being a cool looking fossil.

 

Erismatopterus levatus fossil fish from the Green River Formation

Below are a couple of small plates from the Green River formation in Wyoming with the fry (juvenile) of a trout perch called Erismatopterus levatus. I bought them from a dealer at a local show this spring.

Based on the book "Paleontology of the Green River Formation with a Review of the Fish Fauna", by Lance Grande, Bulletin 63, Geological Survey of Wyoming, pg. 122-124, these fossils are found primarily in fossil lakes Gosiute and Unita. They are uncommon except for mass mortality zones possibly caused by short term lake temperature rises in the summer.

Click over to This Post I wrote two years ago about the Green River formation to see some diagrams of where the various fossil lakes that compose the formation once existed.

Anomoeodus phaseolus tooth from the Navesink formation

Anomoeodus phaseolus was a species of Pycnodontid fish (shell crushers which lived during the late Cretaceous. It is somewhat common within the sediments of the Navesink formation (Maastrichtian stage) and is easily found in the brooks and creeks of Monmouth County, NJ. The specimen below was found in the Ramanessin creek near Holmdel, NJ.

The top or grinding surface

Side view

Underside, note the hollow nature of the tooth.

Profile

Anomoeodus replaced their teeth much like sharks do with old, worn ones falling out and replacements growing in. This would explain their common nature and often worn look. They typically preyed on invertebrates like shrimp, crabs and oysters. They possibly nibbled at epifauna on the surface of oysters and other hard sea floor surfaces as well.
Check out more pics and info at Oceans of Kansas which has many other species of Pycnodontid fishes.

The website Fossils of NJ has a nice page of specimens found in Monmouth County, NJ

Micro fossils in the North Evans Limestone

 After photographing the fossil wood from the North Evans Limestone (NEL) I took a closer look with my Zorb microscope/camera. The NEL is composed of fossil fragments that eroded out of Hamilton group and Genesse formation rocks right at the boundary between the middle and upper Devonian epochs. I'd read that fish teeth and bone fragments could be found within it along with conodonts and scolecodonts which are teeth and jaws from soft bodied animals (eel like vertebrates for the former and annelid worms for the latter). Below are pictures of some of what I found. Please note that the area shown in each picture is approximately 9mm across.

These are fragments of bone or placoderm armor that show rounded edges which is a clear indication of tumbling or reworking by waves.

This one is stained by pyrite as it was close to a piece of fossilized wood.

Conodont/Scolecodont teeth

Fish teeth

This last picture is of a shark tooth that is from Wellerodus wellsi.

Special thanks go out to Karl Wilson, who's website New York Paleontology I frequent regularly, for helping me ID this fossil. He sent me a paper by Susan Turner entitled "'DITTODUS' SPECIES OF EASTMAN 1899 AND HUSSAKOF AND BRYANT 1918 (MID TO LATE DEVONIAN)" Modern Geology, 1997, Vol. 21, pp. 87-119. In the paper she condenses some different genera into the single genus of Welleodus.

Karl's website has some pics of the many micro fossils that can be found in the NEL here.

Fish teeth from Red Hill

The last piece I have to show you from Red Hill is this chunk of fossil hash. It is full of tiny fish teeth that I imaged with my Zorb Microscope/camera.

The sample

These are close ups of the teeth I found in the sample. For reference the width of the viewed are in each picture is about 9mm.

This appears to be a piece of bone. Same scale as above.

Red Hill is a road cut in north central PA that exposes part of the Catskill formation which is upper Devonian (Famennian stage) in age.