Category: Lower Muschelkalk
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Sauropterygia indet. cf. Nothosaurus vertebra centrum 7/LMK
Sauropterygia indet. cf. Nothosaurus vertebra centrum Middle Triassic (Anisian), Lower Muschelkalk, Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland I must admit, this is one of the best prep of a Sauropterygian vertebra centrum I’ve ever made. Finally, the center “popped” out of the matrix without damage. I glued it in place with Palaroid B72. This allows it…
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Acrodus sp. tooth 6/LMK
Acrodus sp. Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Lower Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland The photo shows a complete tooth (crown with root) from a Triassic shark of the genus Acrodus. At first glance, the specimen shows signs of damage. But in my opinion, that’s what’s most interesting about it! These aren’t traces of modern erosion.…
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Pachypleurosauridae vertebra 5/LMK
Sauropterygia ?Pachypleurosauridae indet. complete vertebra Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland The vast majority of fossil vertebrate specimens in the Silesian Muschelkalk are single, isolated bones. As for the vertebrae themselves, I most often encounter vertebral centra, sometimes neural arches. Complete vertebrae, however, are truly rare – almost always separated into…
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Pachypleurosauridae disarticulated elements 4/LMK
Sauropterygia ?Pachypleurosauridae indet. Disarticulated elements (tooth, neural arch, vertebral centrum) Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland Here, you can see three specimens in one. The rock fragment contains disarticulated parts of the skeleton of a small Sauropterygian – a tooth, a vertebra centrum, and a neural arch. Given their age and…
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Sauropterygia indet. vertebral neural arch 3/LMK
Sauropterygia indet. cf Nothosaurus sp. Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Lower Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland This is an example of a vertebral neural arch (a part of a vertebra). A fairly common find in the Gogolin Beds. Complete vertebrae are truly rare. In this case, the arch “lies on its back,” exposing the canal…
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Sauropterygia assoc. Acrodus teeth 2/LMK
Sauropterygia indet. assoc. Acrodus sp. Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland This is the type of fossil I like best. The plate you see is a snapshot, a frozen image of a section of the seabed from 240 million years ago. Between fragments of crushed, older sediment, pebbles, and crushed fragments…
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Sauropterygia cf. Nothosaurus tooth 1/LMK
Sauropterygia indet. cf. Nothosaurus Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Lower Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland These types of teeth are traditionally designed as the genus Nothosaurus. This is a gross simplification. According to a paleontologist friend of mine, the four groups of Triassic reptiles have similar teeth (Nothosaurus, Germanosaurus, Cymatosaurus and Lamprosauroides) and we can’t…
