In between grant writing fury, I thought I'd take a moment to post a picture of a very odd fossil, and see if anyone could correctly identify it.
Some hints: this is from my field area, so it is marine, from central California, and approximately 6 million years old, and it belongs to a vertebrate. Also, it is very incomplete, but there are several features that distinguish it. So - now it is your job (if you so wish) to figure out what it is. And yes, '20 questions' is okay-ish.
Only one rule: folks who have already seen this can't give it away.
Good Luck!
5 comments:
I know what it is!
Interesting!! I've got a some of questions.
Is this from a marine tetrapod?
Is this from a terrestrial tetrapod?
Is the picture on the left a lateral view?
Good questions:
1- no
2- also no
3- no, but the middle picture is
Hope this doesn't make this any more difficult!
Thanks for the answers, I'll give it a try then.
Elasmobranchii - fragment of the articular surface of a vertebra.
Good job! Yes, it is a partial centrum of a large elasmobranch. In the case of the Purisima Formation, Carcharocles was already extinct by this point, and Carcharodon is not large enough to produce a 15cm wide vertebra; however, Cetorhinus maximus is extremely common in this deposit (and this bed in particular), and it likely belongs to Cetorhinus (otherwise known as a basking shark for all you non-shark folks out there).
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