The ECPHORA The Newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club Volume 25 Number 2 June 2010 Features Nypa Nut Donated Eocene “Coconut” Aaron Alford has donated an exceptionally well preserved fossil Donated fruit of a Nipa palm (Nypa burtini) to the Calvert Marine Museum, which Dinosaurs in your back he collected from the Woodstock Member of the Nanjemoy Formation Yard (lower Eocene) in Maryland. Nypa fruits are actually rather common in Collections Spotlight the lower Woodstock, and Bruce Tiffney of the University of California Inside (Santa Barbara) reported its occurrence in Maryland in 1999 (Virginia Division Dr. Kidwell to lecture of Mineral Resources Publication 152, p. 148-149). Unfortunately, almost always these in September fruits are crushed nearly flat. The woody tissue is very soft and begins to crumble as soon as it is dug out and starts to dry. What is exceptional in Bird Bones Donated this case is that the fruit Aaron found is in a calcareous nodule that Greedy Guts - the Gull excellently preserves the shape of the entire fruit in an only slightly Pathological Otodus compressed condition. This is by far the best Nypa fruit so far found in and Sand Tiger Shark Maryland or Virginia, and the only one known that can be preserved Teeth permanently without fear of it crumbling away. Shark-bitten Finds Nypa is a member of the palm family and grows today in coastal Peccary Astragalus brackish water mangrove swamps in tropical Southeast Asia and northern Small Dolphin Skull Australia. It is a true palm, but it is unusual in that its main stem runs Tweaks Curator’s underground and sends up shoots as much as 30 feet tall in a manner Interest similar to bamboo. Like other palms, its fruits can float long distances on Whale Skull Quarried the sea and spread with the currents. This helps to explain why the fruits of its fossil ancestors are found in the shallow marine deposits of the Nanjemoy Formation, and why the same fossil species of Nypa also is found in the lower Eocene of England. Modern Nypa is cold- intolerant, and efforts to grow it near Miami met with failure due to occasional light frosts. In the Eocene, Nypa was widespread around the world because temperatures then were much higher than today. The occurrence of Nypa in the Nanjemoy Formation, along with the occurrence of at least three genera of crocodilians, strongly suggests that in the early Eocene the climate in Maryland was probably as warm as that of present-day Cuba or Puerto Rico. Submitted by Dr. Robert Weems. ☼ CALVERT MARINE MUSEUM www.calvertmarinemuseum.com 2 The Ecphora June 2010 Club President Receives Award A Few Auk Words… Bruce Hargreaves, President of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club and member of the Maryland Geological Society, wrote and submitted an article to the MGS newsletter entitled "Belemnites of the Chesapeake: A Look at the Delaware State Fossil.” This article was subsequently submitted by MGS to the Eastern Federation of Mineral and Lapidary Societies (EFMLS). For his literary prowess, he received the highly coveted Bulletin Editor's Contest trophy, awarded once a year. (There are over 130 clubs in the EFMLS with close to 50,000 members.) Congratulations Bruce! Paul Murdoch donated these fossil Auk bones. They include a clavicle (i.e. the wishbone) and a coracoid (another shoulder girdle bone), (both CMM-V-4345) from Bed 14 of the Calvert Formation, Westmoreland Co., VA. Scan by S. Godfrey. CMM Fossil Club President, Bruce Hargreaves, shares his joy with club members. Photo by CMMFC. ☼ Megalodon Nursery? Auks are members of the family Alcidae. Pictured http://www.physorg.com/news192814578.html here is the Parakeet Auklet (Cyclorrhynchus psittacula). Image from Wikimedia Commons. ☼ Submitted by Doug Alves. ☼ Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/cmmfc/index.html 3 The Ecphora June 2010 Whale Quarried May 10, 2010 skull with associated bones including at least one mandible. This in and of itself was an amazing Holds Surprise discovery but it didn’t end there. While removing a smaller rib-containing jacket from the side of the skull we discovered a long snouted dolphin skull (Eurhinodelphinidae) lying beneath the whale skull! In addition to all of these, a crocodile tooth and a Ranzania (Ocean Sunfish) beak all came from the same hole. 10 hours of digging later we had to make the decision of whether to remove the 600 lb jacket that day or wait until conditions were good again. Weather predictions for the following day were for high tides and strong wind. Consequently, we called in reinforcements at 6 pm and thanks to Paul Murdoch, Nicholas Murdoch, Michael Godfrey and Jonathan Wahab, we managed to remove the field jacket by 8 pm just as the sun was setting. The jacket is now on display in the Paleontology Gallery at the CMM where Pam Platt and Christa Conant are undertaking preparation. Submitted by John Nance. ☼ Greedy Guts From left to right, Stephen Godfrey, Ray Bacorn, and John Nance strap 2x4’s onto the field-jacketed baleen whale skull in preparation for its removal from its prehistoric tomb. Photo by M. Godfrey. On May 10, Stephen Godfrey, Ray Bacorn, and I began the day at the north end of Calvert Cliffs with the intent of quarrying a small whale skull from the cliffs. However, because of unsafe cliff conditions, we decided to check on a reported whale skull further south. A significant low tide created perfect working conditions to remove the whale skull Ray Bacorn found this dead gull on a beach below from the tidal flat below the cliffs without having to Calvert Cliffs, having died presumably because it worry about water inundating the site. As we began, tried to eat a fish that was too big for it to swallow we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. or regurgitate. Notice the fish tail protruding from Once the skull was found and quarrying began it the gull’s wide-open mouth. What a sweet fossil that became clear that this was going to be a big job. The would make. Photo by Ray Bacorn. final jacket was six feet long and probably weighed in close to 600 lbs. What had been reported by Submitted by Ray Bacorn. ☼ Henry Hays was discovered to be a baleen whale Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/cmmfc/index.html 4 The Ecphora June 2010 Collection Spotlight Series Small Dolphin Skull Donated Here I would like to showcase just a handful of the fossils that Wally Ashby donated to the Calvert Marine Museum. In 2006 his daughter, Mary Parrish, wrote a special memorial in The Ecphora in honor of Mr. Ashby. (The Ecphora: Volume 21, Number 4, December 2006 http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/cmmfc/news letter/CMMFC_Newsletter_2006-12.pdf ) Over Mr. Ashby’s years of collecting, he made some incredible discoveries. These fossils are now housed in the CMM and the National Museum of Natural History (The Smithsonian Institution). Below are five out of the hundreds of fossils he donated in his lifetime. This Miocene crocodile vertebra and teeth were collected in situ (Latin for having been found “in place”) as were the majority of Mr. Ashby’s finds. He took detailed field notes while collecting. Having such accurate stratigraphic and locality information is invaluable when it comes to studying these fossils. This small dolphin partial skull was donated recently by Jason Osborne and Aaron Alford. In this image, the skull is seen in dorsal view with the narrow incomplete rostrum pointing towards the top of the page. The section of skull in the lower left quadrant of the photo includes the left supraorbital and left premaxilla adjacent to the nares (the region of the blowhole). The Curator is looking forward to working with the donors on a short paper describing Crocodile fossils collected and donated to the CMM this specimen. Scan by S. Godfrey. ☼ by Wallace Ashby. Scan by John Nance. ☼ Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/cmmfc/index.html 5 The Ecphora June 2010 Paleocarcharodon Donated Shark-Bitten Seal Calcaneum Brandon Sorzano donated this Paleocarcharodon tooth to our permanent collection; many thanks! Scan by S. Godfrey. ☼ Peccary Pes… Paul Murdoch donated this seal calcaneum (one of the ankle bones) that he found at Lee Creek, Aurora, N.C. Interest in this bone is heightened because the tip of a broken shark tooth (shown at the tip of the arrow) is imbedded in the bone. Additionally, the surface of this ankle bone is marred by other presumed shark-in-origin feeding damage. Six different kinds of seals are known from Lee Creek (Koretsky and Ray, 2008). Consequently, the Editor does not yet know to which species this bone belongs. Scan by S. Godfrey. ☼ Koretsky, I. A. and C. E. Ray. 2008. Phocidae of the Pliocene of Eastern USA. In Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, IV. Virginia Museum of Natural History 14: 81-140. American Lion Not a Lion (Perhaps it’s a Jaguar?) Paul Murdoch donated this superbly well preserved http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chie peccary astragalus (first and upper-most ankle feditor/2010/05/the-american-lion-is-not-a-lio.html bone). The specimen, CMM-V-4344, is from Bed 14 of the Calvert Formation. Scan by S. Godfrey. ☼ Submitted by Bruce Hargreaves. ☼ Club website: http://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/cmmfc/index.html 6 The Ecphora June 2010 Editor’s note: The following article was originally received from Ray Stanford as an email. With his permission, I have condensed and edited that correspondence for inclusion here. Many thanks Ray! Dinosaurs in Your Back Yard? On April 28, 2010 a new exhibit at the Smithsonian entitled Dinosaurs from Our Back Yard opened.