Identifying a fossilized fish?

Hello all,

Recently I got a fossilized fish as a present from a friend. It would be nice to know what type / species it is.. can it be identified from this picture?
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~jkorteni/tmp/kala.jpg

It was bought from Italy, and I presume it originated there (or at least somewhere nearby). However, I have no clue of the age of the fossil..

BTW, is there any way to verify the authenticity of the fossil? Something which can be done without breaking the whole thing apart and doing carbon-dating..

If anybody can give me even a hint of what this is, I would appreciateit. Thanks in advance!

Hi Jarmo,

The light brown, fine grained substrate looks a lot like what is typically found in the Green River Formation of the Western USA. It's a freshwater limestone deposit from the Eocene and just loaded with fish fossils. I've dug there and in many places it's hard _not_ to get a fossil in every slab. Light brown limestone like you have is common for freshwater deposits so the color and texture doesn't positively give a clue as to where it comes from.

The Solnhofen Limestone Formation in Germany has a similar color and texture.

I can't identify the genus of this specimen.

I'm suspicous of it's authenticity. Take a look at the tip of the tail. Part of the fossil is on the flat surface and then the tail slides uniformly into the recessed area that was chiselled out. The same is true of the dorsal and pectoral fins. There is something that strikes me as odd about that, but I may be wrong. Anybody else see a problem here?

The fossil fish from the Green River Formation are very cheap and easily available here in the USA. People sell and trade them at shows. The price is based on size, species, and condition of the specimen.

Since these fossils are so easy to get, it seems illogical that your fossil should be a fake. Why fake something that is so common? And yet, those fins I mentioned bother me. Could this fossil actually be 'printed' onto the substrate?

It's a nice specimen. I wish my friends gave me fossils. =-}

It looks like Green River ..... but the chiselling seems too rough for that substrate. If you're convinced it's Italian, it may well be from Monte Bolca (near Verona) or a similar deposit. It's relatively recent - by that I mean Cretaceous or Tertiary. It's a relatively 'advanced' teleost fish, so I would guess the Eocene type time zone.

I see what Penguin Dreams means about the fins ... the pectoral fin does look as it's on 2 layers, but I can't see clearly enough to say for certain.

Can you get a photo of a close-up of the head?

Becky

Try looking at the Handbook of Paleoicthyology. It's a five-volume set that's available in most college libraries.

Nice fish!

I hope these details help. Thanks for the info so far..

It's that 'half of the fin' that bothers me.

Yes, it doesn't take long to become an expert at exposing the Green River fish. The fossil creates a flaw in the limestone and just picking at it in the proper way will pop the upper layer of limestone right off the interface of the flaw. They can come out very clean without much effort.

OK, I'm going to vote that the fossil is for real. Here's my logic :

1. the photo 'fish4.jpg' shows a lot of 3D detail of the spinal column, ribs, and skull. 2. that's a lot of work for somebody to forge a fossil, unless the fossil was being sold at a very high price. 3. I suspect you didn't pay a really high price for it.

This is the same logic people use when trying to determine if Roman or Greek coins are for real. If the coin has all the proper details AND if it is not being sold as a rare coin, then it would not be economical to create the forgery. No profit, no motive, and it's probably real.

Hi Jarmo,

I think your fossil is in the family of Clupeidae. Here is a web page with some species of this family that exist today:
http://fishbase.sinica.edu.tw/identification/ specieslist.cfm?famcode=...

That's the best I have been able to find.

The deeply forked tail and robust skull of your fossil made me think of the Green River fossil fish of the genus Knightia. It is in this same family. The family includes the modern fish of sardines, herring, and anchovies.

I'm just an amateur fossil hound, so don't take my classification too seriously. I would put a sticker on the back of the fossil that says 'Clupeidae' and then put it on the mantle for display.

it's certainly a clupeiform or something similar .... I don't think it's Knightia, but it looks similar (sorry, these fish are too recent for me - I work with Permo-Triassic fish

I think it's real too, after looking at the other pics .... the head picture looks like it has true soft tissue in the eye area - not needed to fake a fossil .... there just seems to be more detail than necessary for a fake of a small and relatively fish

I still think the fins look a *little* odd though....

I've got a clupeid monograph somewhere, I'll try and drag it out and have a look.....
http://fishbase.sinica.edu.tw/identification/ specieslist.cfm?famcode=...

Hi, i'm Italian, and i agree with the idea that this fish comes from Bolca, the limestones are very very similar. The fish is authentc, i'm sure, 'cause i've found some fishes, but in Tuscany, where i live (i've a limeston deposit of miocene age under and near my father's house :-P), and they come out even better than this. I'll xpost the links that you provide in an Italian paleontology NG, i'm sure that they could identify this fish.

Off-topic: Greetings from up north (Finland). It's hot as hell here, 32 degrees C.. , I wish all these darn mosquitoes would get fossilized..

It does look like Green River material, but the fish seems far too long and narrow to be Knightia