A Catch Best Left in Stone - The Palaeoniscoid




A Little Fish with an Unfriendly Bite
 The Palaeoniscoid
    (photo art: Nasty palaeoniscoid by Maniraptora)

Here is a beautiful example of a lower jaw, with sharp teeth, of a 350 million year old palaeoniscoid fish from the Lower Carboniferous of Blue Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada. The specimen actually came from the small unnamed creek that follows the access road and drains into the Minas Basin at Blue Beach.

 This part of the creek is a rare location to find such a specimen, but lo and behold, that important fossil was just sitting there. Historically, nothing of importance has ever been found in the creek - all the good stuff comes from the beach itself. This specimen is preserved 3-dimensionally in a prominent clayshale bed.

Very few intact skeletons are known from the Blue Beach locality, and most of those now known are recent finds being made by the Blue Beach Museum, and by some of the visitors it attracts. Here we see the scales and dorsal fin of the palaeoniscoid fish 'Rhadinichthyes'. 


This specimen derives from an important layer we call "the Martell Horizon", first discovered by a high school student in 1981. This layer contains the only 'death assemblage' of these fish, and numerous individuals in various states of disarticulation were described by the same student in 1984 in an unpublished paper to the Geology Department at Acadia University. Several additional slabs with partially-intact fish have since been recovered, and we have traced the layer back to its source.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Help Us Build A 'Paleo-Centre' at Blue Beach~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Reach Out: bbfmsfundraisng@xplornet.com
In a time when ‘junk’ science in the form of so-called ‘intelligent design’ is on the ascendant in some regions, the early Carboniferous fossils of Blue Beach provide one of the most outstanding opportunities for contributing to evolutionary science education in Canada. I believe that in supporting this initiative to build a 'Paleo-Centre' we will help create a lasting and significant educational and cultural resource for all Canadians. --- Sincerely, Leo Elshof, PhD., Science and Technology Education
                                          Acadia University School of Education
                                              Wolfville, Nova Scotia Canada

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