3.5" Fossil Fish (Diplomystus) - Hakel, Lebanon

Fossil Fish (Diplomystus) - Hakel, Lebanon #70439

This is an beautifully detailed 3.5" long Diplomystus birdi. fossil fish from the Upper Cretaceous, marine deposits near Hakel, Lebanon. The detail on this specimen is amazing with great fin and scale structure. There is a second unidentified fish on the plate.

Interestingly, Diplomystus is the same genus as one of the most common fish found in the Eocene aged Green River Formation of Wyoming. This one being a marine species and the other lived in a lake.

The discovery of amazingly preserved marine fossils near Hakel, Lebanon dates back many centuries. In fact, they were first mentioned in writing by Herodotus, over 450 years before the birth of Christ. The first scientific work on these localities began in the 1800s: these deposits have been meticulously quarried by several Lebanese families for over a century. We purchase our specimens directly from one of these families.

These deposits represent a warm, shallow sea of the Middle Cretaceous, and have yielded over 70 types of fish and numerous other genera found nowhere else in the world. The preservation on many of these specimens is truly amazing: many examples of soft bodied preservation have been found.

A photo of the quarry at Hakel, Lebanon