3" Cretaceous Fossil Fish (Gaudryella) and Shrimp - Lebanon

Cretaceous Fossil Fish (Gaudryella) and Shrimp - Lebanon #162782

This is a nicely detailed 3" long example of the fossil fish Gaudryella sp., collected from the Cretaceous aged marine deposits of Lebanon. The fish is naturally associated with a fossil shrimp (Carpopenaeus sp.). While Gaudryella doesn't have any close living relatives, it would be in the same order as Salmon and Trout.

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