47" Green River Fossil Fish Display with Mioplosus Aspiration!

Green River Fossil Fish Display with Mioplosus Aspiration! #295648

Due to the size and weight of this piece it will be shipped on a pallet or in a crate via freight. Our website cannot automatically calculate freight shipping costs, so these costs will be calculated and billed after purchase. Please contact us prior to purchase if you need a shipping quote.

This is an impressive fossil fish "mural" from the Green River Formation. It was collected from Lindgren Quarry outside of Kemmerer, Wyoming. The entire mural measures 47 x 30" and features a 8.9" wide Mioplosus labracoides that died while choking on another fish. It literally bit off more than it could chew. The surrounding fish include a 17.4" wide Diplomystus dentatus fish, two Cockerellites (Priscacara) liops (4.7" & 5.1"), and three Knightia eocaena fish (ranging from 5.1" to 5.8"). All of the Knightia fish were naturally preserved in this layer, with the remaining fish having been inlaid into the rock.

The entire piece has been backed with wood for stability and includes a wood wall hanger so that it can easily be hung on a wall with horizontal or vertical presentation. It weighs about 96 lbs and will be shipped in a wooden crate on a pallet.

50 million years ago, in the Eocene, these fish thrived in Fossil Lake, which was fed by the Uinta and Rocky Mountain highlands. The anoxic conditions at the bottom of Fossil Lake slowed bacterial decomposition, prevented scavengers from disturbing corpses and, most interestingly, suffocated creatures that ventured into the oxygen-starved aquatic layer. The result is a miraculous exhibition of Eocene biota: a subtropical aquatic community within sycamore forests, teeming with creatures such as freshwater stingrays, dog-sized horses, menacing alligators, early flying bats, and one of the first primates.

A view of one of the commercial quarries where fossils from the Green River Formation are collected.

$11,500

SPECIES

Mioplosus labracoides, Diplomystus dentatus, Cockerellites (Priscacara) liops & Knightia eocaena

AGE

Eocene (~51 million years)