Super Rare Fish Aspiration From Lebanon - Eurypholis & Prionolepis

This is an incredibly rare specimen from the Upper Cretaceous marine deposits in Lebanon.

It's rare to see behavior captured this way in the fossil record. Known as an aspiration, this fossil captures a predatory Eurypholis which died trying to swallow it's prey, a slightly smaller Prionolepis. It obviously bit off more than it could chew.

I've never seen another aspiration from Lebanon and my source there says this is only the second one he's seen in the 30 years of digging.

The Eurypholis would be just under 3" if it was outstretched and the Prionolepis probably would have been about 2" long. Both the positive and negative split of the rock are included.

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