Show Us Your Rarest Or Most Incredible Partial Fossils!

[Kurufossils]

Here is a thread to share some of your rarest partials that if whole would've been incredible specimens, but you know how it is sometimes... Yet they still amazing to own a piece of.

 

I will start off by sharing a piece of the tail of a Probolichas Kristiae, an incredibly unique looking rare lichid trilobite from Oklahoma that would've of been incredible if whole of course yet this piece still has amazing detail and I am more that happy to own 

[Bobby Rico]

 

This is my treasured specimen, s small and not perfect partial but very rare from  this location a Coloborhynchus from Bexhill Wealden UK .  Coloborhynchus was a giant pterosaur flying reptile and the largest toothed pterosaur. Size of tooth: 1 cm in length. 

[Carboniferouspat]

That trilobite must have been huge 

[JamieLynn]

This is part of an unidentified species of Cidarid urchin from Central Texas Cretaceous. Apparently only one whole one has been found. I was super lucky to find three partials. Maybe someday I'll find a whole one.

[Kurufossils]

Wow this thread is already starting off good, nice specimens so far! I wonder what more will be seen as this grows.

 

I'll contribute another rare trilobite partial measuring at 5 inches from a large Megistaspidella Gigas from Sweden. I have never seen a complete one but looking at its smaller Russian counterparts of Megistaspidella sp. If this was complete this would've be an absolute monster of the species.

[Kane]

Certainly not as visually impressive as the spectacular offerings here, but rare partials nonetheless...

 

 

Odontocephalus sp. -- Cephalic brim (a rare specimen for Ontario, found near my house).

 

 

Two examples of Terataspis grandis, another very scarce trilobite, also found near my house. A pygidium partial and a hypostome.

 

 

Two pygidial fragments of Echinolichas cf. eriopis, another pair of finds near my house. I've not seen a complete example of this species in the literature, and neither of its other cousin in this material, Acanthopyge contusa, of which I find plenty of pieces of. These are truly known exclusively from fragments alone.

 

[caterpillar]

The biggest are not the rarest.

Garumnaster michaleti from lower thanetian of southwest France. 26mm

I found this half of a specimen this year. Only one specimen was found in the world in the 19th century and deposited at the MNHN in Paris

 

[Fossildude19]

Pieces of the Early Jurassic coelacanth, Diplurus longicaudatus.

 

 

 

Of the 4 species of fish found in Connecticut, (Shuttle Meadow Formation, Hartford Basin, of the Newark Supergroup) D. longicaudatus is by far the most rarely found.

In 25 years of fossil hunting, I have only found 6 or so partials/pieces of this illusive fossil. 

 

[RJB]

  I wonder how many fossil hunters have wished that what they have found was complete?    and some nice stuff here by the way. 

 

RB

[LiamL]

4 hours ago, RJB said:

  I wonder how many fossil hunters have wished that what they have found was complete?    and some nice stuff here by the way. 

 

RB

Oh I know i have, many times.

[Mike from North Queensland]

Here is a couple of the rarer specimens I have found.

Undescribed ophiuroid and a partial enantiornithine humerus 

 

Mike 

[Bobby Rico]

How about a quick game of Pac-Man. 

 

To interesting to throw away .Missing area shows Septal architecture.

Rare ammonite Tiltoniceras

Transition Beds

Nottingham, uk 

[Ludwigia]

Nautiloid partials can be interesting. Here are a few septa from the phragmocone of a very large Cenoceras with part of the siphuncle remineralized as barite on its lap.

 

 

And here's a Plagiostoma bivalve and colony of tube worms sitting on part of the living chamber of another Cenoceras.

 

 

[Nimravis]

23 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

How about a quick game of Pac-Man

Looks more like the alien from the movie "Alien".

[Nimravis]

This has always been a favorite of mine- a partial Megistaspidella gigas trilobite and a partial cephalopod from the Ordovician of Sweden.

 

@Ryann10006

[fossilsonwheels]

On 12/7/2019 at 3:28 PM, Mike from North Queensland said:

Here is a couple of the rarer specimens I have found.

Undescribed ophiuroid and a partial enantiornithine humerus 

 

Mike 

  

That bird bone is indeed a drool worthy fossil !

[TqB]

Probably my favourite partial, and very rare. The many armed starfish Plumaster ophiuroides (or maybe murchisoni), from near the Lower/Middle Lias boundary, Lower Jurassic of the Yorkshire coast, UK. 

The London Natural History Museum will get it eventually - they have one or two others but this shows the remarkable arm ossicles unusually well. (Prepped with a modified dental descaler under a microscope - about 150 hours but worth it!)

 

 

[fossilsonwheels]

The kids in the classrooms we visit would probably pick the partial Diplodocus bone we have but my favorite partial is a Pteranodon wing bone from Smoky Hill Chalk. It is one of my favorite fossils.

[Bobby Rico]

4 minutes ago, TqB said:

many armed starfish Plumaster ophiuroides

That’s incredible both the specimens and the prep work.    Great great find Tarquin 

[Kurufossils]

@Nimravis Awesome to see another! I wonder if a whole one will ever turn up one day all I've seen are tail end partials.

[Miocene_Mason]

Both might be missing their processes, but I find these Eocene seasnake vertebrae pretty cool. They are somewhat uncommon in MD. They now reside in the Calvert Marine Museum Collections. Paleophis sp.

[Ruger9a]

Here's one of my favorites. 

Trilobite - Conolichas eichwaldi, (Nieszkowski,1857) 

Upper Ordovician (Katian)

Pechurki quarry, Slantsy, St Petersburg region, Russia

[Bobby Rico]

Definitely does not look like amazing fossil but it is incredible rare in the U.K. it is part of an old museum collection, a tip of a tusk from a Straight Tusk Elephant  (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) . From the the Middle and Late Pleistocene found in Tornewton cave Devon UK. On a very silly stand I made. 

[Mioplosus_Lover24]

Definitely the fossil bird I found in the Greenriver Formation last summer! It is still 75% complete but it is sadly missing parts of it's leg, but it has a skull! Can't wait to get this thing fully prepped out next year!!!

[Ptychodus04]

Mine is certainly the holotype of Flexomornis howei. The initial discovery was a scapula, partial carpometacarpus, partial tibiotarsus, and possible partial humerus. A second specimen I collected from a different site yielded a coracoid, sacrum, ulna, and partial scapula.