Mystery Echionid

[Mike Murphy]

BobC:

I enjoy looking at beautiful, quality echinoids, even if they're not part of my collection! Identifying them is almost as much fun as collecting them...almost!!! Goniopygus sp. is my favorite genus of echinoid and I've been working to acquire a substantial collection of Goniopygus worldwide, but especially from the Texas Cretaceous.

The Goniopygus sp. in both photographs represents Goniopygus texanus Ikins, 1940. The specimen looks to be from the Edwards Formation based on the matrix and the preservation. The other specimens are Loriola sp., probably Loriola texana (Clark, 1915) or possibly Loriola whitneyi (Ikins, 1940).

Regards,

Mike

[BobC]

Mike-- that's what Linda MCCall thought it was too. I found him in a slab in a quarry off Mopac and Parmer--I actually found three of them to be precise.

To be honest, I just recently started cleaning these guys and now that I can actually see their pores and tubercles I am realizing that I have many different species even though I've only been collecting for less than a year. I've got a few more coming that I'd love you and Pat to take a look at. Dan too if he is available.

For some reason people in these small town around Texas seem to instantly like/trust me and they let me on their property to snoop around. It's been so much fun, not only for the fossils but also for the fact that I get to meet new people all the time and see wildlife. I could not be happier! Well, if it would stay 75 degrees all summer I'd be happier!

Hey Mike--I found those tiny, tiny Loriola at a park near 2222 and Mopac and I found literally hundreds of them, inter-mingled with snails and oysters and a few clams. Why would so many be in one spot and why are they all so tiny?

[Mike Murphy]

BobC:

There are a number of areas where a single species of echinoid is extremely abundant. Most echinoids are fairly gregarious and when the environmental conditions are just right, a species will totally dominate. As to the size of the specimens, it might be a preservational remnant. Smaller specimens are generally more sturdy than larger ones and normally preserve better. Commonly, regular echinoids prefer shallow, higher energy environments such as reef environments. The local environment that promoted the large number of specimens may have also been of short duration. It might also represent a nursery area where all of the specimens are juveniles. There are concentrated slabs of nearly microscopic Goniophorus scotti Lambert, 1926 in the middle Del Rio Formation in the Waco Pit on beds of spines that represent nurseries and there are thin slabs of ferruginous limestone composed of large numbers of Coenholectypus nanus Cooke, 1955 on masses of spines, again representing nurseries.

Regards,

Mike