Cretaceous Era Fossil - Nematonotus 9.50" - Sannine Formation
Cretaceous Era Fossil - Nematonotus 9.50" - Sannine Formation
93 million years ago, prehistoric sea creatures swam in the coastal waters of what is now the Sannine Formation. This limestone deposit in northern Lebanon is a treasure trove of fossil specimens that paleontologists are learning more about each day.
This specimen is a 9.50" showcase Nematonotus fossil. Nematonotus was a bony fish with a prominent ray fin that allowed for greater mobility. It is known from two species Nematonotus bottae and Nematonotus longispinus of which the latter’s fin is more prominent. The fossil is estimated to be over 98 million years old and includes a pair of black metal stands and a certificate of authenticity.
📸 A Large Sannine Fish Fossil
Cretaceous Era Fossils
During the Cretaceous, planet Earth appeared vastly different from the world we know today. 93 million years ago, in the area that is now northern Lebanon, a coastal sea was home to a robust ecosystem of prehistoric animals. Fish, turtles, lizards, cephalopods, and even pterodactyls.
The Sannine Formation is an incredible snapshot of this period of geologic history. The limestone deposit holds an astounding variety of fossils in great detail, many of which include soft body preservation. This makes it a rare resource for paleontologists to better understand prehistoric life.
📸 A Sannine Fish Fossil in hand
These specimens are fossil sea creatures from the Sannine Formation. Each is a unique showcase item imprinted on the limestone from the deposit. More details on each specific fossil can be found above.
The fantastic detail on these showcase fossils can show skeletal impressions, fins, and even scale patterns in some cases. Every fossil is a completely unique piece of the Cretaceous Period. They are great collector's items and awesome to hold in your hand.
Each showcase fossil ships in a padded carton along with a black metal stand. A certificate of authenticity is also included. More fossils from the Sannine Formation, like fish, shrimp, brittle stars, and other showcase items are available in the collection below!
Temporal Range: Late Albian–Cenomanian (100,000,000–93,500,000 Years Ago)
MORE ABOUT The SANNINE FORMATION
📸 A face to face look with an Armigatus fossil fish
From Prehistory to Our History
The Sannine Formation is an expansive deposit of limestone in Lebanon that holds within it a bounty of fish from the Cenomanian Age, around 100 million years ago. These specimens have been known since ancient times and were first documented by Herodotus around 2,500 years ago.
Around 1250, during the Seventh Crusade, King Louis IX of France received a gift of a fossil fish, described as being “all stone, but nothing was missing its form, nor eyes nor bones or color or anything else that was not as true.” King Louis IX’s fossil fish was hardly unique—specimens from the Sannine Formation are prized for their level of preservation and abundance.
📸 A school of fossil fish at Mini Museum
What's Swimming In the Sannine Formation?
Many Sannine specimens are fossil fish, like members of the Armigatus genus. These small fish were widely distributed across the Tethys Ocean, with their earliest appearance in the fossil record dating to the region’s Cenomanian deposits. The fish can be identified by their oval or even heart-shaped scutes, natural body armor that protected them from predation.
These were not the only creatures in the Cretaceous seas here. Of the deposit’s many groups of aquatic animals, the pycnodonts are of particular note, an order of highly diversified bony fish that lived for 175 million years from the end of the Triassic to the Eocene Epoch.
They had a wide distribution across saltwater, freshwater, and brackish environments, using their flat, molariform teeth to grind through gastropods and crustaceans. Pycnodonts peaked during the Cenomanian Age and are abundant in Lebanon’s Sannine Formation.
📸 A Geologic Map of Northern Lebanon. The Sannine Formation is just outside Hjoula.
A Fossilized Ecosystem
The Sannine Formation is considered a lagerstätte, a deposit with an exceptional degree of preservation of the marine life of the Tethys Ocean between Laurasia and Gondwana. A 2010 study uncovered a pterosaur Microtuban altivolans dating to the Cenomanian, the most complete pterosaur find from the African tectonic plate.
Even after hundreds of years of exploration, the Sannine Formation and the rest of Lebanon’s fossil deposits are still yielding up new finds for paleontologists.
Further Reading
Capasso, Luigi. “The History and the Situation of the World Famous Fossil Fish Quarries in Lebanon.” Università degli Studi G. d'Annunzio Chieti e Pescara. (2019)
Forey, Peter L. et al. “Fossil Fishes from the Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Namoura, Lebanon.” Journal of systematic palaeontology 1.4 (2003): 227–330. Web.
Kriwet, Jürgen. “A New Pycnodont Fish Genus (Neopterygii: Pycnodontiformes) from the Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Mount Lebanon.” Journal of vertebrate paleontology 24.3 (2004): 525–532. Web.
Petit, Gilles, and Sylvain Charbonnier. “Fossil Sponge Gemmules, Epibionts of Carpopenaeus Garassinoi n. Sp. (Crustacea, Decapoda) from the Sahel Alma Lagerstätte (Late Cretaceous, Lebanon).” Geodiversitas. 34.2 (2012): 359–372. Web. (not of genus?)
Stöhr, Sabine, Timothy D O’Hara, and Ben Thuy. “Global Diversity of Brittle Stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea).” PloS one 7.3 (2012): e31940–e31940. Web.
Taverne, Louis, and Luigi Capasso. “On the ‘Coccodus’ Lindstroemi Species Complex (Pycnodontiformes, Gladiopycnodontidae) from the Marine Late Cretaceous of Lebanon, with the Description of Two New Genera.” European Journal of Taxonomy, no. 101, 2014, https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2014.101.
Vullo, Romain et al. “A Unique Cretaceous-Paleogene Lineage of Piranha-Jawed Pycnodont Fishes.” Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 6802–9. Web.
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