Description
Here is your chance to own A classic Fossil cystoid complete with a rare coral from a classic site. A nice showy piece as well.
Harder and Harder to obtain specimens from this private quarry in Middleport, New York
This is an exceptional block of ancient creatures, the sea floor, from the Rochester Shale.
The Fossil Cystoid & Favosites Coral was collected decades ago and just recently prepared by our prep lab..
Here is a Super detailed cystoid from a classic site in NY. And the additional fauna prepared and also exhibits great detail.
Cystoids from this site are preserved in SPECTACULAR detail. Because of the wide variety and number of these Cystoids it is also assumed they lived in dense communities,
The Caryocrinites Cystoid Fossils are actually animals related to modern day starfish. They are echinoderms. There are modern relatives of the Cystoid called crinoids living in the deep oceans today. But then they lived in shallow salt water seas and lagoons. They lived during the Paleozoic and were most prevalent during the Mississippian Period.
Although there were many species of Cystoids, they shared a basic body styles consisting of a stem by which it anchored to the sea floor with a “holdfast”, a theca which enclosed soft body tissues, and arms and pinnules which filtered food from the water. But this one has the holdfast exposed nicely.
The Fossil Cystoid & Favosites parasiticus Coral thrived in the warm inland sea that covered the area during the Silurian Period some 420 million years ago. The cystoids living near what is now Middleport New York were established near a delta system that periodically buried the colonies in silt. This silt eventually hardened into stone that preserved the Cystoids in glorious detail.
The piece is roughly 10 inches by 4 inches. The Cystoid is 8 1/4 and the coral is 1/2 inch.
