Indiana University Paleontology Collection

A new PBS Eons episode is out! Written by CJ Salcido and inspired by the sharks and fish of the IU Paleontology collection! Check out the episode and the Shark and Fish Research page on the CBRC website (link here: https://cbrc.indiana.edu/research/indiana-sharks.html)

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This comes from our Shark and Fish Fossil Inventory in the IUPC and from one of our undergraduate hourly workers:
This fossil fish is a Plioplarchus whitei, an Eocene ray-finned fish from the Green River Formation in Wyoming. Plioplarchus is within the same family as the modern bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), explaining its similar appearance. Like modern bluegills, it was likely omnivorous, able to eat essentially whatever could fit into its mouth. This fish has almost all of its skeletal features preserved extremely well and articulated due to the depositional environment of the Green River Formation leading to the animals being quickly covered in a very fine limestone mud once they died. This fossil represents a highly biodiverse subtropical ecosystem as it coexisted with many other species of bony fish, stingrays, horses, crocodilians, and even primates, in a massive system of lakes and deltas.