#osteolepis

"Corals, fishes, and crustaceans of the Devonian: In the foreground are Corals of the genera Favosites, Michelina, Phillipsatrea, Zaphrentis, Blothrophyllum, and Syringopora, and the seaweed Spirephyton; also Fishes of the genera Cephalaspis and Pterichthys. Above are Pterygotus and Dinichtys, with Fishes of the genera Diplacanthus, Osteolepis, Holoptychius, Pteraspis, Coccosteus, etc. The distant land had Lepidodendra, Pines and Tree-ferns."

From The Story of the Earth and Man by J. W. Dawson, 1873

I thought i'd show my Osteolepis to the whole wide world. It's probably amongst my favorite fossils in my collection. It was bought of some polish guys at a fossil-expo i went to last year.

Osteolepis was a primitive lobe-finned fish from the deep time of devonian Scotland (about 380 million years old) . Nowadays it's become an incomprehensible jumbled mess of petrified fish-scales, but back in the days of the dawn of time, it would've looked something like this…

...Okay so i just looked up some reconstructions of it, and turns out i completely butchered the tail, oh well, we can't all be perfect, just imagine the tail is a little longer and pointier.

Cephalaspis, Coccosteus, Pterichthys and Osteolepis, Palaeozoic fishes from Geological Facts; or, the Crust of the Earth, what it is, and what are its uses by the Rev. W. G. Barrett, 1855

Devonian from Geology for the million by Margaret Plues, 1863

Class Sarcopterygi, Infraclass Tetrapodomorpha, Superorder Osteolepidida, Order Osteolepiformes, Family Osteolepidae

Geological Time: Middle Devonian (385 Million Years Old)

Size (25.4 mm = 1 inch): Fossil fish is 151 mm in length (tip of nose to tip of tail along backbone) on 145 mm by 120 mm matrix

Fossil Site: Caithness Flagstones, Cruaday Quarry, Caithness, Orkney, Scotland

The bone scale, Osteolepis (1835)

Phylum : Chordata Class : Sarcopterygii Infraclass : Tetrapodomorpha Superorder : Osteolepidida Order : Osteolepiformes Family : Osteolepidae Genus : Osteolepis Species : O. macrolepidotus

Devonian

20 cm long (size)

Scotland (map)