Beautiful Framed Diplomystus dentatus Fossil Fish

This 50 million year old, Eocene-Era fossil fish comes from one of the world's famous Laggerstatte, the Green River Formation in Wyoming. This Diplomystus dentatus is beautifully preserved and professionally prepared and frames. The oak frame is shadow box-deep, and double matted.

A small portion of the fish fossils from Green River exhibits such fine preservation and careful pneumatic preparation. The significant extent of soft-tissue preservation that makes the site famous is evident in the pictures.
Definitely a high-grade fossil most aesthetically presented.

About the Green River Formation: Class actinopterygii, the ray-finned bony fishes, comprise almost half of all known species of vertebrates, some 20,000 extant species. There are numerous locations worldwide that are noted for wonderous preservation of bony fishes, and the Green River formation that covers some 25,000 square miles of SW Wyoming, west Colorado and east Utah is one of them. The formation is one of the largest lacustrine (i.e., lake) sedimentary accumulations in the world, averages some 2000 feet thick, and spans the period 40 to 50 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era.

During the Eocene, based on the fossil record, the region was sub-tropical to temporate. Some 60 vertebrate taxa have been described from the formation, as well as abundant invertebrates and plants. Green river has been noted for its well-preserved fish since mid-way through the 19th century. The unusually excellent preservation of the Green River fish fossils is usually attributed to a combination of two factors: 1) a cold period during the Eocene that would have caused dead fish to sink faster due to a less inflated swim bladder; and 2) the great depth of the lakes and the consequent anoxic conditions that would have often prevented scavengers from disturbing the carcasses.