SPECIMEN RECORD

Neuropteris sp.

Date found: 02/02/2026

NOTE FROM THE PALEOBIOLOGISTS!

The Order Medullosales contains the extinct, mid-canopy tree-like seed-ferns that include the Genus Neuropteris (meaning nerve-fern because of it’s nerve-like venation). Neuropteris leaves and fronds are beautiful and distinctive. They occur abundantly in the lower clays of the section but disappear completely (along with their Medullosalen cousins Paripteris) as the…

The team on site is still unsure of the exact species of Neuropteris that is represented here, or if it may be more than one species.

BFFC0291, BFFC0373
SPECIMEN RECORD

Zeilleria fosteri

Date found: 01/12/2025

NOTE FROM THE PALEOBIOLOGISTS!

Z.fosteri is one of the only ‘true’ ferns found in this site. This delicate little plant belongs in the group Filicopsida, the taxonomic Class that the ferns you see living outside the building belong to. Z. fosteri seems to have preferred the boggy swamps just above the Crank Coal at…

Zeilleria fosteri is endemic to the Brymbo Fossil Forest. It was first discovered here in the mid 2000’s and described in 2019 by Prof. Barry Thomas. It is named for…

BB01581S, BB01582S
SPECIMEN RECORD

Euproops cf.danae

Small freshwater xiphosuran (horseshoe crab)
Date found: 21/06/2013

NOTE FROM THE PALEOBIOLOGISTS!

Animal finds are extremely rare in the Brymbo exposure (likely the result of the flooding that preserved the forest washing away anything that wasn’t rooted down) and one of the rarest finds so far is the horseshoe crab Euproops. These little critters look similar to their living relatives but were…

The hard shell of Euproops was likely composed of the polysaccharide chitin, the same material many insect use in their exoskeleton today. While not especially hard, the fact that these…

BB0013, BB0013(A+B)
SPECIMEN RECORD

Calamites cistii

Arborescent (tree-like) horsetails
Date found: 10/11/2025

NOTE FROM THE PALEOBIOLOGISTS!

Calamites cistii is the most abundant in-situ plant on site. These pioneering opportunists colonized the floodplains represented by the silt and sandstones forming a thick stand not dissimilar to bamboo or reeds. Easily recognized by the stems comprised of ‘nodes’ with serial vertical striations broken regularly by lateral ‘internodes’. Ancient…

There are thousands of prostrate (lying flat) Calamites all over the upper layers of the fossil forest. Likely shed branches or uprooted young plants, they are mostly oriented in the…

BFFA1423P, BB0033, BB0028
SPECIMEN RECORD

Karinopteris jacquotii

Lianescent Pteridosperm
Date found: 3/08/2025

NOTE FROM THE PALEOBIOLOGISTS!

This climbing seed-fern is locally abundant in the contacts between the sandstones and underlying siltstones (it is also occasionally found in siderite concretions). Many of the giant horsetails found compressed in the sandstone unit bear winding scars that we think were caused by these vine like ferns as they wound…

A member of the artificial grouping ‘Pteridospermophyta’ (a group which encompasses all extinct fern-like plants that produce seeds instead of spores), K.jacquotii occupies a niche filled by the similar genus…

BFFC2582, BFFC2531, BB0238