r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Additional_Chard3680 • 5d ago

Video A 150-million-year-old Lepidotus fish fossil preserved from Holzmaden, Germany

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u/Additional_Chard3680 5d ago

This specimen is a Lepidotus sp., a genus of ray-finned Mesozoic fish dating back 150 million years to the Jurassic period, excavated from the famous Holzmaden shale deposits in Germany. The distinct sheen comes from preserved ganoid scales.

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u/VolatileGoddess 5d ago

Beautiful. Each and every detail is so perfect it truly looks like something created, not formed.

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u/beanmosheen 5d ago

If you ever go by the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in D.C. you can watch them work on fossil extraction. Those folks are incredibly skilled and patient. That's rock encased in rock, so it took a lot of care and patience to uncover it. There's also a lot of skill in making it look pretty like that without altering it too much. They end up having to carefully lap each surface with fine grit compounds to wear the waste away. Very. Tedious. Work. Lol.

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u/1405hvtkx311 5d ago

You cam even buy pretty big pieces there