Comparing a fossil sea urchin found at Solnhofen with modern sea urchins found on a strand line along the coast of a recent inter-tidal mudflat

This post is one in a series of posts which compares the depositional environment of the late Jurassic lithographic limestones at Solnhofen in Germany based on extracts from Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology with observations made at a modern inter-tidal mudflat at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, New Territories, Hong Kong and proposes an inter-tidal mudflat origin for the examples cited.

This post compares comments on, and a photograph of a fossil sea urchin (Tetragramma sp) found at Solnhofen with photographs of stranded sea urchins (Salamacis dussumieri) found along the coast at the inter-tidal mudflats at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, Hong Kong.

Extracts from: Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology

“Echinoids have a globular test covered by spines….  Shortly after death the spines fall away and become separated from the animal. However, in the plattenkalk, echinoids are found with their spines still attached” (Barthel et al - Pages 155 – 156).

Photographs of sea urchins found stranded at Ha Pak Nai in June 2012

References

Barthel, K.W., Swinburne, N.H.M., and Conway Morris, S. (1994). Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.