Diver Mioplosus

My next adventure for fossil fish preparation is a 12 1/2 inch Mioplosus, the plate is 17 inches long and 8 1/2 inches wide. The matrix is 1 inch thick. This is an interesting project because the fossil fish settled into the sediments at an angle. The head is nearly 1/2 inch above the tail end. When the fish is prepared it will appear the head has more dimension the rest of the body.

The plate required some paleobond adhesive for a small crack on the plate, which was sealed from the back side. I had to fill and elmer's glue a few smaller cracks. The head and tail were preped by hand. We had to do some restoration to the body as some of the scales peeled.

This finished out a nice deep bodied sample of this predatory species