This is the tip of a tusk belonging to an extinct Mastodon.
Mastodons were browsers this means that they had a diet containing twigs, leaves, and smaller plant vegetation. They lived in warm lower land environments and Ice Age forests.
This fish is a Thrissops, a genus of ray-finned, bony fish that swam in the seas during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. This extremely well preserved sample was preserved in the Kimmeridge clay, a geologic unit made of fine-grained sediment that sank to the bottom of a Jurassic seaway. The unit is exposed on the Dorset coast of England and travels offshore where it is the major source of North Sea oil and natural gas. This sample is housed in the Etches Collection – a private museum in the area where this fossil was found.
An expert tour through the origin of animal life and the so-called “Cambrian Explosion” where the fossil record suddenly has the appearance of animal life with hard part 543 million years ago.
