Boxed Mixed Crystal and Mineral Specimen Collection [5]

Restrung using recently polished Mammuthus primigenius bone beads. 202 grams, 63 cm



Ex West country, UK, collection, 2000s.

The mammoth lineage branched from the Asian elephant around 6 million years ago, and later on the Woolly Mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, evolved in eastern Siberia. Woolly mammoths, being slightly smaller than living African elephants, were foragers and ate grass, as well as small, nutritious flowering plants that flourished in the environment where they lived. They may also have used their curved tusks to dig through snow and eat plants that other foragers couldn't get to.

Comprising two cut slices with one polished face displaying attractive multicoloured banding. 2.75 kg total, 30.5-31 cm



From Malawi. Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's), Harwich, UK.

A pair of Charonosaurus sp. hadrosaur eggs on a matrix retaining evidence of the original leathery surface. 7.6 kg total, 26 x 14 cm



From a Lincolnshire, UK, collection, 1990s. Property of a Cambridgeshire gentleman.

Dinosaur eggs are known from about 200 sites around the world, the majority in Asia and mostly in terrestrial (non-marine) rocks of the Cretaceous Period. It may be that thick calcite eggshells evolved during the Cretaceous (145 to 65 million years ago). Most dinosaur eggs have one of two forms of eggshell that are distinct from the shells of related modern animal groups, such as turtles or birds; however, some eggs closely resemble the type of shells seen in present day ostrich eggs.