Very Large Fossil Clypeaster Sea Urchin Specimen

A nickel-iron meteorite (IAB). 9.21 grams, 31 mm



Ex Cambridgeshire, UK, collection.

A crater field of roughly 26 craters was found in the vicinity of this crater, which is estimated to date to 4-5 thousand years BP. The age of the meteorite itself is thought to be c.4.5 billion years, formed as part of the development of this solar system. The largest two fragments, the 30.8-ton Gancedo and 28.8-ton El Chaco, are among the heaviest meteorite masses ever recovered on Earth. In 1576, the governor of a province in Northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a large mass of iron, which it was believed the local people claimed had fallen from the sky and which they used for their weapon production. The expedition discovered a large mass of metal, which was assumed to be an iron mine, and brought back a few samples, which were described as being of unusual purity. Following the legends, in 1774, Don Bartolomé Francisco de Maguna rediscovered the iron mass. He himself did not believe that the stone had fallen from the sky and assumed that it had formed by a volcanic eruption. However, he sent the samples to the Royal Society of London. In 1990, it became protected by law.

Matrix containing the majority of two elongated Oviraptor philocerataops eggs, retaining their leathery surface. 4.82 kg, 24 cm



From the Nanxiong formation, China. Previously with Shishang Corporation, Taiwan. From a West London gentleman collector; acquired from a professional fossil company in Taiwan.

Oviraptor, or 'egg thief', was a small feathered bipedal theropod. Being omnivorous, it fed on plants, insects, eggs and fish. Famously mis-named upon its initial discovery in association with a nest of eggs in 1924, it is now accepted that the oviraptor was nesting, not raiding; palaeontologists have since discovered oviraptor in association with eggs containing fossil oviraptor embryos.

Cheek tooth from an early whale Chrysocetus sp., showing the characteristic accessory denticles on both sides and a double root. 112 grams, 10.9 cm



Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

Chrysocetus comes from Greek chrysous, 'golden' and ketos 'whale, in reference to the gold-colored bones of the type specimen. It is an extinct archaeocete cetacean belonging to the Basilosauridae, and unlike other basilosaurids, Chrysocetus did not replace its teeth but kept a single set throughout its life.