Fish fossil ID help: mislabeled as Rhacolepis from Brazil, but could this be Leptolepides from Solnhofen?
Hi everyone,
I’d like some help identifying this small fish fossil.
It came from a German collector with an old label saying:
Rhacolepis sp.
Upper Cretaceous
Lagoa-Secca, Ceará, Brazil
But I’m skeptical. The fossil is on a thin, light-colored platy limestone slab, with flat preservation and some dendritic markings on the matrix. To me it does not really look like typical Rhacolepis from the Araripe/Santana region.
Since it came from a German collection I’m wondering whether the label may have been mixed up. My suspicion is that it could instead be a small Solnhofen/Eichstätt-type fish, possibly cf. Leptolepides sprattiformis or another small teleost from lithographic limestone.
The tail appears small and forked, and the flat preservation, platy limestone matrix and dendritic markings (last picture) on the slab seem more “Solnhofen-type” to me than Brazilian Santana/Romualdo.
Would you consider this plausible?
Or could it still be a Brazilian Crato/Santana fish?
Any opinions on ID and provenance would be very appreciated.