Unusual Fossil Gar Fish

An unusual fossil gar fish emerges from its matrix in a beautiful contrast of the all original, chocolate brown fish against warm cream limestone. Found in the famed Green River Formation, known for its wealth of vertebrate fossils, this piece was skillfully prepared, preserving the distinctive diamond shaped scales and teeth in great detail with texture. Strikingly displayed on a custom ebony base frame, the fish measures 2 feet long. Lepisosteus – a gar fish that survives in the present day – is among the rarest of fossil fish. A predator thought to feed in still, shallow lake waters is distinguished by hardy rhomboid scales, a sturdy head, and elongated snout with strong teeth. This wonderfully strange creature is witness to the past and present, a testament to survival.
As the Rocky Mountains formed, three large lakes formed in basins across 60,000 square miles of Wyoming, known today as the Green River Formation. In the 1840s, the first reports of fossils in the area were recorded. Today the formation is famous for its abundant variety of fishes, insects, and plants preserved in finely laminated limestones and shales.