This is the “Fossil Friday” post #317. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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Bryan Richie took a break from posting his amazing Carboniferous fossils on Facebook to send us photos of a very rare fossil in his collection. If you haven’t seen his posts, you’re missing an fascinating show of breathtaking fossils.

This undescribed aquatic scorpion dates to the Silurian Period and was collected by Sam Ciurca from the Kokomo Limestone at Yeoman Quarry near Kokomo, Indiana, in 1975. Measuring about 2 inches in length, this animal is extraordinarily rare, with only a handful of specimens known.

Samuel J. Ciurca, Jr. was an amateur fossil collector best known for his work on eurypterids, the extinct aquatic arthropods commonly called “sea scorpions.” He wrote the book “Eurypterid Illustrated”. In recognition of his significant contributions to paleontology, he received the Harrell L. Strimple Award from the Paleontological Society in 2016. The eurypterid genus Ciurcopterus was named in his honor.

Here is an excerpt from his Amateur Spotlight page at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Sam Ciurca has been collecting fossils since the 1960s. Initially interested in minerals, petrified wood, and a variety of other types of fossils, Sam soon focused almost exclusively on eurypterids—an extinct group of sea scorpions that lived from about 465 to about 250 million years ago and were most abundant around 400 million years ago. While eurypterids have a nearly global distribution, among the few places complete eurypterid fossils can be found are the rocks of the Silurian Bertie Group in New York and southern Ontario. Over the years, Sam amassed a huge collection of eurypterids and his specimens now reside in many museums including the Buffalo Museum of Science, Paleontological Research Institute, Smithsonian Institution, and the Yale Peabody Museum.

Most of Sam’s material makes up the Ciurca Collection in the Division of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale which holds 11,045 specimens from 560 localities. As Briggs and Butts observe, the Ciurca Collection is recognized by eurypterid workers as comprising “more eurypterids than the rest of the world’s eurypterid collections combined.” The collection reflects the huge effort and diligence that Sam Ciurca has devoted to collecting these fossils:

While much of Sam’s collection ended up at Yale’s Peabody Museum, Bryan acquired this specimen a long time ago. Thanks for sharing, Bryan!