This is Mazon Monday post #328. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com.
Michele Micetich, curator of the Carbon Hill School Museum, will host a special event on Saturday, June 27, 2026, celebrating the life and legacy of Tom Testa. A lifelong fossil collector with a passion for Mazon Creek fossils, Tom assembled one of the finest private collections of its kind. In 2015, he generously donated his collection to Jack Wittry and the Field Museum, ensuring that it would remain available for scientific study. The remarkable depth and diversity of Tom’s collection have contributed to numerous scientific discoveries, including research highlighted recently in Mazon Monday #327.
Tom Testa in a much less overgrown Pit 11 around 1987.
Here is the announcement from Michele. It will also appear in this week’s Coal City Courant.
Often our neighbors are seen only from a distance as they go about their lives quietly focused on what sparks enthusiasm and brings joy and satisfaction to their lives. Sometimes their efforts spill over to enrich everyone’s lives. So it has been with the life of Thomas Vincent Testa (May 31, 1952 – June 25, 2025). whose curiosity and passion – especially for mazonia fossils – became his legacy. With devoted tenacity he patiently and meticulously searched. studied, inventoried and protected his collection and then offered the best of that collection to the Field Museum, thereby becoming a rockstar, so to speak. Today five of his curated specimens now bear his name. There likely will be more. Tom is recognized as a valued prolific contributer whose collection is studied by students and scientists around the world. His work is documented both by museums and by ESCONI. It brings us a smile of respect to know his worth.
Tom was born to Wilbur and Helen Testa, third and youngest of this gentle family’s siblings. Pam, Dan and Tom learned to be (or were born to be) observers of the world around them. Wild mushrooms, pet squirrels, rhubab patches, grape arbors, snapping turtles, rocks and fossils, all made their family’s back yard a natural classroom. Beyond Catholic school and parish rituals, it was day trips to Starved Rock, Chicago museums, or time spent trekking into our coal mine pits turned area clubs which were routine. Time spent with TV, comic books, hardbound classics, science fiction, interesting artwork, plus dozens of brochures, with records on grandmother’s Victrola, extended their world beyond Carbon Hill. Tales from Grandma Rose Testa and Grandma Gisella Maher who experienced their own extraordinary lives added magic, just like Wilbur’s tales of the CCC and WWII and Helen’s scrapbooks nudged Tom to, in his own way, pass on his gifts to all of us. We are grateful.
Steven Ramsdell, Tom Testa, Steve Sroka, and Dr. Gordon Baird in 1981. Doing a fossil survey at CECO.
We at Carbon Hill Museum will be displaying Tom’s life in fossils and his life growing up in Carbon Hill with digital slides and stories and an exhibit of his fossils. Saturday afternoon June 27 at 1 pm will be the first date of display for visitors to see and add your own stories of Tom in our memory book. Join us when you can. Text or phone for more information on this project : 815-347-0810
The Field Museum’s post about Tom’s fossil donation can be found on their website – “Monsters Storm the Field.” The collection consisted of about 7,000 fossils, which included 416 Tully Monsters!
Invertebrate paleontologists aren’t afraid of anything, so when Collections Manager Paul Mayer was offered a chance to add hundreds of monsters to The Field’s collections, he jumped at the opportunity. The monsters in question, Tully monsters, are just a small part of the enormous donation of Thomas V. Testa’s collection of Mazon Creek fossils that The Field Museum just received from Field Associate Jack Wittry.
Mazon Creek, an area about 50 miles southwest of Chicago, is one of the richest fossil sites in the world. It was once the swampy coastline of a warm sea that covered much of North America—the landscape was a little like Louisiana today. When animals died there, they sunk into the mud and were rapidly buried before they got a chance to rot, forming fossils inside hard nodules of rock. The fossils in this area were first discovered in the 1800s, but it wasn’t until the area was strip-mined for coal in the 20th century that large numbers of fossils were collected.
Mazon Creek fossils are some of the best in the world—they’re plentiful, they’re extremely well-preserved, and they represent lots of animals that don’t normally fossilize very well, including soft-bodied animals like worms.
There are four fossil animals named for Tom. Testajapyx thomasi might be the best…
Tom wrote two books about Mazon Creek fossils. The first highlighted many of his best animals, while the second displayed very nice plant fossils.
The introduction to the animal book captures Tom’s enthusiasm for sharing his discoveries and learning from fellow collectors. He took great pride in his finds and was always eager to see what others had uncovered. The animals featured in the book include many of the “holy grails” sought after by Mazon Creek collectors, making it a showcase of some of the deposit’s most remarkable fossils.
Why publish photos of Mazon Creek fossils?
Chance brought them before us so we might look at them in wonder. T.V.Testa
The sole purpose of this book is to share photographs of remarkable and interesting museum quality Mazon Creek fossil specimens from the private collection of T.V. Testa. Some of the fossils presented within are rare such as the hexapod Testajapyx (named for the author) while others are common such as the crustacean Acanthotelson. Robust species such as the horse-shoe crab Euproops are very photogenic while delicate bodied specimens such as jellyfish are sometimes not as graphic. Rare or important fossils in anybody’s collection are not always the most camera-friendly or interesting to look at. Because this book is for the love of fossils it contains only photographs of specimens suitable for this book which is for enjoying nice pictures. This book by far is not a full compilation of the collection.
This volume contains photos of Mazon Creek fossil animals including: the amphibian Aornerpeton, the arthropod Concavicaris, Cyclus, and Halicyne, the centipede Latzelia, the chiton Glaphurochiton, coelacanth fish Rhabdoderma, jellyfish Anthracomedusa, Etacystis and Octomedusa, the crustacean Acanthotelson, Anthracophausia, Belotelson, Dithyrocaris, Hesslerella, Illilepas. Kallidecthes. Kellibrooksia, Mamayocaris. Palaeocaris, Tyrannophontes, the enigmatic Escumasia, the fish Conchopoma, Elonichthys, Gilpichthys and Rhabdoderma, the lamprey Mayomyzon, the hexapod Testajapyx. horse-shoe crab Euproops and Palaeolimulus, millipede Xyloiulus. myriopod Kottixerxes and Smithixerxes, onychophoran Ilyodes. Palaeoxyris, priapulid Priapulites, the scallop Aviculopecten, sea-cucumber Achistrum, sea-scorpion Adelophthalmus, shark Acanthodes and Bandringa, the worm Astreptoscolex, Copronoscolex, Didontogaster, Dryptoscolex, Esconites, Fossundecima, Hystriciola, Levsettius, Pieckonia, and Rhaphidophorus, Tullimonstrum (Tully Monster), and many unnamed insects.
While paleontology is a science and the photos in this book will appeal to amateur rock hounds and professional paleontologists alike, it needs to be disclosed that this is not a book of science. This book is presented solely for the enjoyment of anyone who might be interested.
In addition to his fossils, Tom took many photos while collecting. We’ve featured quite a few on our website thanks to Michele at the Carbon Hill School Museum. Did you see Tom freeze/thawing his concretions in Throwback Thursday #167?
How about his Langford books, gifted to him from Melbourne McKee in Mazon Monday #315?
Tom doesn’t appear in the photos from the 1990 Mazon Creek Fossil Insect Symposium (Mazon Monday #172)because he was taking the photos. He did lend all his fossil insects to Jarmilla Peck and Robin Wooten at the meeting.
The program closed with ESCONI donating to the visitors, ESCONI’s new fossil fauna book on Pit 11 and Tom Testa permitting Dr. Wooten to borrow his entire collection of Pit 11 fossil insects for study.
Jarmila Peck, Walter Lietz, and Dr. Robin Wooten in 1990.
As a connection with an older generation of Mazon Creek collectors, here is Tom with Lucy McLuckie in the McLuckie basement museum.
Late in life, Tom pointing toward the old “Chowder Flatts” locality in Morris, IL.
The photos in this post are courtesy of the Carbon Hill School Museum‘s Tom Testa Collection. The museum is located in Carbon Hill, IL. It has many historically significant photos, artifacts, and documents of the Coal City, Braidwood, and Wilmington area. The curator, Michele Micetich, is very knowledgeable. Come on out to the museum on Saturday to learn about Tom and see more Mazon Creek fossils!
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