S67 - Nicely Preserved Keichousaurus hui Early Triassic Marine Reptile

Species: Keichousaurus hui, Young 1958 (diapsid)
Age: Early Triassic (~242 million years ago)
Location: Guanglin, Guizhou Province of China
Geological Formation:  Falang - Huxia Formation
Size: 10cm - Matrix: 14cm x 9cm x 1,5cm
Ref: S67

Here we present one of our nicely preserved Keichousaurus specimens. Its preservation is particularly remarkable. It is very common to find many fake or heavily restored Keichousaurus specimens on the market. However, this specimen is quite good. The preservation of each of its bones is impressive, and the level of detail is outstanding. The specimen has been carefully prepared professionally using micro sandblasting. The restorations carried out consist primarily of gluing and filling fractures in the matrix. Those bones that were not as well preserved have been highlighted using a painting technique, although not many of them. The head, neck, legs, hands, and a large portion of the vertebrae are exceptionally well preserved. Most of the "restoration" has been performed on the matrix fractures.

Keichousaurus hui is a small marine reptile from the Triassic of southern China. A member of the Pachypleurosauridae family, with a long neck, paddle-like limbs, and a slender tail, adapted for swimming in shallow marine environments. Fossils, often found in black shale, reveal a diet of small fish and invertebrates, inferred from its needle-like teeth.

It is also very interesting to observe how the veins of natural calcite that run through the rock also run through the fossil, an indicator that the bones are all authentic, since the mineralization processes that the rock subsequently underwent along its natural fractures, mineralized everything, including the parts that ran through the skeleton.