S138 - Nice Keichousaurus hui Early Triassic Marine Reptile WITH PRESERVED TEETH

Here we present one of our best 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 exceptional.

The preservation of the bones is impressive, and the level of detail is outstanding, mainly at the skull and full vertebrae from the neck, which is fully pristine perfect even preserving the tiny visible teeth and all the skull bones. Also the tiny hands and legs bones (the fingers with their carpals, tarsals and phalanges), as well as the and girdles, both scapular and pelvic. The tail vertebrae are also intact. 

It is a nice collector piece, far away from the typical bullshit. 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, mainly the ribs and dorsal vertebrae. The head (skull), neck, legs, hands, and a large portion of the tail are exceptionally well preserved. 

Most of the "restoration" has been performed on the matrix fractures.

It is also very interesting to observe how the veins of natural calcite that run through the rock also run through the fossil bones, 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.

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.