A Mystery from Wren's Nest

A number of years ago - and I can't recall how many although it was after 31st October 2004 - I stopped off at Wren's Nest in Dudley (West Midlands) to have a look at the geology there. I have  on many occasions both before and since, hurried past on the M5 with the sight of this splendid piece of upended Silurian seabed  visible in the distance beyond the various advertising hoardings offering  sleeker, sexier and of course more environmentally friendly cars. Yet on this occasion, I simply turned left off the northern side of the M5 and headed for the hills.

It is an exciting place, in a sedate, peaceful and in some respects slightly eerie kind of way. I decided not to park my BMW Z4 (times were good then) in the empty car park on the main road below and chose to leave it on one of the road narrow roads running across the Nest to the small council estate beyond it. I then headed off along the narrow paths.

I spent quite a while wandering about up there feeling, I have to say a little uncomfortable at the apparent remoteness and lack of humans despite being in the middle of a large conurbation. I am a Londoner by birth and to my mind, empty places in cities are dangerous places to be in.

Still, I managed to find a spot on some kind of scree slope that caught the warm sun and I sat down  among the stones regardless of my suit, just to be there.  A casual inspection of the rock chippings that were extensive in the area  revealed a number of interesting finds. Some of these, I took away with me. Now whether this was right of me or not, I don't know. But there you have it.

Now the purpose of this rather extensive preamble is to introduce one of the most interesting fossils in my collection so far. It is Silurian - because it came from the Silurian limestones at Wren's Nest. That's basically all that I know.

It is obviously marine and from the look of it, it appears to have been soft bodied. It was also fairly flat and appears to have feet, spikes or cilia, presumably for movement. In certain light it seems to have an almost granular surface as though it is made up of many segments or perhaps more accurately, cells. These are particularly visible in the picture taken with a flash.(The greyer of the two images was taken with a flash. The other, without.) In shape it is roughly circular with a diameter of approximately 37 mm. Each of the cilia is slightly in excess of 1 mm. There seem to be about 6 cilia to 1 cm where visible around the circumference of the creature. I know of no comparable modern animal and I have seen nothing else like it in internet or documented records nor in any museums that I have visited. then again, I'm no expert so i suppose that someone out there will know.