Huge lug worm cast fossil? What is it?

[cliveGrazalema]

When I was a kid we used to go down to the beach to dig for lug worms for moray eel fishing bait… You knew where the lug worm was by the “cast” that looked like a coiled up worm made out of sand… (Basically worm poo…)

So when we found this fossil a while ago it reminded me of lug worms… But if a worm made this cast by eating the soil in front of it and expelling the waste out the back end then it must have been huge… Its thicker than my arm!

I don’t know the age of the rock…. Any one seen anything like this before?

I’d like to go get the rock and keep it safe here in my garden but it is a big as a lorry and probably weighs about 30 tonnes

 

Sorry about the awful picture… 🙁

---

Take a trip on the Wildside!

https://wildsideholidays.co.uk (Wildlife and nature holidays in Spain)

https://grazalemaguide.com/ (All my web projects in one portal and everything you need to know about Grazalema)

[Linda Mary Olivine]

Something that burrows horizontally below the surface! Maybe a worm as you suggest, or a crustacean. The solid fill of the burrow might be from overlying sediment rather than faeces.

Where was this? Could be a clue

[cliveGrazalema]

Sorry Linda I should have said. Its beside the Bornos lake, Cádiz province, Andalucia on the way to Arcos de la frontera from El Bosque

---

Take a trip on the Wildside!

https://wildsideholidays.co.uk (Wildlife and nature holidays in Spain)

https://grazalemaguide.com/ (All my web projects in one portal and everything you need to know about Grazalema)

[Linda Mary Olivine]

Hi again

I’ve not really got anywhere with this, except that it’s likely a crustacean I.e. shrimp type animal, (Thalassinoids) that lived in horizontal burrows in soft silty or sandy sediment. Their burrows can be maybe 5 cm across. However there are also worms that leave serpentine burrows like this (Thalassinoids), so that doesn’t really get us very far!

There are some amazing trace fossils – tracks- just over the border into Portugal, near Idanho, as well, and over Mojacar way to the east.

A lot of this area was shallow lakes and seas in the not too distant past (geologically) so loads of potential for traces!

[cliveGrazalema]

Trilobites?

---

Take a trip on the Wildside!

https://wildsideholidays.co.uk (Wildlife and nature holidays in Spain)

https://grazalemaguide.com/ (All my web projects in one portal and everything you need to know about Grazalema)

[HelenSeville]

I remembered about this from ages ago….

https://elpais.com/sociedad/2009/08/03/actualidad/1249250410_850215.html

 

---

Breathe and try to be nice to people 🙂

[cliveGrazalema]

Ha!!! Linda I have been stalking you and found this

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89529&id=606588516&l=214f194c48

---

Take a trip on the Wildside!

https://wildsideholidays.co.uk (Wildlife and nature holidays in Spain)

https://grazalemaguide.com/ (All my web projects in one portal and everything you need to know about Grazalema)

[Linda Mary Olivine]

Those are the trilobite trails near Idanha. But a lot older than your burrows near Cadiz.

The Bornos Embalse is surrounded by sand, silt etc deposited about 5 – 7 million years ago during the Messinian, for a time the Mediterranean dried out completely but when the sea flooded back in through the Straits of G8braltar a lot of the low lying basins in southern Spain were flooded. Ideal for shrimps etc to burrow in the soft sediment

[Author]

Posts