Benjamin is a young fossil hunter. I met him with his grandparents on Monmouth Beach at Lyme Regis yesterday. He had already found several small ammonite fossils. He had found a bigger ammonite made of fool’s gold but it got broken. It’s really tricky trying to remove fossils from their stoney bed. When Benjamin discovered a rounded pebble riddled with holes of different sizes and shapes, he wondered if it was a fossil too.
I explained that these holes are made by various kinds of seashore creatures like sponges, marine worms that live in mud tubes, and certain seashells. As far as I could tell, the burrows and borings were recent and not fossil. I have written about these creatures and the homes they make for themselves in stones in earlier postings on the blog. So, if you want to find out more and look at lots more photographs of stones and shells with holes, Benjamin, you can click on the following links:
Pebbles with holes made by tube worms
Pebbles with holes made by sea creatures
Pebbles with holes made by boring sponges
Shells with holes made by boring bivalves
Sponge borings in Flat Oyster Shells
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