During the Cretaceous, planet Earth appeared vastly different from the world we know today. 93 million years ago, in the area that is now northern Lebanon, a coastal sea was home to a robust ecosystem of prehistoric animals. Fish, turtles, lizards, cephalopods, and even pterodactyls.

The Sannine Formation is an incredible snapshot of this period of geologic history. The limestone deposit holds an astounding variety of fossils in great detail, many of which include soft body preservation. This makes it a rare resource for paleontologists to better understand prehistoric life.

These specimens are fossil shrimp from the Sannine Formation of which the Carpopenaeus genus was the most widely distributed. They measure between 2-4" and show the animal's body plan in fine detail.

Each fossil is a completely unique piece of the Cretaceous Period. They are great collector's items and awesome to hold in your hand.

The fossil shrimp ship in a padded carton along with an acrylic display stand. An informational photo card that serves as certificate of authenticity is also included. More fossils from the Sannine Formation, like fish, brittle stars, and showcase items are available in the collection below!

The Sannine Formation is an expansive deposit of limestone in Lebanon that holds within it a bounty of fish from the Cenomanian Age, around 100 million years ago. These specimens have been known since ancient times and were first documented by Herodotus around 2,500 years ago.

Around 1250, during the Seventh Crusade, King Louis IX of France received a gift of a fossil fish, described as being “all stone, but nothing was missing its form, nor eyes nor bones or color or anything else that was not as true.” King Louis IX’s fossil fish was hardly unique—specimens from the Sannine Formation are prized for their level of preservation and abundance.

These specimens are prawns from the Sannine Formation of which the Carpopenaeus genus was the most widely distributed. They are identified by their elongated rostrum that extends well past its head, and one pronounced tooth housed underneath.

In their inner anatomy, Carpopenaeus had a length of cartilage augmenting the trachea along the length of the body plan. Carpopenaeus are known primarily from Lebanon’s deposits, where they would have been lower on the food chain of the Cenomanian Age’s seas.

These were not the only creatures in the Cretaceous seas here. Of the deposit’s many groups of aquatic animals, the pycnodonts are of particular note, an order of highly diversified bony fish that lived for 175 million years from the end of the Triassic to the Eocene Epoch. They had a wide distribution across saltwater, freshwater, and brackish environments, using their flat, molariform teeth to grind through gastropods and crustaceans.

The Sannine Formation is considered a lagerstätte, a deposit with an exceptional degree of preservation of the marine life of the Tethys Ocean between Laurasia and Gondwana. A 2010 study uncovered a pterosaur Microtuban altivolans dating to the Cenomanian, the most complete pterosaur find from the African tectonic plate.

Even after hundreds of years of exploration, the Sannine Formation and the rest of Lebanon’s fossil deposits are still yielding up new finds for paleontologists.