Marine biology in the Chilterns!

Another old fossil found at Dancersend Nature Reserve! With help from my friends, the badgers, I'm sometimes able to indulge in a spot of marine biology by sorting through the flints in their spoil heaps. I've just found this lovely fossil sea-urchin (echinoid). I'm resonably sure it is Echinocorys vulgaris from the Cretaceous Period, about 80 million years ago. It was found in the higher part of the reserve, which is almost the highest point in the chalk hills of the Chilterns - amazing to think this was the bed of a tropical sea back then.