Strophalosia tenuispina, my first photograph

I thought it fitting to begin this blog with one of my earliest specimens here at the Peabody Museum. This is the very first photograph of a brachiopod that I took. It was part of a three year NSF-funded project to digitize many of our specimens. This is a Strophalosia tenuispina from the Baral Nala, SW of Amb in the Salt Range Mountains of Pakistan. It is Permian in age. The strophalosiids were commonly attached to hard substrates, either by cementing one valve directly to the substrate or wrapping their spines around it.