Incredible detail and preservation on this fossil viper fish Specimen is complete, from the head to the tail. Lebanon has the oldest recorded fossil viper fishes and this is a fantastic specimen. The head is stunning, manny large teeth are conserved. A great display piece. Matrix is 15,5 x 7,5 cm Fish is 11,5 cm large! The discovery of amazingly preserved marine fossils near Hjoula, Lebanon dates back many centuries. In fact, they were first mentioned in writing by Herodotus, over 450 years before the birth of Christ. The first scientific work on these localities began in the 1800s: these deposits have been meticulously quarried by several Lebanese families for over a century. We purchase our specimens directly from one of these families. These deposits represent a warm, shallow sea of the Middle Cretaceous, and have yielded over 70 types of fish and numerous other genera found nowhere else in the world. The preservation on many of these specimens is truly amazing: many examples of soft bodied preservation have been found.