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Hi All- This was found in a creek bed in Northern NJ (not Big Brook). 3 1/4 inches long. Bedrock is early Jurassic but a mastodon or mammoth tusk was found a few miles away (I assume Pleistocene material could be found just about anywhere?). It resembles some teeth I've found online (mastodon and gomphothere). Interesting crystal structure. Thank you- Dwight

Hey guys. My fossil group found a submerged mastodon tusk while hunting. It’s completely underwater and very delicate (it falls apart super easy). Any idea on how to extract such a delicate tusk? The thing falls apart in your hand, we could only salvage some chunks last trip. As for preserving what would you guys recommend so the dang thing doesn’t fall apart? thanks!

Hi! I'm having trouble ID-ing this ~4.4cm long mammal tooth from China. It was labelled as Playbelodon, though the lack of cusps makes me doubt that assessment. I'm starting to wonder if it's a Proboscidean at all, and if it's an entirely different family of mammal alltogether. Does anyone have an idea on what this could potentially be?

As the title says, I bought this tooth fragment last year from a retailer who I know has been wrong in identifying fossils before (I corrected them on hippo species). I know it's not much to go on, but do you think mastodon or gomphothere?

Found at a land site in Sarasota there's lots of Dugong, megalodon and some whale stuff been found in this area. Need help with identification

Found some bones sticking out of the creek bank in Central TX. Area has confirmed Mastodon remains. Tusks and a tooth all found within 1/4 mile of this site. Bones are 12 feet below the top of the bank. I did a little digging around today to get a feel for what it could be. It appears it could be a large pelvis bone (4-5 feet wide). I also found a small bone that appears to be from the foot/toes etc. Not really sure how I should proceed. Is there any educational value in this type of bones? Who would one contact to ask? I am sure Mastodon bones are fairly common. Not good pics, but the fireants were getting me so didnt get much done. Gonna get some poison and go back again.

For the last several weeks Tammy and I have been volunteer digging every Wednesday and Saturday at the Montbrook site a little south of Gainesville (FL) with the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH). The weather called for continuous light drizzle all day yesterday (Saturday) so we bumped the dig day to today (Sunday) instead. Normally, Sunday and Monday are the non-digging days at the site but the other days are occupied by small groups of volunteers and site managers. This morning was clear and cool with a steady breeze from the north. This meant several layers while packing up this morning and when we got to the site at 10am. The temps quickly rose throughout the morning and the layers of warm clothing were shed. Post-lunch it was quite warm with the sun beating down on your back and it was hard to fathom that it was actually chilly earlier in the day. We were digging in the same grid squares that we'd been focusing on for the last couple of weeks. Underneath several highly visibly banded layers of sterile sand we dropped into a layer that was rich with a tangle of fossils. The foundation for this cluster of fossil goodness was a large pelvis from a gomphothere (a 4-tusked elephant relative that is reasonably common at the site). Wedged in around this large flat pelvic bone were a couple of Trachemys (slider) turtle shells which were badly crushed and so did not merit being preserved in a plaster jacket and instead were "chunked out" into several small bags to attempt to be re-assembled later in the warehouse (possibly by me). We had started the morning by removing the plaster jacket that contained the majority of the gomph pelvis. There was more of this intermixed with other bones that will come out later as part of a jacket that might contain a pair of gator skulls--one in poor condition and one (underneath the pile-up) that might be in much nicer preservation that I discovered last week. I spent the day working around this mountain of bones. Tammy was working an adjacent grid square leveling it down and working on some clusters of bones that had cropped out in that square. Richard Hulbert (collections manager at the FLMNH and well-known identifier of Florida finds) was working on a section of articulated alligator vertebrae that was found a few weeks back several grid squares to the south. The only other participant today was Jonathan Bloch the department chair and curator for vertebrate paleontology at the FLMNH. He had found a large gomphothere leg bone and was clearing the area around it to make a pedestal so that it could be jacketed for removal. Most of the day was pretty run-of-the-mill for Montbrook. We pulled out lots of isolated Trachemys turtle shell pieces and random bits like gator vertebrae and teeth. These are the "background" fossils that are common at this site. Toward the end of the day Tammy pulled up an interesting bone that we had to pass around. From the size of it I guessed that it might be rhino and given the shape thought it might be something odd like a calcaneum or astragalus. When Richard had a look at it he confirmed that it was rhino but said it was one of the bones in the feet. I score that as correct with partial credit. Just half an hour before we were ready to leave at 4pm, I was working on digging down to complete the trench around the mountain of bones we would soon have to jacket. I completed the curved trench I was digging and was lowering it to the level of the adjacent grid square. After digging through some sterile layered sand I got down to a section that had some bone. We dig with flat-blade screwdrivers to loosen the sandy matrix and if we feel the resistance of a harder bone we switch to a dental pick for more careful exploration. I bagged up some broken-up bone fragments that looked like turtle shell pieces and, after running into more than simply an isolated bone in the sandy matrix, I moved to the side to attack the bony bit from another side--sneaking up on it to judge its extent. It was at this point when my dental pick uncovered a honeyed orange colored bone. This is the color we all secretly hope for while digging Montbrook. Most of the bones are either a well-preserved tan (like the rhino bit above), or a purplish color in a layer that preserves well but has lots of phosphatic matrix stuck to the bones making them difficult to clean-up or chalky white in a layer where the bones are not well mineralized. These bones (which we have named "pudding bones") are white and soft as a piece of wet drywall board. Orange, in contrast, is the color that many of the enameled mammal teeth preserve--it is the color we long to see emerge from the sand. Brushing away the sand from this speck of orange confirmed that what I was seeing was indeed a mammal tooth. Jonathan always jokes at the beginning of the day that he is here to find "something with teeth" as this indicates cranial material that is inherently more interesting than most post-cranial finds. Richard commented that it wasn't the curator that stumbled upon something with teeth but Jonathan was happy just to see a new find with teeth emerge from the sandy matrix. A bit more digging revealed three cusps of a proboscidean tooth but interestingly they were not from a gomphothere which are the most common hose-nose to be found at this site--it was instead mastodon! I believe only one other set of mastodon teeth have been found at the Montbrook site--also a smaller juvenile like this find. After a bit more uncovering we could see two complete 3-lophed teeth. The larger tooth was to the left indicating that this was toward the back of the maxilla (we could tell they were upper teeth not the lowers in the mandible based on the bone they were embedded in). This appeared to be a fragmented maxilla and no signs of tusks to the right have turned up (yet) but that could change with additional excavation. You have to put in a lot of time digging out fragments of turtle shell or other common finds before you make a notable discovery. Finding both rhino and mastodon make this a red letter day in our book. I won't be back to the site till next Wednesday but it will be interesting to see how much more has been revealed on Tuesday. Till then the grid squares with all those enviable finds will rest underneath a tarp awaiting our return. Cheers. -Ken

I'm trying to identify the polished fossil material in this Georgian English snuffbox, circa 1760 to 1820. Is it mammoth ivory? Walrus? Wood? Something else? The material is set in unhallmarked sterling silver. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Adam

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/mastodon-dung-diet-environment-nova-scotia-1.6020958

Sometimes it is hard to believe how lucky I am in hunting fossils. I was on the Peace River prospecting. Mostly small teeth (no GWs, Makos, Megs). My find of the day was half a giant tortoise humerus. With the afternoon moving to a close, this Tusk dropped into my sieve. I think that this is a Mammoth yearling and I am looking for confirmation or skepticism. 1) It is about 7 inches long with the tip broken. It is 2.25 inches (57 mm) in diameter at the butt. 2) The butt end I believe to be round rather than oval and not broken. I have seen many broken tusks and they do not have concentric circles in a flat pattern. 3) The segment is straight , not curved. There is a Youtube video on Woolly Mammoth tusk growth. It seems to curve after the 1st year. In the photo, my find might be the green section. 4) I will figure out Mastodon versus Mammoth once I allow the tusk to dry and see the schreger lines. Hopefully, TFF will be able to ID first.. @digit has been playing with hosenose tusks and @Harry Pristis has lots of skills in all fossils Florida. Please chime in... I will check responses with my cell. This is one of those rare occasions where I am going hunting on back to back days.. I must be feeling my oats.

I found, confirmed by you guys here, mastodon ivory and a molar cusp in south Texas in the the river. With cool Schregers lines. I found another piece I believe is ivory but not schreger lines. It is fossilized but unfortunately it doesnt have many markings. VERY SMOOTH, sticks to tongue like my other ivory, grinds like ivory. No bone pores under microscope. Could it be a boar tusk? Or Mammoth /mastodon.

Friends, daddy/daughter recent extensive beach fossil hunt yielded lots of fossils. My daughter and I found the piece pictured below, which shares the same color of the teeth we find in North Florida but has the most unusual intersecting lines in a very regular pattern leading me to a multiple week search. We *think* we see Schreger lines and my 9 year old daughter is quite literally exploding with excitement. Can this community of experts who have helped do IDs in the past help us figure this out? If these are Schreger lines is there a way to determine whether these are likely mastodon, mammoth or other proboscidean fossil? Thank you all in advance.

10 hr North Sulphur River Texas hike with friends. I found a little bit of everything. Mosasaur, Xiphactinus, Pleisosaur, Mastodon, Horse, Coral and cool antiques.

This is a tooth fragment I'm thinking of buying, and it's advertised as gomphothere. But it also looks mastodon to me. Thoughts?

Wondering about these teeth...can someone please help ID these? I have two that I think are Mastodon and Mammoth but not 100% sure. Thanks for the help! IMG_9860.HEIC IMG_0209.HEIC

I found this by Corpus Christi. I am 90% sure this is a mastodon crown but would love some confirmation and then I found this tusk with cross hatching and I don't know if its mastodon or mammoth Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you fossil forumers!

I was told by someone familiar with the location where this was found that this is mastodon ivory. They said that it turns this blue and cream color in this area. Just wondering what the experts think. Thanks

Hi all! I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to Attach two pieces of ivory? I tried gluing, but it didn’t work well. I stabilized it with a 50/50 clear elmers/water mixture, and it’s pretty solid now, but I don’t know what to do because I still can’t glue it.

Everyone said NSR was dry and picked over but I hiked 9 hrs and found some cool stuff. My favorites are the Protostega costal bone with partial rib head preserved, the mosasaur bone with bite mark and the artifacts. I walked in tracks all day but the river is too large for someone to get everything and people miss quite a bit.

Found on the Brazos River just southwest of Houston. When I first picked this up, judging by the extreme river damage it had suffered being tossed around in the water for so many years, I simply assumed it was just another unidentifiable piece of Pleistocene bone to get thrown in the box with the others back at home. But since I've been going through the galleries of some of the members here to help identify the other bones I collected, this one seems to bear a resemblance to a mammoth metacarpal. Maybe the smallest one, although the damage on several spots is significant - the outer bony surface on one side has been completely removed. Am I just crazy, or is this thing the real deal? Any help on an ID is appreciated!

Since the Peace River, FL has been running deep and fast for the last few weeks I decided to spend some time prepping and making a display for several proboscidean bones found in the spring. After posting the bones for id here when they were found and doing a bit of research on my own I believe what I have are pieces of an ulna from either a Mammoth or Mastodon. There is the possibility of Gomph, but Dr. Hulbert has informed me a couple of times that Gomph specimens have not yet been found in the Peace River. So first up is a photo of the four ulna sections along with the other specimens found that day. Several pieces in the pink plastic bucket were later able to be reattached to a couple of the ulna sections. I did come up with one additional ulna section on a return visit to the same spot later that week. Next is a photo of the four ulna pieces lined up for an overall idea of size. Two of these large pieces were able to be put back together after consolidation and formed the standing piece in the display. They are the two in the middle in the below photo. Finally, three photos of the completed display with rulers to get an idea of proportion. The metal ruler laying flat is 15" overall. The standing portion of the display consists of two pieces I was able to glue back together after consolidation it measures about 20". Two of the pieces laying flat had smaller pieces from the pink bucket in the first photo reattached after everything was consolidated with acetone and PVA beads. I used some scrap wood to make the tray table and post support. Some soft toy modeling clay was used to rest the base of the upright bone on. Clay was also used to form a ball over the top of the wooden support post to prevent the post from damaging the specimen. The tray table was filled with sand to lay the additional pieces on and give it a finishing touch. Looking forward to getting back to the Peace River in the coming week to see what new wonders have been uncovered by the summer rainy season!

ID help appreciated. Found diving near Venice Beach, Florida.

Guys, please tell me how to prepare a mastodon tooth and jaw that was excavated within the past two weeks. It is already starting to dry out and crack. I need help from what I need to do to stabilize, to clean, and to make it look like museum quality. The bones are so fragile and are starting to crack and crumble.

Hi all, I wanted to know if Proboscidea incisor is just another name for tusk... I’m considering putting in a bid on everyone’s favorite auction site, but I wanted to make sure it’s tusk.

I have here 5 tooth partials on offer. They're up for sale and the provenance is Florida. Is there enough here to say that they're really Mastodon? These are 2-2.5".