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I found a tooth in Bladen County, NC at a site on the Cape Fear River near Elizabethtown. The site is Upper Cretaceous, and is Upper Campanian in age. It's in the Black Creek Group. I know that the tooth isn't in the best of shape, but hopefully is identifiable. All the Mosasaur teeth I had collected there before are a black color. I noticed this tooth is also curved from side to side. I don't know if it's a Plesiosaur or Mosasaur tooth. Both have been found at this site, but the Plesiosaur is far less common.

Please offer any comments as to the ID of this piece. It was acquired years ago from Poland; but it was reportedly quarried at a Cretaceous site, Goulmima, Morocco. The matrix proved to be far too hard for the low powered tools I utilize for prep; so the piece languished in the garage for years. Finally it was shipped to Kris in Tx. Below is the account of his prep travail. As stated, it was labeled "Plesiosaurus, Cretaceous, Goulmima, Morocco." Any conformation or condemnation will be appreciated. I have real trouble visualizing the relationship between the appearance of the "front" and the "back" of the piece. To my eye it is almost as if the "back" represents the imprint of a different string of verts?!? Here is the display side that finally emerged. Here is the "back" side which was partially visible when the piece was received. Thanks for any observations.

Hello! I am an MPhil student studying plesiosaurs, I am really struggling to locate Cretaceous aged specimens. Since I am based in the UK, most of the museum collections contain Jurassic age fossils so you can image I have an abundance of these! I thought it would be best to ask on the fossil forum since people from all over the world use this. Does anyone know of any museums in Europe or the US that contain large marine reptile collections that might contain a lot of plesiosaurs?

Hi, i asked previously about a couple of Pliosaur teeth which i now have, but there are these two other teeth from the Goulmima site in Morocco that look quite different and i was wondering if they could be Polycotylid teeth or from some other marine reptile. The first tooth is 6.2cm (2.44 inch) and the other tooth is 4.1cm (1.6 inch). Is it possible to narrow these teeth down when the enamel looks worn?. Thanks.

Teeth like this confuse me - i believe it is either a Plesiosaur or Pterosaur tooth (listed as Pterosaur from the seller) and it comes from the cretaceous sediments of Stariy Oskol, Belgorod region in Russia according to the description. It is 4cm in length. Any idea what this tooth most likely is? Thanks.

I’ve never even heard of an appendate bone/fossil, but I’ve definitely never seen on in marine reptile appendages(specifically plesiosaurs). I’ve seen plenty of full paddles, but never anything other than the finger bones/phalanges(?). Do they have any? What does? And is this one?

Found in NJ Cretaceous stream. Not sure if its sawfish, croc or possible mosasaur. Thoughts?

Hi everyone! I found this bone today, my first "proper" dinosaur bone I think! Am I right in thinking it's from a plesiosaur paddle bone? Thanks! Measurements are in cm. Location: Conway formation, New Zealand

Hi all, I was recently offered this tooth from late Cretaceous of Orensburg, Russia. Most likely Gaisky City District. I can't figure out if it's a Polycotylid plesiosaur or Pterosaur tooth. The overall shape is closer to pterosaur than plesiosaur. However, I am not aware of pterosaur having wrinkling like that, nor do I know of pterosaur teeth being found there. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you.

https://www.livescience.com/amp/ancient-sea-monster-pliosaur-fossils.html What are your thoughts?

Hello there fossil forum! This post will actually contain some of my finds from 2 trips to the same location, namely the island of Bornholm in Denmark. I went there this summer, and made quite an interesting discovery, which I will get back to, and then went on yet another trip, which I got home from less than a week ago. I doubt many of you know about it, unless you're Danish or have an interest in the geology of Denmark, but most of Denmark was underwater for pretty much all of the Mesozoic era. That is, of course, with the exception of Bornholm, which is a geologist's/paleontologist's/amateur fossil collector's dream. Denmark is not well known for any dinosaur fossils whatsoever, except from a few teeth found in the Robbedale Formation, and a bunch of foot-prints scattered along the west and south-coast of Bornholm. As recent as last year in April though, someone discovered the very first dinosaur bone in Denmark, at Hasle Beach, Bornholm. It's supposedly from a young sauropod, and is still being studied at this very moment. After I heard of the discovery, I desperately wanted to go to Bornholm. So I went there for 5 days in July, and 7 days in October, where the second time, I brought some of my friends from my heavy metal band along with me. On the first trip, the very first day at Hasle Beach, I searched for about 5 hours along the beach, with not a single fossil in sight. Just as I was about to leave the beach to get something to eat, I stumbled upon a very odd looking rock. Which obviously wasn't a rock, it was a bone: It measured about 6x5x6 (LxWxH) cm. I brought this into the museum located at the island, called "Naturbornholm", which is where a lot of the fossils found on the island are showcased. I had some of the people from the museum take a look at it, and they agreed on that this was definitely bone. What was very unlikely about this bone however, is that it looks like the end of a limb-bone, meaning it probably wasn't a plesiosaur, but something that was able to walk on land. In Denmark there's a law concerning fossils, saying that if the fossil could be valuable to science, it is obliged to deliver it to the Geological Institute of Copenhagen for research. The bone is currently being examined and studied. I still haven't received any new information regarding the bone. However they have said, that there's a good chance it's probably from either a crocodile, turtle or dinosaur. Whatever the species might be, it is most likely also a new species, as most of the bone material found at Hasle are plesiosaur bones. I went digging in the exact same area for the rest of the days, in hope of finding other bone-pieces. The picture below shows other pieces I found, which according to the museum, are bone fragments. Some of them are very worn though, and covered with conglomerate and iron. They are in no way as well preserved as the slightly worn bone piece I found on the first day: Other than those, I found another piece of bone, however it is very hard to tell what it is from. I'm considering trying to open up the lump of sandstone, however the black layer of bone material is fragile. The picture quality might be bad on this one, but I can assure you, it is not coal or mineral: So after the first trip to the island of Bornholm, I was invited over there by some of the people from the museum in the autumn holiday. I brought some of my bandmates with me as well, in an attempt to up the amount of fossils we'd find. And we did find a lot of stuff. On the first day we started out slow. The guitarist from my band was the first person to find a fossil. He found a small tooth, which might be from a type of bony fish. We're currently talking with one of the paleontologists of the Geological Institute, who wants to have a look at it in person. It measures about 5 mm, and was cracked in half when found, but afterwards repaired. The second day, we went out digging up on the more northern side of Hasle Beach, where the cliff is a bit taller. We didn't find much though. The other guys went back to the hut after a few hours, and I worked my way back to the spot where I had been digging during the summer. Shortly after, I found a small fragment of bone, most likely a rib-fragment. It's probably not from a plesiosaur though, as all the plesiosaur ribs found on the beach are usually very round, and not flat. The next day, we all went to the museum, showing a few of the fossils we had found to the people we knew there. Other than that we took a look at all the awesome finds exhibited at the museum. Including 2 of the dromaeosauroides bornholmensis teeth found in the Robbedale Formation (1 of them was a replica though). Most of the dinosaur fossils found, as showcased by the museum, are trace-fossils. Dinosaur-tracks and coprolites, with the exception of the dromaeosaur teeth. However those are from the early cretaceous period (140 million years ago), while the place where we were digging, Hasle Beach (The Hasle Formation), is about 170-180 million years old. Later I went digging again the same day. Some of the others didn't feel like digging, so I went out alone. I searched in about the same area where I had found the bones last year, and got really lucky once again. First I found a nice jet-black hybodont shark tooth, measuring about 9 mm in length. Then a piece of fossil wood/branch shortly after. 2 hours after the last find, I decided to go back to the cabin we had rented not far from the beach, and once again I was super lucky, and then stumbled upon a large bone-piece! A plesiosaur paddlebone, measuring about 4x4x1 cm! The fourth day, the other guys wanted to get back in the game after showing them the paddlebone. The next day we found a couple of odd pieces, mostly shells, but also another tooth, this time it was a chimaera tooth. On the fifth day, we went to a slightly different location, about 4 km further south of Hasle Beach, at a place called "The Pyrite Lake", where there's an abundance of plant-fossils, but there has also been found a couple of plesiosaur teeth there, as well as large dinosaur tracks. These tracks, as shown at the museum, are not negatives however, but a "positive". As in, when the creature made the track, the track was filled up with mud or another sediment later, basically making a 'positive' "sculpt" of the foot so to speak. At the Pyrite Lake, we found some huge chunks of fossil wood. Some a tad too heavy to carry around in a rucksack. We did however also spot a very interesting-looking rock, that shared a big resemblance to the dinosaur-tracks at the museum. We sent the coordinates of this rock to the people at the museum, and they're gonna send a paleontologist out to take a look at it at some point, to try and determine, if it is indeed a dinosaur track. So it's going to be interesting to see, if this truly was made by a prehistoric animal, or if this is just a very funny looking rock. On the sixth, and last day of digging, we found a lot of odd looking fossils by Hasle Beach again, which we could not identify. One may have been a bigger, but crushed, hybodont tooth, trapped within a lump of sandstone. And another could be a rib or just some plant-material. Either way, we left a lot of the fossils at the museum, for them to take a look at, if any of it should hold any interest to them, or to the people of the Geological Institute of Copenhagen.

I can’t figure out if these are 2 associated jaw pieces. In most pictures they sure look it, but some pictures make me second guess it, and if they aren’t, they’re definitely still the attaching pieces, even if from different animals. I was looking at it backwards for awhile, which set me back, but I figured out the thicker part is actually the front of the jaw, right before the curve, or right after it starts, if it’s been glued on at the incorrect angle, which I think could also be possible. the 1st picture looks very strange because of how that smaller section suddenly drops down and gets taller, and especially strange after researching and finding out that it’s supposed to get wider there, but actually SHORTER. the 2nd picture looks good, except it MIGHT supposed to start slightly curving inward at the point of reattachment pics 1,3,4,6,&7 all make it look like they rent supposed to be associated together, but the other pics make it look very accurate. I don’t know what to think, so I thought I’d see what people with much better knowledge than I, think about it.

https://www.academia.edu/7557849/Perspectives_on_the_Living_Plesiosaur_Controversy

Hi. I went to Big Brook again on Friday for my weekly quick trip. We had a really bad rain storm mid week so the the water was the highest I have ever seen it and the creek floor was like quicksand because of the 8-10 inches of fresh sand and other snarge. Every time I took a step my foot would sink down. The first 2 hours was nothing special. More of a struggle getting around. But the last hour I found a very productive spot. I posted one of the finds in fossil I’d. A big thanks you to @The Jersey Devil for all is patients and help with ID. Enjoy the pics. Hope I ID everything correctly. Plesiosaur tooth. Super excited about this one!

A Mary Anning short film will be aired at @underwirefest this November 2018. The trailer is here :

Hi, How can you tell by isolated bones, besides the skull, if you see a pliosaur or plesiosaur remains? Any obvious differences in paddle bones or vertebrae? Triangular teeth? Does it all depend on the given species? Thanks

Hi all, Would be great to have the following pieces ID'ed. Jurassic shallow water sea (Kimmeridgian-Tithonian, possible Hauterivian). Sorry for varnish. Thank you. 1. Large vertebra, that doesnt look like usual plesiosaur, weight 1,4 kg. If it is something terrestial, it would have high scientific value. Already asked for ID but didnt get many replies.

Hi all, This is a report on my recent fossil hunting trip to Ulyanovsk region, Russia, inspired by the most interesting stories and pictures I read and looked up here. I took many photos myself in an attempt to convey the atmosphere. I dont think you know much about Russian fossil hunting spots, so I start with a short description of the place I visited. Ulyanovsk Oblast (region) is located in the middle Volga basin and much of its territory is covered by a part of the Kuybyshev Reservoir (largest in Europe). Its sometimes called Kuybyshev sea and for a reason: with distance between coasts reaching 30-40 kilometres, unless the weather is super clear, the other coast is not visible. Add frequent stormy weather with high waves and the impression of a sea is almost complete. Creating the reservoir lead to big scale soil erosion with prehistoric layers coming to surface. They are constantly washed away with fossils becoming available by simply walking along the shore. Basically all the western coast in the region is covered with late Jurassic-early Cretaceous deposits, mostly Kimmeridge clay (155 ma) with Hauterivian layers (130 ma). The fossils are good quality and do not require any preservation except the fact they are often pirytised thus subject to oxidation. The place is (or was) very rich in sea fossils: ammonites, belemnites, reptile remains etc. They say at least 3 reptile genus and 20 species were recentlydescribed by the remains found here, for instance Undorosaurus (name derives from local village's name), Makhaira rossica, Luskhan etc. Paleontology sections of three regional museums (Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Samara, with some going to Moscow) feature impressive exhibits taken from here including compete or almost complete sea reptile skeletons. (You can see some of them here, here and here). Unfortunately there have been too many guys looking for fossils and fine pieces of local yellow calcite to sell, passing like a vacuum cleaner picking up everything valuable from early spring to late autumn. By the way, a nature reserve (zakaznik on a regional scale, which itself is pretty weak) was created here in 1980s right to counter this situation, but with lack of effort it turned into a joke. The local village museum was charged with enforcing the reserve status - let's assume its management did not have the funds or personnel to prevent anybody from picking up fossils (not to assume they were picking them up themselves alongside the poachers without reporting them to the public). Anyway as a law-abiding citizen, I was collecting outside the reserve's boundaries. Here the fossil-rich shore is marked in green, the reserve in red and 3 main fossil-related villages in blue. I used to spend vacations in a local sanatorium as a schoolboy and accumulated quite a collection of local thingies ( I sure was fascinated by my findings and paleontology in general). In April I decided to spend there a couple of days again. The receptionist asked if I had been there before. Only in childhood, I replied. She laughed - nothing had changed since then. Well, I hoped so:)

Hi, I was wondering if this tooth could be from a Pliosaur. It is from the Goulmima area in Morocco. It is 8.8cm in length and some of the striations remain near the tip (the size is what makes me think Pliosaur). Thanks.

Been a long time, finally got out for a bit and found my 3rd Plesiosaur vert along with some others. Also the first snake encounter of the season. This guy was only a few feet long. 49 degrees with 20 mph winds. Warmer days ahead! Late Cretaceous 80 mya

Purchased from online. Morocco fossil. Are they Mosasaur, Plesiosaur, Spinosaur or other species? Need help for ID, Thanks!

NJ Cretacous hunt today, found this tooth in a deep sift. Has a tiny bit of enamel left on it. Any ideas? Its about 1-1/2 inches long.

@snolly50 was nice enough to send me a mess of a Moroccan concretion to play with recently. It started out as what appeared to be bits of vertebrae poking out of the block. After about 4 hours of scribing with my ME9100, I had uncovered a few scraps of bone but no centra were evident. The natural crack that you see opened up from the vibrations of the scribe and no robust bone was evident in the crack either. With John's permission, I began exploring the back of the block, hoping to find something worthy to prepare. Bingo, I found some bone. The crack happened to peel through a small section of the centra rather than through a full cross section giving the appearance of a lack of large bone in the concretion. 4 or 5 hours later and the verts were mostly exposed. Unfortunately, this concredtion had a thin layer of softer rock on the outside and a significantly harder inner core. The matrix is MUCH harder than the bone and I fought the bones trying to crumble the entire time. This has copious amounts of Vinac on the bones to stabilize them. At this point, the ME9100 is almost making no progress on matrix removal. Enter the Super Jack scribe. This beast will plow through the matrix. It ultimately saved me around 12 hours of scribe work on this project. The one thing you have to be careful of is the increased vibrations to the block with the more powerful scribe. I spent more time consolidating and aggressively applied Vinac to any bone as it was exposed. Prep progressed quickly with me alternating between the Super Jack for bulk matrix removal and the ME9100 for close to the bone work. Including the exploratory time, I have 16 hours into this prep at the finish. I left some of the tool marks on the matrix rather than completely smoothing it out because I think it highlights the rugged nature of the piece and most Moroccan stuff has tool marks. The ones I have seen that are totally clean look off to my eye. It would be like @RJB leaving tool marks on his crab concretions. None of them have it so if they were there, it would look wrong. Here's the final product.

Hi everyone! New member here. I am very excited to make my first post. So I came across a vendor today with some cool stuff, but I wanted to run some photos by the forum members first to see: 1) if you think they are real or fake. 2) how much would you expect to pay for a piece like that. Thanks for the help! Item #1 - Mosasaur Jaw To my eyes, this item looks legit as the teeth don't seem to be floating above the jaw with composite all around it, or teeth pointed in different directions. BUT...I know fakes are good and I am relatively new to educating myself to fakes vs real. Item #2 - Another Mosasaur Jaw (top and bottom) Also looks pretty legit to my newb eyes. But I am worried both top and bottom jaws in that position are too good to be true. Item #3 - Croc Skull? My gut reaction is fake...mostly due to the matrix looking like it was smeared on like cream cheese. Item #4 - Plesiosaur Skull and Neck It's apparently from goulmima southern morocco. Sadly I don't have more pics, as I didn't want to handle it and move it around. But I was able to get down low and see that it does have it's teeth. I just couldn't a good picture of it. :-\ The closest comparison I could find was this plesiosaur head/neck from an archived auction house website image. But the matrix around it seems the same.