Search the Community

Took a trip to purse state park today, got there around 9:30 and the lot was already pretty full. Made our way down the beach to the spots we like to search and my wife found the biggest croc tooth we have found, at least double the size of any of the other ones we have found. A little bit later walking along the low tide shoreline I did a double take and saw the big Otodus tooth pictured. We were able to find a lot of other nice size otodus and sand tiger teeth during our time there. On our way back walking the beach entrance and Wades Bay were packed with at least 100 people and their boats. Overall a great day for hunting!

Hello Fossil Forum, I am a new member looking for guidance and advice. I live in Orlando, 27, and recently have been bitten by the fossil hunting bug. Mainly I am interested in sharks teeth. I grew up going out to the woods of Ocala and around the Withlacoochee and managed to find all sorts of old bones cool rocks and crystal as a kid. I developed quite the collection. I somehow never found out you can find sharks teeth and other amazing fossils in alot of the rivers was going to as a kid. I just got back from a beach trip around venice/manasota key and found a bunch of small sharks teeth. That prompted some internet searches and then some obsessive research when I found out the extent of fossils in florida. I was hoping to get some advice on finding good locations. I can remember going to endless spots that I feel like would be perfect now, with my father as a child. However he passed and unfortunately I have no idea how to find most of those spots again now. So I guess I'm starting at square one. This weekend Im renting a canoe and going down the little withlachoochee to search for some good hunting grounds. That river is close enough for a good day trip and I think the water is pretty low at the moment. If anyone has some advice on if the little withlachoochee is good or bad for finding sharks teeth or the best way of going about it, it would be greatly appreciated Happy to have found the fossil forum -John

Had a quick hunt this morning at Matoaka. It got crowded quickly. Water was clear. All beaches are crowded now. Nice variety of teeth.

Had a great time shark tooth hunting in a stream in Charleston, SC. Wish I knew what types of sharks they came from but pretty good haul I think!

First official post! Drove to Nanjemoy with my wife to shark tooth hunt for the day. Wewere the only people there when we arrived, usually it can be pretty packed with cars. Usually we find a lot of smaller teeth and a somewhat longer sand tigers. We found two of the otodus up at the high tide line within 15 minutes of each other after walking down the beach and were both really shocked and excited. Decided to stop and eat lunch and that’s when I found the biggest and by far the biggest we have ever found and in such great condition. Only the tip of the tooth was sticking out when I spotted it.

Hi everyone I have some fossils that I need some help with identifying please. I belive one might be a great white shark tooth and the other possibly a vertebra of some kind? Thanks in advance

Hi! I have been lurking the website the last few months for information on fossils, mainly shark teeth after having moved to Maryland this past winter. I came across shark teeth hunting when I was planning a trip to Charleston and saw that was an activity to do down there so decided to see if there was anything near my area. My wife and I went about 2 months ago to the Calvert Cliffs area and since the shutdown have been going to the Nanjemoy area. After the first time we were both hooked and have been going 1-2 times a week! experience wise, definitely a beginner but trying to increase my knowledge as I go and reading all the information I can online.

I’ve been lurking here has a member for a few months and, for several years before that, I was lurking as a non-member. As such, I think it is about time I formally introduced myself: I was born, raised, and spent a large chunk of my adult life in Southern New Jersey, barely two miles from the Hopkins marl pit in Haddonfield, New Jersey where William Parker Foulke unearthed the world’s first nearly-complete dinosaur skeleton. I suppose that history somehow rubbed off because as a kid I was obsessed with fossils. Of course, in those long-ago, pre-internet days, the only way to learn about good fossil collecting sites was through word of mouth and, apparently, I didn’t have any connections. Lol. As a result, even though I now know that New Jersey is a veritable playground for fossil collectors, I never once collected there. Heck, several years ago, I worked on a project that required weekly site visits during which I drove across Big Brook coming and going without realizing I could have pulled over and found some Cretaceous shark teeth and, if I was lucky, maybe even an occasional marine reptile bone with little effort. Instead, as a kid, I went on a couple of field trips with the Scouts to locales in Pennsylvania that seemingly required more time in the van driving there than we spent collecting and, on family vacations to Florida, my dad occasionally managed to unearth information on a nearby collecting site and he’d indulge me for an hour or two while my mom and sisters went shopping. The end result was that, while I was, indeed, an obsessed collector, my personal collection of fossils was very modest with the only interesting pieces being a Green River formation fish that I got for my 10th birthday and a Morracan trilobite that I bought at a rock and mineral show which I now realize was almost certainly a fake. Then, like many, when I hit puberty, I became too obsessed with girls to maintain a fossil obsession, too. My mom eventually “donated my collection”, which although she’s never admitted it, I am pretty sure means she donated it to the guys who picked up our garbage. Fossils remained a subject of interest to me, but in a “if I see an interesting article about dinosaurs or fossils in a magazine or a newspaper, I’d make it a point to read it” kind of way. And that’s where things stood for me for the past few decades until 2015. In 2015, I moved to Central Oklahoma, which among other things, means I began working and living among scores of University of Oklahoma grads. Sure, they lacked the humility of a Rutgers’ grad like myself which I suppose is because they regularly win national championships in major sports and such, but otherwise they were all pretty good folks. (Kidding of course). I don’t know if all OU students take the same geology class or if purely by luck of the draw, I happened to meet a random cross-section of folks who happened to take the class, but it seemed like everybody I met upon moving to Oklahoma had a trilobite fossil prominently displayed in their office or home that they found and prepped themselves on a field trip to the Arbuckles with their geology class while at OU. Now, they say when you beat an addiction and then relapse, even after decades, you instantly pick up where you left off. That is what seems to have happened to me. Being surrounded by all these trilobite fossils and knowing the hills were full of them less than two hours away, jolted my long-suppressed, inner-fossil-nerd back to life and I was almost instantly just as obsessed as I was when I was 12. LOL. Luckily, I found this forum and, for a few years, anonymously lurking here and vicariously enjoying you-all’s experiences was sufficient to “scratch my fossil itch”. But, I’ve learned that, at least when it comes to an unfulfilled fossil obsession that dates back to childhood, it is only a matter of time before reading about it just isn’t enough. For this reason, I recently decided it was time to start getting my hands dirty and finding fossils of my own again. And so it has begun....

I try to identify any fossils on my own before I post it on here, that's how I learn! Anyway, I found these three shark teeth while pre-washing the matrices from Kiowa Formation (Location: Ellsworth county, Kansas. Age: Albian). A couple of them came loose during pre-washing and I found another one still in the matrix. Tooth #1: Is this tooth from Meristodonoides sp.? The views are from front and back of this tooth. Approximately 2mm long. Tooth #2: Is this also from Meristodonoides sp.? Approximately 3mm long. Tooth #3: Is this from Leptostyrax sp.? Front and back views of this tooth. Approximately 6mm long.

One of the busy work tasks I’ve been doing is going through all of the micro teeth and matrix... repeatedly lol I found two teeth from Cookiecutter Creek micros that I am flat out stumped on. No clue. The first one is larger, 6mm or so. I can only describe it as very flat. The cusp sits at an odd angle on an odd root. I am not even sure it’s shark. The second is about 4mm and I have no clue. I didn’t see anything in the paper describing Isistius and Squatina that stood out as a possibility.

Hi all, bought a bunch of shark teeth from Morocco but I am having trouble identifying this one. Any help would be much appreciated!

Decided to go to Douglas Point to get my daughter out of the house even though I knew it would be muddy and the water would be high.

Hello to all! I’m new to fossil hunting and have really enjoyed learning so far. I’m a natural born beach comber though I’m new to Northeast Florida as well. I’m hoping to learn about good sites to find fossils within an hour or two of Jacksonville and to soak up loads of good information about all things fossils!

I made my first trip to Post Oak Creek today. There had been rain in the forecast for yesterday, so I hoped for some newly washed out fossils, but Sherman got no rain. So, I knew things would be pretty picked over, but I decided to go anyway, and just hike a bit further down the creek than I normally might, to see if I could find a few teeth anyway. I stayed about three hours. The knee pads I bought yesterday were definitely a good investment. These old fart eyes need to be close to the sand bars to get within reading glass distance of those small teeth. I had also made a sifter, and carried out half a bucket of sand to go through at home. I had fun. That creek is an amazing fossil place.