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Hello all! Just finished going through a small batch of matrix from the York River and found a some fossils that I need help IDing. 1. These ones strike me as some sort of polychaete jaws, but not sure. 2. Some denticles or teeth but they seem a lot different than the skate (Rostroraja sp.) that I've been finding (see 2.1). These do not have the cusp or base morphology that I've been observing and are quite smaller. 2.1 Rostroraja teeth Thanks so much! Miguel M

Primate fossils are very rare. I would really like to see what primate fossils TFF members have in their collections or have collected and donated. Mine have been personally collected, and have been donated, and are posted below. Let me start this post with the nicest primate fossil that I’ve seen, to show what is possible to find. A Messel researcher from Germany, to whom I’ve sent thousands of squamate specimens for study, sent me the below Messel book gratis last year. This is a book full of incredibly preserved specimens from plants, to insects, to mammals, to birds, to reptiles, to amphibians, to fish. Some very well-preserved primate fossils are in this Messel book, including an incredible Darwinius masillae articulated specimen shown in the below picture. After showing that incredible Messel primate, my primate specimens, which follow, seem pretty meager, but nevertheless are of scientific value. First, three primate teeth that I found in anthill matrix, from anthills situated on exposures of the Big Cottonwood Creek Member of the Chadron Formation (Latest Eocene-early Oligocene), from my sons’ M&M Ranch in Nebraska are shown in the below picture within a figure, as well as the cover of the publication that they are described in. Because the researchers were not able to assign the teeth to a genus (see the text in the red box in the below picture) I intend to recollect anthill matrix in the same 3 areas where the teeth were found in hope of finding a more complete primate specimen (at least a partial jaw with a premolar, molars) so the species can be identified. Secondly, a partial omomyid primate jaw, which I found in the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia, shown below in a figure from the paper that the partial jaw is described in (see first page of the paper below). Also note the two excerpts below from the paper. Due to the extreme rarity of this specimen, it is extremely unlikely that I could find another specimen that might be positively identified. From the paper Title and Abstract: "First Fossil Primate from the Atlantic Coastal Plain" From the paper DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: "Considering its geographic separation from other known North American, as well as European, omomyids, it almost certainly represents a previously unknown species. However, in the absence of premolars (often the most diagnostic teeth in omomyids) or any other anterior teeth, or obvious derived molar traits, it would be premature to create a new taxon for this fragmentary specimen." I am really hoping for and looking forward to TFF member primate posts to this thread. Marco Sr.

Cold and breezy days, couple of rather unproductive trips, cow shark teeth wise. Need to try a new spot. Did find one, while comparing it with others, noted some have serrations on first tooth, others don't just like bottom laterals. Unfortunately not sure which one is the new one. Bonito nose, two colorful sand tiger, and two tiny tiger shark (?) teeth (scanned both sides) among the bunch.

Hello again! I haven't posted in a while, but I've been keeping busy looking through microfossils and have found some cool things. The scalebar subdivisions are 1mm. Let me know what you think about this haul, and any other ideas on IDs. Miguel M Some fish jaws: (Anguiliform dentary?) (drum pharyngeal jaw) Some fish vertebrae and basioccipital Random fish teeth (maybe a scombriform?) (Some other fish teeth. Leftmost could be a sheepshead incisor, no idea as to the others) Elasmobranch teeth (skate teeth) (The one to the right looks very interesting)

Hello I'm new to the group and need some help with revealing what I have been researching for the past 5 years. It would be nice if I could get someone to come and see what I have and guide me in this process of making it known to the geology world. I live in Virginia on the North end of Rockbridge county. The elevation here is right around 1800ft. The closest stream to me is a mile away and flows west to east. My property is a sediment bed from when water flowed east to west over a waterfall. In this sediment bed I have found something new. Please help.

Went out three times. Actually the beach was more relaxing, talked with others there (two others had found cow shark teeth there, I found two; a whitish cowshark tooth was washed out of the photo). We had two warm days, light breezes, and walking the beach is a nice break from screening cold mud and black leaves. More fossil bone bits and skate stuff (usually teeth) but I found a nice scute/ denticle and a fossil stinger piece. The people out hunting shark teeth at the beach generally do not know what types of teeth they find (mostly sand tiger) and one had a pretty broken Tilly bone, but no clue what it was (just picking up interesting stuff). Reliving their youth. Supposedly there will be a new state park in Middlesex, VA according to the people I talked with, near Bush park. They claim there are cliffs with lots of complete Chesapectins as well as beaches with lots of fossils and shark teeth. Hopefully this is true. There is a lot of bemoaning the loss of local access to waterfront areas where earlier generations of kids used to hunt shark teeth, as the property values have skyrocketed. York River state park has lots of shells and fossil bits, but shark teeth are rare, and that's what children want. The locals were complaining the State Park beaches only allow collecting on the beaches and screening of sand at the water edge, but no digging, and any important fossils belong to the State. Not sure when it will happen or what the rules will be. But there may be a rush of collectors to the new state park site before it sets up. Nothing spectacular in my three hunts, but freezing temps in the morning and highs between 40 and 50 F may cut down on collectors. Indian summer is over.

I have been collecting for about three years now in various parts of West Virginia. I was thinking it might be nice to meet some others in the area that are interested in fossils and maybe do a couple trips to different localities. I would be happy to travel anywhere in WV and locations in neighboring states as well. I have included a picture of a nice Archimedes I recently found in Mercer County because we all love fossil pictures!

Recent trips. A couple of skate dermal scutes, rare for me, a nice cowhark bottom lateral (unfortunately not the "sharp-nosed" I'm looking for), puffer plate, and a heavy tiger shark tooth, plus a lot of mostly small sand tiger teeth.

The places I hunt were over-run for the summer (particularly the place with 'different' cowshark lower laterals), so I took some time off. Less buggy now, beautiful time of the year (most times are!) Hit some old spots, mostly broken. Biggest tooth (hemi) is just over an inch long. Seemed more colorful, but still having issues with scanner.

Hello there! On my revisit to the James River in Surry County, Virginia, I found something interesting on a broken fragment of a Chesapecten I can't quite narrow down myself! The area contains primarily Late Miocene Eastover formation, with a bit of Early Pliocene Yorktown formation as well. Most of my resources for the area's fossils I have are related to the molluscan fauna of the formations, so I haven't found anything reliable yet as to the identity. I initially picked it up thinking it was some sort of crab, but I realized I was looking at a much simpler animal after a few moments! The whole mass is about 5.334 cm (2.1 inches) "long" and 2.794 cm (1.1 inches) "wide", and wraps around the fragment. The fragment of shell has a lot of bore holes related to Clionaidae sponges, so I was wondering if this is what this is. I don't have a lot of experience with sponges, although I do have one from Tennessee I got from an online acquisition. I do know that the structure of sponges tend to be somewhat chaotic and overlap each other, and this appears to be the case. However, the unusual shape also reminds me of a bryozoan colony as well, so I just want some additional input with this. I don't know if there are described sponges from the area. I have a few angles taken with my trusty (and tricky) phone camera, and I tried out my USB microscope I got for my Aurora, NC microfossils. Although the quality isn't perfect on the microscope, I tried to find more "pristine" pores on the surface to take images of.

Hello again everyone! After a quick trip out to Holden Beach with some minimal finds, I was left with some indecisiveness on the location my next fossil hunt, I was presented with the opportunity to go back to Surry County, Virginia to hunt the same locality as I did back in August. I was a bit unsure if I wanted to make the trip again, as I had a fairly rough time during the last trip with some stomach issues, and I had felt I had a decent enough haul from that time. However, after Tropical Storm Ophelia went through the area dumping a lot of rain and the forecast was predicted to be much cooler than August, I decided to make the return. I can say with certainty I am very, very glad I made this trip! I was also given the opportunity to stay on site this time as well, which was really cool, and I made a few new friends with the fellow hunters that were also staying there. This is once again very picture heavy so hang in there once again. A small note, I had previously though all of the fossils were from the Yorktown Formation, but I was corrected on this; the site is primarily Late Miocene Eastover formation, with a fair bit of Early Pliocene Yorktown Formation, with the cobbles from the Cambrian Swift Run Formation mixed in in places. Starting again with some pictures of the site, not much had changed in two months, aside from some of the cliffs collapsing partially, which unveiled some new, fragile bivalves. The sand they had put on the beach that covered some of the material had been washed out a little bit, so there were more fossils and Cambrian cobbles at the water line than previously. It was particularly rainy on Saturday morning, but as the day went on it warmed up to a comfortable temperature, and became sunny. It was very breezy this time around, so the waves were particularly rough the whole weekend, which helped expose more fossils on the beach. There was once again plenty of cool wildlife in the area as well! This unfortunate fellow was struck by a propeller and washed onto the shoreline late Saturday night. The damage was mostly on the side lying in the sand. This was the first time I've ever seen a sturgeon outside of an aquarium setting. I reported it to a researcher at VCU, who collected it the next morning. He told me it was a male, estimated to be 30 years old. It was around 1.676 meters (5.5 feet) long. I was able to hunt one particular spot in the area where the exposure was fairly close to ground level as well, here is one small look at that exposure. And as a brief glimpse into my finds, here was one such find in situ! (Courtesy of one of my fellow hunter friends I met during the trip) I don't have a particular order to show off this time around, but I'll start with my absolute favorite of my finds this trip: Ecphora! I was a little bummed out last trip that I was unable to locate one, but I lucked out big time this trip. The quality of them is all over the place, but I found a few that were especially good, including the one I had pictured in situ. The one in matrix was found accidentally when I was doing UV light hunting (Which I'll talk about in a bit). This was my favorite one! It's around 11.43 cm (4.5 inches) long, and 8.89 cm (3.5 inches) wide. A very small bit of the outer edge of the opening did break off while I was handling it after this picture was took, but fortunately I had some strong adhesive handy and was able to get most of it secured back in place. On to the UV light hunting, I spent a few hours after dark hunting for calcite and calcite-converted mollusks. I found quite a number of calcite clams, as well as some pretty good crystals as well. Two clams in particular had some fairly decent calcite crystals growing inside fractures between the two valves, which was really cool! These are two small clusters growing on some material. These were particularly luminous with the UV light, much like the crystal-covered clams. Here is a calcite-replaced Turritella on the right, and on the left is an odd-shaped chunk of calcite. It almost looks like the shape of an Ecphora shell's lower half, which makes me wonder if it could be a calcite cast of an Ecphora interior. Here are a few large coral chunks right after I has washed them off. (Septastrea marylandica?) A couple of scaphopod "tusk shells" (Dentalium attenuatum) with a lustrous, double-valve Pandora clam. Some fairly intact Turritella shells. (Turritella subvariabilis?) I found quite a few nice double-valve Chesapecten this trip. Some show up in the UV light at night, which helped me find them. However, some of the larger specimens had a lot of erosion or biological damage to them such as bore holes, so they would fall apart when I tried to clean them. I still ended up with a decent number of them, so it all worked out in the end. The leftmost specimen has a bit of calcite on the outer edge. Here is my largest Chesapecten next to my smallest once again (the large one is about 17.78 cm, or 7 inches, wide). Some large clam tubes I found. (Kuphus fistula?) A few gastropods of decent quality with a double-valve oyster and a Crucibulum limpet. (Crucibulum grande?) This Naticidae shell (Lunatia sp.?) is fairly large, probably my favorite gastropod aside from the Ecphora! Unfortunately, it's extremely fragile, so I refuse to move it until I get something set up for coating my specimens. Because of this I haven't measured it properly. There is a smaller specimen in the opening underneath. A half whale vertebra alongside some different rib fragments I found. One of the friends I made found a fairly sizeable, nice quality whale vertebra. I found this nice tympanic bulla with only a small bit of damage. Definitely better than the one I found in Green's Mill Run! I found this micro crab claw dactyl while cleaning a different specimen. Some areas had microfossils inside of larger specimens, depending on how the preservation was. I finally found shark teeth as well! The white mako is around 5.715 cm (2.25 inches) long, and if the marbled one had it's full root it would be even longer. I found the bottom four purely by accident while getting the coordinates of the deceased sturgeon early that morning. One visitor found a half Otodus megalodon or Otodus chubutensis tooth with beautiful serrations. I found a lot of Discinisca lugubris brachiopod shells this time around, particularly in the area where the calcite was common. Here is one with some calcite to the left of it. There were a lot more Skolithos to be collected this time! The first specimen was given to me by the man who put the whole hunt together, and the second one was one I found later. These particular specimens are nice because they are visible both as cross sections and from above / below, whereas usually it's just one or the other. I found a new type of scallop this trip as well, Placopecten! These are also extremely fragile, so they're currently on-hold and sitting in one spot until I can get some better preservation for them. This one I'm a little unsure on, I'm thinking a Cliona sponge but it might also be a bryozoan colony. It's on a fragment of Chesapecten with a lot of sponge bore holes. (I'll make a post with better pictures in Fossil I.D. later when I get time.) The last on my major finds, these are some intact clams, and they are a lot more durable than the last ones I found! I can handle these to a higher degree than the other ones I found without them falling apart on me. I still want to get some kind of preservation on them. Someone at the hunt recommended Krylon clear coat, I'll have to experiment with it on some other specimens. And as a bonus, these are not my finds, but one of my cabin neighbor's finds. This is an regular echinoid he found, as well as a plate he found containing a fragmented Mellita sand dollar. While I found the very small fragment attached to a Chesapecten, according to the man who set up this hunt he's never seen a sand dollar like that found in the locality, making it a first. That's all for now! Nothing new on the Triassic spots, but I'm closing in on one, and the other is looking promising for next January once hunting season has passed.

Location: Northern Neck region, Calvert fm. on the Potomac River This little 0.5" tooth has confused me for a long time now. Torn between mako, tiny lower hastalis, or benedeni which I'm now leaning towards.

Maybe one of you can help me identify sorry pen for size

hello friends! I like many folks am fascinated by marine mammal fossils and I have learned a lot for the experience of the members of this forum. I wanted to get some opinions from the forum, both in terms of possible species Identification and potential explanation of condition. I found these 6 whale teeth in a very small patch of gravel, sifting in a river in southern Virginia. Other fossils where found in the same area, there is exposed formation on the river bottom, not sure quite what formation. most fossils seem to be Miocene and Pliocene although some older teeth appear with frequency, though they are mostly heavily worked by the river, or from a heavily reworked layer. I found 5 these teeth on the same day, the sixth on the following trip to this spot. No identifiable “jaw-bone” material was found. The wear and preservation as well as proximity suggest to me these teeth are from the same animal, what do you think? I haven’t seen an example of whale teeth with this level of wear, I’ve got lots of prized bits an pieces that have deteriorated I presume after the animal died. Does this wear pattern seem consistent with an old animal? The longest tooth is a little over 150mm. the roots of the teeth seem distinctive, unlike other sperm whale teeth I’ve seen. Is this an anomalous feature that may aid in identification of a species? thank you all for your time!

Found this recently on a beach near Chippokes, Virginia in an area known for fossils. It's heavy, actually felt like concrete when I first picked it up but you see what looks like the bone pores on the inside. It looks like it was roundish at one time but has split lengthwise at some point?