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Sorry I have not been around much but i got the winter bug and it really knocked me around for a few weeks. My birthday today and Mrs got me these large plates of a different bug, pretty impressive i think. Ogyginus corndensis ageOrdovician, Llandeilo Series locationGwernyffyd, Powys, Wales, UK

Hi Everybody, Last week, I decided to go to the cliffs for my birthday, and I resolved to get up earlier in the morning to get something I had not found before. My equipment was the standard loadout, sifter, shovel, waders, sunshirt and hat. Along with a one strap bag that I would wear for the 1st and last time. (The strap would slide in front of my chest and neck everytime I leaned over and ducked down. it also broke halfway through my hike) When I arrived I didn't find much to write home about save for a whole shark vert. But when I waded out into the decently clear water I managed to find a vert and a couple ribs. After a couple hours and a ton of smalls, the tide came up. I noticed how high it got and realized it would be a slog to wade back, so I elected to wait an hour before the long haul back. I noticed a bunch of wildlife while I was out, I saw frogs, a weaver spider, herons and a Bald eagle with some osprey. On my way back, I felt discouraged by how choppy the water was and the lack of stuff I was finding ( Pro tip: the choppy water will help you find more stuff after it passes). That and the strap falling off of my bag was annoying. But midway through my Slog, I saw it: out of the corner of my eye I saw something bluish Grey and bigger than a shell. "There's no way" I said as I leaned over and saw the fragment of a tooth bigger than any other I found so far. I was tired, exhausted, and shaking. But here it was, my White whale, the tooth I was looking for after 3 years in the palm of my hand. It just turned dark as I arrived to my car. I think I pushed past being tired. My gear was soaked, I was soaked, but I did it. I Finally got my Meg. Breakdown of the finds below: 297 specimens in total. Starting with teeth, I think this is Hammerhead. Next up is the Meg. Measures 1.74 on the diagonal. Which I estimate would be a 2 inch tooth if whole. I'm excited bc this tooth is unmistakably a megatooth, there's nothing else it could be! Rib bones, this one looks interesting to me bc there looks to be a possible blood vessel groove, and a dissension on the middle right. Could that be a muscle attachment scar? Longer rib Whale vert

I had a pretty great birthday 11/09! Still young at 31! Cole woke me up the night before and said after work he is taking me out to Glen Rose Dino Valley State park in Glen Rose, TX and then going ammonite hunting for some decorations for Ruby’s vivarium. (Ruby is my pink morph western hognose snake) Of course I couldn’t go back to sleep before work after that! I know a lot of Texans probably went there during grade school and to some people dinosaurs are too “typical” but for someone who has lived in Indiana & Texas where it’s mostly marine fossils (and in Iceland there were pretty much none!) this was something new and exotic to me, albeit trace fossils. I worked my night shift super daydreamy and stargazy knowing it was going to be a fun day later on, clocked out, and we immediately drove out there! About good 2 hours away where I live and I couldn’t sleep on the way out there. When we finally got there they tried to charge me a child/teen ticket! The park ranger lady thought I was Cole’s teenage daughter. I immediately corrected the ranger and showed her my ID to prove I was 31 to charge me the correct amount (because thats the right thing to do!) and she gasped in shock, complimented my youth and my handmade ammonite earrings, gave me some free goodies along with a map. I haven’t eaten or slept in over a day and honestly it didn’t matter! I was so energetic and excited to be here I didn’t feel any fatigue at all! ^ If ya’ll don’t have the Rockd app- do so! So nifty especially when exploring a new place. We went to all the places on the map that had tracks, I waded in the water of course to see them up close! It was an incredible new intimacy with nature seeing them in person. You hear about them and think “yeah that sounds cool” but your eyes inches from them is whole other experience. The first one I spotted was an Acrocanthosaurus! I crawled immediately down the trail into the Paluxy river and splashed right into the water. After waiting a few minutes for the water to clear I was awarded with this: I reached down and touched it extremely delicately and it sent a jolt of adrenaline through my body like electricity I can’t describe! I got goosebumps like CRAZY. Cole knew I was having one of my “connection with nature moments” and watched me from the dry trail since he is hydrophobic as heck and didn’t want to join in. I’m the total opposite and if there’s enough water at a site- I go wading or swimming even in Texas! I just went on without him in the water and he followed me using the trail. Luckily he had my fanny pack but my phone is waterproof and stayed with me so I could take pictures. Roped off area: I want to share some odd prints I found that I dont think were marked on the map between Wildcat Hallow and the track site by the camping area. I don’t know if the map just needs updated or they are meant to be a “surprise” for the curious explorers but either way I’m sure the rangers know about them and it was fun to see them. Sorry for the finger and shoe marks, I actually tripped in one because I didn't expect any and wasn’t paying attention. (I was spying for any scaley babies at the river bank! Lots of turtles out that day, unfortunately I didn't spot any snakes.) I tried not to directly touch the dry prints. Hoooooly spit. My favorite part is “the ballroom site” where there are HUNDREDS of tracks! Lots of sauropod and predators prints here, the metatarsal tracks of the Acro were ADORABLE. Its amazing how if you look at a set and follow them you can imagine the walking behavior of the animal where they started walking and picking up speed to a sprint. SO. CUTE. My favorite prints were the rear- leg footprints of Sauroposeidon! You can just tell that it stood in thick, firm limy mud the way it was preserved and you can just “feel” it was a hefty animal by the look of the prints. I yelled out loud in awe it was so neat! (There were also just too many tracks to photograph) There were some lines in-between the series of sauropod tracks I was curious if that was the tip-end of its tail that may have left them? map of this track site: Blue is sauropod tracks; red is theropod tracks After this I went over to the deeper water by the swimming hole threw my boots & socks off and just dove right in with my clothes on. (We had pretty much that whole area of the park to ourselves and I brought extra pants & socks anyways!) It felt SO refreshing. I just relaxed enjoying the gorgeous weather ignoring Cole yelling at me (barely audible) worried about brain eating amoeba and wet car seat towels. (He shouldn’t be surprised being my best friend for 13 years now ) Sorry but the water was just… calling me! I was swimming over 100+mya dinosaur tracks and I felt so comfortable in my element. It felt so “right” and I was in full serotonin overload. Exhilarating! The only other fossil I saw besides oysters and dino tracks: Gift shop because I’m such a tourist in my own State. xD I can’t resist a signed book about paleontology! I have yet to read it as of this post but I know it’s about the history of the park and it came with a “dinosaur ballroom dance” CD. We went to Brookshires and then rewarded Cole with the biggest bag of jerky I could find, caffine, paid for a full tank of gas, and said thank you a billion times. This place was worth the visit no matter your age! The nature and hiking trail options itself are enough to visit if you like outdoors. *I have pictures and a few vids on my IG paleopastels as well! After spending most of the entire daylight there so I could dry off we went to my favorite spot in the Goodland Form and plucked out a few fast things on the way back home! I love the Oxytropidoceras the most Cole found me (Yay! So proud!) and I was happy to add another Heteraster to my shelf. I left the Pliotoxasters alone since I have a handful of them from last time. I got a few nice pieces of snake rocks to take home as well. Wet pants, dont care. What’s exciting is my zoic air pen from the UK + a few unique Dactylioceras fossils are coming in the mail soon! A little present to myself. What a great day! That day was the BEST present and best birthday to date! Hopefully this report helps others planning a visit to there! Thanks for reading!

Hi all It is my birthday today and I thought it would be really nice to celebrate with you all. I am looking forward to having fish and chips meal with Mrs Rico and watching Return of the Jedi later this evening, living the dream. Cool triceratops metal kit .I also received this ceramic money box of MrsR and it is lovely.

A happy birthday to Mary Anning. One of the greatest fossil collector and palaeontologist. Who became known around the world for finds she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds of the cliffs of Lyme Regis, Dorset in Southwest England. Her amazing discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton; the first two nearly complete plesiosaurskeletons; the first pterosaurskeleton located outside Germany, as illustrated by these lovely coins for the royal mint and NHML.

One of our dinosaurs is missing. It is my birthday today but my story started a couple of weeks ago. When Mrs R gave me an early birthday gift. Sadly what she gave me was unfortunately badly damaged in transit. I looked at the two legged armoured dinosaur and thought oh no . Mrs R was a little upset by this turn of events and was going return this damaged item to the dealer. I said “hold your ankylosaurus” , I have never seen anything like this up for sale before. After a discussion we decided to contact the seller and ask for some money back and I would repair it as a project . She did and we got it for a steal indeed, probably the cost of a night out at the movies . I got the green light to restore it, hopefully to its magnificent self. Pleasingly I did not have to wait to my birthday to get the fun started. before and after transit Firstly I glue it , filled the cracks and made a couple of missing scales out of clay . As the glue was setting over night I started researching the model ankylosaurid's history. We had no information on the model and no leads could be found. I thought the model looked vintage and too heavy to be a toy at just under 3 kilos. It is also made from some sort of plaster/plastic and has bolts in the feet to be fastened to a base. I thought this is a museum display piece and started looking at museums that have armoured dinosaurs fossil in the hope to find a glimpse of it. Also being a museum piece may explain it’s happy face in contrast to the great details , I was going to change but the face but decided not to. The goofy look it is wearing laid across the face must have been to help the little kids to not be frightened of the massive creature it may have stood next to on display. I also contacted somebody I know in NHML he does not work with the dinosaurs but you never know. A couple of days later I started with the painting. I decided to paint the head first because all the different textures of the scales was all present here. It took the paint very nicely. I did add more tones than I would have liked to, if it was a smaller model I would not have done . It took me about 20 hours to complete all the painting work. I think it turned pretty nicely. Finally I made a quick base to finish it off, making it more of a diorama. I would love to get any bit of ankylosaurus material to add to the display but every thing I find is too expensive. The last part of my story is not yet written. I did hear back from the NHML and surprise, surprise they have the same model in their archive and it is part of their collection. I am waiting to hear back from them with more information, when they search their records. I think I got a prototype of the one in the NHML which makes it super cool. As they say: To be continued... Thanks for reading. All the best Bobby

Mornings all it is Charles Robert Darwin birthday today , (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882). The first few photographs I took are on the private collection of the NHML They are objects he collected in this studies and traveled with him on the beagle . I also got to hold his expired pet octopus . Probably one of my best days ever. Statue of Charles Darwin in the Natural History Museum, London. The statue was created by Sir Joseph Boehm and was unveiled on 9 June 1885. Photograph of Charles Darwin by Maull and Polyblank for the Literary and Scientific Portrait Club Sometime today raise your cup of tea and wish the great man a happy birthday dear Chuck

First let me just say that my wife is awesome! Secondly, today is my birthday! My before mentioned awesome wife has surprised me with the purchase of a nice Megalodon tooth! It’s my first one! I had been recently talking about wanting to check out a website that deals in meg teeth and is run by a forum member. She took the liberty to check it out herself and correspond with the owner (since she knows nothing about fossils ) Unfortunately, due to some shipping issues it hasn’t arrived yet, but it should be here in the next few days. I was too excited to wait to share! Here is a picture from the website. I’ll post my own pics of the tooth as soon as it arrives. L1: 4.21" L2: 4.10" Width: 3.07"

Let's all wish a big heartfelt Happy Birthday to Ralph ( @Nimravis ) today!!!!!

Hi all, Today, I got a special present: my biggest meg tooth so far! And my second too (I'm kinda behind with them). With very nice serrations, this one is definitely one of the highest quality fossil shark teeth I have now. I think it's a "jet black" one. Oh, and the measurements are (longest tip to root distance): 8.3 cm (which is 3.3 inches). Not the biggest tooth, but still a nice one. Just wanted to share this beauty with you all Best regards, Max

My son recently had a birthday, and I sent him an e-card I made for him. Thought maybe you'd like to see it. The subject: Something for a special rock hound to find.