Search the Community

This was found in north Dakota This site has just been exposed there's been a 2 year drought and a lot of high winds , we also found Folsom points ,ultra thin halfted knifes , all made with knife river flint ,a lot of large preforms with Paleo flaking, points were sent to Jackson galleries and were authenticated as Folsom, This skull looks like it's from a very young bison , the way the horns seem to be bending is different from a bison antiquus , They look to be bending downward, Tip to tip it's 24 inches,

A friend found this partial skull, I couldn't decide between bison or just beef, wanted to get some opinions. Found on the North Platte in Wyoming.

My son and I found a bison bone on a rock bar exposed by our house due to exceptional low water levels. It appears mineralized but I am hoping for additional insight from you all. Thanks! P.s. I have a size 13 foot for size

I found a bone on the Yellowstone River around Reed Point, Montana. I thought it might be a leg bone of a bison or cow. It weighs 12.3 oz. The longest measurement is 9 3/4 inches. It is 4 1/2 inches around in the center of the bone. Question: what animal does this bone belong to? What might the age be of the bone? Thanks so much for any light you may shed upon my questions and anything I likely forgot to ask.

Would love some help IDing this. Found on manasota key in Florida USA. I'm leaning towards horse. But I've gotten bison ans kangaroo in another group.

Bones found in Northwest Oklahoma rural farmland. Cow?

I went fossil hunting last week in SE Texas heat and humidity. Not a lot of finds but I did find this proximal humerus encased in sandstone. I wanted to share it after I cleaned off the sandstone and ID'ed it. I believe Bison, quite possibly Latifrons as at least one Latifrons horn core has been found at this site along with many massive bison bones. Heavily mineralized, this piece weighs about 2kg (4.5 lbs) and is about 15cm max width, 18.5 cm long. It retains the process that is usually missing from the river finds I've made. What I find cool is the crystal filled void! Most of the bones I find my wife thinks are ugly but she likes this one! But what I find really cool is the crystal filled void!

So today I found this horn while hiking. The place where I found it -called Castrillo del Val- is known for the great amount of potamides fossils found all over the ground; furthermore, bison priscus lived nearby. The place is pretty close to Atapuerca, a big deposit of homo antecessor. I think it might belong to a bison priscus horn core, I’ll post some pictures and let’s see what this is!

I was just checking to make sure, I found this in a dredge in Florida a while back (definitely the best condition mammal from the dredge). Is it bison, or some huge llama, or even cow. Thanks!

I found a Silicified Seashell last month and it turned out to be a relative rare silicified version of a pretty common Oyster from 3-4 myas. It is not like I forget interesting locations to hunt , so we returned there yesterday. Lots and Lots of little shark teeth (100s with about 25% unbroken). These all become gifts to someone. My hunting friends, my family, school kids, Paleo museums, etc. Separating those out left this smaller group of interesting fossils.... On the lower right, that was the Only Meg I found and next to it a nice Mayumbensis from the Miocene. A number of chips and broken teeth (I was thinking Rhino on a couple of these fragments) and also Croc trying to pretend to be gator. There were some Armadillo osteoderms and a fossil shaped like an ungual, a couple of bones that would attach to an astragulas, likely deer based on size and then a couple of premolars that @Harry Pristis has tried to ID for me previously. Just enough to keep me interested and digging in the same spot. My hunting friend was finding much the same (lots of little teeth, couple of Megs both in better shape than mine, and he picked up a Llama molar with complete roots. There was quite a bit of agatized material, most of it fragments, or pretty common broken items. Then an unusual silicified seashell, once again an oyster.. It is a 45 x 32 mm oval and the silica is on the "outside", Other photos... Certainly wanted to share these interesting finds, but also wanted to solicit any opinions of how the process happens. Certainly not exactly what I would have imagined.. There is a very slim remaining slice of the original shell in the center of this fossil, with much thicker layer upon layer of silica material laid down on the outside of both sides of the thin shell. It makes me wonder if this process is the same process that created the previous silica seashell, that ended up looking like this....

Hi all, I found this tooth that washed out of the Charleston Harbor in South Carolina that is ~3 inches long and ~2 inches wide. I was wondering if someone could help me with an ID on it? Thinking it may be horse, bison, or cow, but those are just guesses so any help would be appreciated!

I usually do not hunt Sundays and never on a Sunday Holiday. However, I usually hunt with Steve and Dave on the Peace River, Dave was returning North soon, so Steve called last night and twisted my arm to go hunting today to a location where we had found lots of larger Tiger and Hemipristis shark teeth 3 or 4 years ago. You can never go home again, but sometimes lightening strikes. None of us found large Tigers and Hemis, The location had been heavily dug since we were there last. For 3 hours the three of us were finding only 6-7 small shark teeth per sieve, which is not particularly productive. But the sun was shining, temps were 90 degrees, but we were staying cool in the caress of the Peace River. We just were not finding much despite moving frequently upstream to different locations. Then I found a gravel pocket that seemed to be missed , maybe refreshed, but it had 15 small shark teeth, and then in the next sieve, a Horse tooth.. that figures because they always expect me to be the lucky one. The next sieve I found a very nice sloth tooth. The pocket ran out , we kept on digging with few results, and I went about 150 feet upstream.. probing for gravel, trying to find another pocket of virgin gravel. Time ran out on the day and I returned downstream to Dave and Steve. While I was upstream, Steve found a Dire Wolf molar, and Dave found a Bison molar. I did not say anything about luck, but I was really pleased that we all found one great fossil, when for a long while it seemed all we would find would be small sharks teeth. So here are the 3 finds. Close up on the sloth: This is a 2nd molar of Paramylodon harlani. Close up of the Dire wolf tooth: I was fortunate to find this great photo, courtesy of the NY Times on my searches. Looks like La Brea fossil. A comparison: The whole tooth In fossil hunting, as in most things in life, it pays to be lucky. Enjoy. Jack

Greetings, I found this bone on property where cattle used to feed and where bison were native to. This was found in the side bank of a washout and roughly 1 ft below surface grade. A friend went to track for it and it snapped upon grabbing it and the other portion is still buried. It is currently frozen so I am unable to dig further into the bank to reveal more of the bone. It appears to be fairly old and the inside is hollowed out. I was wondering if anyone may be able to identify it based on side and shape. Please let me know what your thoughts are.

Is this a cow, horse, or bison scapula? I live in an area where bison used to roam and know that on the same property, bison skulls and bones have been found. Please let me know your thoughts and reasoning on how it was identified. Thank you!

Recent finds from Texas! Ammonites from the Goodland limestone, petrified wood and ice age stuff bank gravel of the Brazos river, either Beaumont or Lissie formations, or from a terrace deposit. The rib is mammoth/mastodon, the vertebra and hoof core bison, the antler is likely whitetail deer, and the teeth are horse and bison, with the small one I think a 3-toed horse based on the images I looked up.

When I picked this up I thought it very reminiscent of a mammoth toe bone. It is covered with what looks like a sandstone crust, the piece is very heavy, not at all like any sandstone I have ever come across. Any ideas? Thanks for any info you may have.

I've had some free time this weekend, so I decided to mix things up and try hunting the Brazos instead of the usual cretaceous formations around Austin and DFW. The Pleistocene period is something I've always been fascinated by (probably due to the Ice Age movies), so the long drive wasn't enough to dissuade me. The weather was just right which made a day by the river all the better. This being my first time at the Brazos, I was a bit unfamiliar with the geography/prime hunting locations. I settled on parking by a bridge and decided to spend my day checking out both sides of the river. Navigating my way to the water was more treacherous than I was expecting and I wound up having a close encounter with a black snake that may have been a cottonmouth. The sandbars were unfortunately mostly sand. However, dotted about here and there were patches of gravel. Most of my day I saw footprints all around me so I knew I was definitely not the first person to have hit up the spot. The first 4/5 of the day was a bit slow. I found the occasional piece of bone or turtle, but nothing too exciting. Only until the final hour of daylight did I reach a distant area of the sandbar (about a mile from my car) that began yielding some cool specimens. I didn't get a chance to study them closely until I was home because things got dark very quickly! Being alone at the dark river gave off spooky vibes so I ran a good portion of the distance back (with my fossils in pocket which was a bad idea). Thankfully, I made it back without any major disasters and I've since had some time to rest and take a closer look at my finds. Below are pictures of my most interesting finds that I would like to learn more about. All in all, I'd say the trip was a unique experience and worth the time! Overview of my favorite finds: ' Each item and some closeups: A: Definitely a horse tooth. Parts of it are missing. It may just be wishful thinking, but I think it could be from a three-toed horse? There are Miocene and Pliocene deposits upriver so I suppose it's a possibility. B: A couple of my favorite turtle shell fragments from the many I picked up. Unfortunately that small crack on the flat piece caused it to break in half right after I snapped my pics. Guess that happened because I ran with it in my pocket... oops. C: Looks like an old bison tooth to me. D: Not sure what this is. Could it be mammoth enamel? E: I think it's a scute possibly from an alligator. F: Looks to be a part of a tooth. Bovid would be my guess. I: This one is the strangest of the bunch in my opinion. Looks like tooth material, but it's hard to say. In the first closeup, I notice that there are bands run across the piece in a consistent pattern. Let me know if they are any closeups you would like for me to upload! Thanks for reading.

Ok I thought I had started to be able to ID bovine teeth and jaws and then this threw my off. This is from a post on Facebook - found in a cave in Kansas. I have posed here with he user's permission. Why is there a three-lobed molar in the middle of this lower jaw? In the past I had though the m3 for cow/bison was the only three lobed molar. But some searching online is telling me otherwise. Also the m3 here looks two-lobed. Can someone clarify?

Hey guys new to the forums and thought I’d make a post to have you guys help identify some possible fossils that i found in a local creek after heavy rains.There are lots of mission era ranches so there is a possibility of them being old but not fossilized cow bones. Let me know what you guys think

Would reall appreciate some help if someone could help me determine wether these are cow or bison teeth!

Collected this partial pelvis yesterday from Pleistocene deposits near Houston TX. I think is bison based on the extra (2nd) acetabular notch but I'm hoping someone can confirm this feature is diagnostic to bovine.

Hello!! Just wanted to share with the forum some of my fossils and bones that I do not need identified but would love thoughts on nonetheless. The elephant bone is of a four tusker- the upper part of the tibia, and completely mineralized, and very heavy. It is anywhere from 13-15 myo. The tortoise shell frags include the lip of the shell, as well as a nice slab of the plastron- found separately, but in the same creek. Tortoises were in Nebraska 8-15 mya. The horse tibia has been identified as either the tibia of the small three-toed horse Pseudhipparion, or the one toed horse Protohippus. All of these were found in Nebraska in a creek that runs through the Valentine and Ash Hollow Formations, both Miocene exposures. Let me know your thoughts!!

I went on this hunt about two weeks ago, but only am getting around to posting it now. It was a great day at a new spot close to my usual stomping grounds. I was hunting under a bridge the week before when someone walking the path next to it asked if I had any luck - his name was Leo, and we actually recognized each other as both of us have posted about some of our Austin finds on reddit before. (PS - pardon the picture quality, most of these are screenshots from video) He invited me to hunt with him at a spot of his on the same creek close by sometime. I was of course quite curious about where that could be, as I thought I've already done some pretty boisterous trekking along this creek before in pursuit of fossils. Since he immigrated a couple years ago, he passed time walking his dog along this creek, and discovered there were fossils around that way. After training his eye a bit more than a year and half (about twice as long as me!) he's practically mastered this stretch of creek, and he's yielded a few fantastic spots. We shared some spots in common, but those that I didn't know about far exceeded my expectations for this creek. We chose a cool weekend, a week after a strong storm. I didn't film or take any pictures until about an hour in, but there were a couple small cretaceous teeth, and a nice quality bison tooth. All his finds. After an hour or so, I was finally getting into the rhythm of things. It usually takes an hour or so for me to break into a new spot, and to start spotting things. My first real find set the tone for the rest of the day: Here it is insitu: And once I pulled it out: This was my second Mosasaur tooth (likely Tylosaur) from the Ozan of Austin. My other one is larger, and better preserved, but this nonetheless had both of us blowing our tops off with excitement. About 5 seconds after picking this up, Leo picked up another tooth, this time Scapanorynchus, sitting 10 inches away. It's an epic memory On the same gravel bed, Leo then found our target for the day. He showed me some of the Ptychodus specimens he's found at this spot - all large, perfectly preserved, and from several different species. I was really crossing my fingers for one of equal stature this day. Leo, maybe about 10 minutes after our mosasaur meltdown, then pulls this beauty out of the gravel: It's a little more worn than his others, and this one is much darker, but still great quality and HUGE in my eyes. I know Ptychodus mortoni can sometimes get substantially larger, but this is by far still the best tooth I've ever laid eyes on. It's also in better condition than this screenshot implies. The air was electric now - the energy for at least two hours afterwards was full throttle, as we both were expecting to turn our head any minute and make the next great find. Here are some highlights (chunkasaur piece from me, the great Mosy vert from Leo) (Piece of what would've been a great Ptychodus from me) (Great Bison tooth from Leo - I have NEVER managed to find a completely black bison tooth from this area. I've found maybe 10 or 11, all at various stages of preservation, but never a fully fossilized (black or orange) tooth. Quite jealous! These seem to be casual finds for Leo!) (Squalicorax hiding in the gravel from me) (Some chunks like this are strangely reminiscent of wood, rather than bone... could this be petrified driftwood?) (Enchodus palatine from me) (Scapanorynchus - ol' faithful) (Particularly wrinkly mammal enamel - not so sure of my initial ID of bison I had in mind ) (Cretolamna (I think) sitting in the gravel, from me - I'll gladly be corrected if I'm wrong) Then, Leo made the next great find. If we were fired up before, NOW we were in another dimension... two big mosasaur teeth in 40 minutes! From Austin?? This was nuts! We moved maybe 20 more meters up again - this was all still on the same bend of the creek. Leo was hoping for arrowheads this whole time - me not as much - before this day they didn't really interest me... but all it took was one good find. Here was my first point of the day, and my second point ever - first insitu and then in hand. It was ID'd as a "Darl", and would've tipped an Atlatl dart. The age is between 1,000-3,000 years. A few meters away, Leo found this rib with strong signs of preservation, but not fossilized yet - It was quite late in the afternoon, and Leo still wanted to get me to a big exposure he thought I'd like. On the way there, we chatted, with me learning a bit about points while he learned a bit about fossils. We finally made it to a grandiose exposure - the tallest one of it's nature I've ever seen. Dark clays and shales filled the bottom half, and I'm sure this was where many of the fossils we found were washing down from. Ironically enough, it was not Cretaceous stuff that stood out here . I found my third point- this one broken in half. It's a "Perdenales", and is between 2,000-3,000 years old Close by, there was a large bone half buried in the gravel - I think it's the lower leg bone of a bison, that would be below the knee: And last but not least, some other finds we made heading back before the sun went down. One of the bison teeth I found, with phosphate starting to leech in the cracks of enamel to begin the fossilization process, the top of a point that Leo found, and a completely bizarre deep red piece of mammal enamel (I assume Bison). The picture doesn't do it justice - it's deeply blood red. It was a great day, and I'm grateful to Leo for showing me around his hunting grounds. Can't wait to see what last nights storm will do for this place!

Found on river gravel bar in Sothern Minnesota. I know its a partial bovid skull - any ideas on species? I'm thinking young male bison. Sediments in the area range from cretaceous to holocoen with a good amount of Wisconsin lobe glacial till. Previously we have found bison, mammoth, and ancient horse...

Hey folks! I found this tooth while walking through the castle river in southern Alberta, in the mountains. It was lying on the river gravels; the river is very low currently and would normally be flowing over where i found the tooth. I've read a few posts here regarding the debate of cow vs bison, I think this stylid seems to me quite prominent but, I'm no expert! Heh. Sorry about the ruler being in inches, it was the only one i could find! It doesn't seem to be fossilized at all but from wear and color I would say it is fairly old. Bison used to be in this area in pre-settler times so I feel like it could be a bison tooth from a few hundred years ago? Or I'm hoping? Hahaha. Any help would be amazing!!