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A 10 day vacation to Florida allowed me to collect from 4 different locations. Hopefully @MikeR can help out with the bivalves and gastropods! First up is Cookie Cutter Creek. 1. Is this a bone? If so, type of bone and any thoughts to the small creature it came from? It is 4 mm long, so TINY. Next are Peace River unknowns is a type of shark tooth. The pointy part reminds me of lemon shark, but there are serrations along the root. 2. IDed as possibly Carcharhinus falcimormis; silky shark. 3. Probably no way to identify, but am open to suggestions. The next two fossils came from Yankeetown. 4. This small gastropod underwent some sort of crystallization/silicification. It's beauty does not show up well in the photo. It seems I read once that this occurs locally to the shells. 5. is a small Yankeetown echinoid. Not much for external markings. Maybe water worn? The rest of the fossils likely came from the Tamiami Formation in Sarasota County, though a little further south than I am used to collecting in. Inprevious years, I have collected the more dramatic gastropods and bivalves of the formation. This year, I focused on lesser species and new finds for my collection. Many have tentative IDs given based on my limited research. Here goes! 6. I assume this is an Ostrea but could not find an example with such linear lines. 7. A total guess on species. In fact, I am not sure if it is coral or a bryozoan. 8. 9. Some sort of razor clam. 10. 11. This specimen is much larger and wider than Crepidula fornicata. 12. A beat up specimen, but because of the vibrant color, it is worthy to me to ID. 13 14. I thought I verified identification last year, but failed to find it. So a second attempt. 15. 16. The scallop ears are flat on one side and curved on the other. 17. 18. This is the only "olive shell" found. I included it to make sure I was likely in the Tamiami Formation. There was a difference in species found this year, giving me some concern of the formation. . 19 20. 21.

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.

Hello there! Last year, Ken @digit generously gifted me with a bag of "Cookiecutter Creek" micromatrix and I finally found the time to search through it once! The items are really small, but I did manage to find some stuff, and I'm looking for some help with identifications. I don't think I found any cookiecutter teeth, but I did find some other interesting items - please let me know what you think - thanks! Monica I found quite a few "regular" tiny shark teeth, but here are two larger and more interesting ones: Item #1: no idea Item #2: Great white? More to come...

I've spent a little time today picking through some very fine micro-matrix from Cookiecutter Creek. This is material that was caught by my 1/20" sifting screen and is so small that I have to use my camera-microscope to see things clearly. I'm searching for some of the rarer micro-fossils that occur in this creek (and actually make Cookiecutter Shark teeth seem common. Just came across what is probably the smallest Cookiecutter Shark (Isistius triangulus) tooth I think I've ever found. It's one of the posterior teeth from the lower right side. Posterior teeth are smaller and the crown starts forming an angle to the root in comparison to the more anterior teeth which are straighter. This is not the most posterior tooth in the row (called a "commissural" tooth) as these are severely angled and have an interesting extension to one side of the root. This tiny treasure measures only about 2 mm in height and narrower in width (the scale in the photo is 0.5 mm). Just thought you'd want to see one of the smaller of the smalls. Not quite at the level of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) but getting in the neighborhood. Cheers. -Ken

I find these items quite regularly in the Cookiecutter Creek micro-matrix. Mostly, these are smaller or partial but this one with a length of 11 mm turned up yesterday and I figured it would be a good specimen to try to use for an identification. I say tooth-like because of the shiny black enamel-like surface covering 3/4 of the item. The shape of these items is pretty consistent with the "topside" being shiny, convex and mostly smooth except for apparent "growth rings" and the "underside" of the item showing more texture on the enameled surface and a concavity on the non-black end. Is this oddity at all familiar? It seems like I should be able to get a grasp on this but I'm sure I'm misidentifying something like a scale or dermal element as a tooth. I'm certain that it will be blindingly obvious in retrospect but I'm hopelessly fogged at the moment. Cheers. -Ken

Hello everyone! I recently won a "rolling auction" lot that was put up by @digit. Ken sent me a very heavy box that contained the fossils that I won, as well as some additional specimens. This afternoon, while my son was napping, I tried to identify the molluscs that were collected by Ken at Cookiecutter Creek in Florida. What follows are pictures of the specimens that Ken sent me, as well as my guesses regarding their identity (fyi - I searched the online image gallery of the Florida Museum/University of Florida website in order to come up with my guesses). I appreciate any input/guidance that fellow TFF members can give me - thanks in advance!!! Monica Specimens #1 and #2: Bivalves I think that the specimen on top in each picture is Phacoides pectinatus and the specimen on the bottom is Chione chipolana. Please compare with the following images from the Florida Museum: Phacoides pectinatus: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/invertpaleo/display.asp?catalog_number=25110&gallery_type=Florida Mollusca-Bivalvia Chione chipolana: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/invertpaleo/display.asp?catalog_number=73007&gallery_type=Florida Mollusca-Bivalvia

When my wife and I visited Jeff's magical "Cookiecutter Creek" to stock up on some micro-matrix to sort through while the Peace River reloads the gravel beds throughout the summer months, we found a number of bivalve and gastropod shells in this marine fossil deposit. Many of the shells were rather beat up but a few of the bivalves were complete (with a matching set of valves) and a few of the gastropods were acceptably intact enough to collect. The most interesting one we found were a few intact conch shells. From some online image searches I believe this may be (or be related to) Melongena corona, the Florida Crown Conch. The most distinctive and eye-catching aspect of this species is the row of sharp protuberances not only around the upper shoulder of the whorl but also along a second row closer to the anterior canal (opposite the apex). The examples I found seem similar to the shells of the extant Crown Conch but from what I seem to see online the protuberances on the shoulder seem to point more upward toward the apex (forming a bit more of a "crown" in appearance) where on the fossils these points are directed much more outward. Anybody on the forum familiar with the fossil gastropods commonly found in the southwest portion of Florida who would be willing to confirm or suggest a better ID for these intriguing little gastropods? Cheers. -Ken