Search the Community

i don't know much at all about Cretaceous crocodiles other than there were a ton of them. From what I hear, so many it's difficult to ID even if you have a good amount of an animals fossils, unless it's one of the number of very unique looking species that have a clear signiture. Sadly I'm guessing this fits into the former;difficult/near impossible to ID from just this. *Its a Cretaceous species, from the second phosphatic layer of the phosphate mines in the suburb of Khouribga, Morocco.

@Cris and myself went on another brutally hot fossil hunt to the creek yesterday. We went for just a few hours, and were very pleased with the results! We found a couple roughed up Megalodon teeth, some very nice Mako's, a big crocodile tooth, and my favorite find of the day was a killer three-toed horse tooth! I'm gonna go rest my back now

Dear all, I started this new topic to receive your help in identify those teeth. I bought them many, many years ago as crocodile teeth. I do not remember exactly, but maybe I bought the bigger one in Morocco (not sure!). Today I would say that are mosasaur teeth. Crocodile or mosasaur? Thank you!

G'day all! After three years since my last visit to the UK, i finally returned in December 2017 for another massive collecting trip across England. This was my most ambitious tour of the UK's Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrate deposits thus far, with 20 days of collecting across ten different locations. These were (in chronological order from first visit): Abbey Wood in East London Beltinge in Kent Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight Compton Bay to Grange Chine on the Isle of Wight Lyme Regis to Charmouth in Dorset Aust Cliff in Gloucestershire Saltwick Bay in Yorkshire Kings dyke in Cambridgeshire Minster in Kent Tankerton in Kent. If you went collecting at any of these places in the last month, there's probably a 25.6975% chance you saw me looking very intimidating hunched over in my hooded rain jacket and muddy pants 14 of those collecting days were back-to-back, a new record for me, though it was very tiring! Having just come from the hot Australian summer, winter collecting in England was certainly a challenge at times and my fingers and toes froze to the point i could barely feel them on multiple occasions. Temperatures for many of the days reached 0 degrees celcius or below, with ice on the ground around me and even snow falling while i was trying to collect! I also went out during the middle of the night to collect using a head torch on some occasions (mainly at Bouldnor) due to the tidal conditions and bad weather which prevented collecting during the day. All in all i am certainly pleased with how the trip went, i was successful at all locations with the exception of Tankerton. For some of the locations (Aust Cliff, Kings dyke, Saltwick Bay) it was also my first and only visit, so i'm glad i still managed to do well with no prior experience at these sites and with such limited time at each. I have tried to write this trip report not only as a means of showing you guys my finds but also to provide an informative overview of some of the better locations for Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates across England for others who might be planning similar trips. Anyway, here are the results! Pictures will be spread across the next 12 posts due to file size restrictions. Abbey Wood - East London (6/12/17, 30/12/17 and 31/12/17) Formation: Blackheath ('Lesnes Shell Bed') Deposit Age: 54.5 million years (Eocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, bony fish, chimaeroids, bivalves, gastropods, rare mammals, turtles and crocodiles This was one of only two inland locations i visited (the other being Kings dyke). As i have found, the majority of the UK's easily accessible fossil collecting locations are coastal! Abbey Wood is an excellent location just 45 minutes on the tube from central London. It is situated in a park called the Lesnes Abbey Woods and there is a small collecting area that is open to the public for shallow digging (see my first two pictures below). You definitely need a sifter, shovel and basin of water at this location to have any real success. Be warned though that once you combine the fine Blackheath sediments with water during sifting you get some pretty gnarly mud so expect to come away from this site looking like you've just been rolling around in the dirt. I'm sure i got some interesting looks from people on the tube going back to London it was all worth it though, as every single sift load produced at least one shark tooth across the three days i visited. Very impressive considering the number of obvious holes dotted around the ground from years worth of other collectors visiting. It should be noted though that the mammalian material from this location is of high scientific importance, and collecting here is allowed on the condition that any mammalian finds be brought to the attention of and handed in to specialists like Dr Jerry hooker at the Natural History Museum in London. I didn't find any such material on my trips unfortunately. Here is the designated collecting area. The statue at the front is of Coryphodon, one of the rare Eocene mammals that has been found at the site. The full haul of shark teeth from three days of sifting in the collecting area. Most are from Striatolamia and Sylvestrilamia. I gave up trying to count them once i got past 100 Some of the other fishy bits that often turn up during sifting, including guitar fish teeth on the far left and two dermal denticles (Hypolophodon sylvestris), one gar pike fish tooth in the middle (Lepisosteus suessionensis), one shark vertebra down the bottom and unidentified bony fish vertebrae on the right. I don't typically collect shells, but i picked these up for the sake of adding a bit more diversity to my Abbey Wood collection. These are bivalves and gastropods of various species. The molluscan diversity from this one location is actually quite impressive. Beltinge - Kent (7/12/17 and 29/12/17) Formation: Upnor ('Beltinge Fish Bed') Deposit Age: 56.5 million years old (Paleocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, chimaeroids, bony fish, rays, turtles, crocodiles, bivalves, wood This is my favourite shark tooth collecting location in the UK and probably my favourite that i have visited anywhere so far. The shoreline directly opposite the access point at the end of Reculver Drive in Beltinge is loaded with teeth and dare i say it's impossible to come here and walk away empty handed. The shore however is very flat so there is generally only about a two hour window of time that collecting can be carried out here, one hour either side of low tide. Conditions can also vary depending on how sanded over the shore is, whether the Beltinge Fish Bed itself is exposed and how low the tide drops. However even on a poor day you will still find teeth here, just not as many! I experienced this first hand as the first day i visited on December 7th the conditions were excellent. The tide dropped quite low, there wasn't too much sand covering the clay and the Beltinge Fish Bed was exposed. This allowed direct in-situ collecting of teeth from this rich layer and i ended up with something like 240 teeth from just a couple of hours of looking. The second visit i made on December 29 of the same month was almost the exact opposite. It's amazing how quickly these coastal locations can change! The shore was largely sanded over, the fish bed was covered and the tide didn't drop anywhere near as much. I was out about the same amount of time as the first but only managed 69 teeth (only ). Keep these things in mind if you are planning a visit. Luckily though i didn't just find shark teeth, i also managed to locate some of the other less common finds as you will see below! Here is the area of shoreline that produces teeth, photographed on December 7th. It was quite cold and rainy! Three teeth sitting next to each other as found. More as-found shark teeth. This one made me quite excited when i saw it. It's a large piece of chimaeroid fish jaw and mouthplate coming straight from the Beltinge Fish Bed itself (the darker, dull-green sandy clay in this picture). Beltinge is continued in the next post.

@Cris and myself went out to the creek a few days in hopes of finding some fossils! It was HOT, there were bugs everywhere, and thunderstorms all around, but we still had a fun day. The fossil finds were not as plentiful as hoped for, but not every day can be insane! We still had an amazing time and ended up coming home with some cool fossils. Photo of the finds is below if you can't watch the video!

These two vertebrae were found in a Lance formation channel deposit last month. The guide w/ me said they were both crocodile. I thought I would post their pictures see what you all think. 1. Cervical?

Now I have seen many people state their fossils are from the kem kem beds and this normally follows taouz or begga ..but what exactly is this magically formation that gives us so many fossils? Well to start with the kem kem beds are composed in my opinion of two formation the earliest being the Aoufous and the earlier being the Ifezouane, and thats great but what are there how can I tell if my fossil dinosaur tooth comes from either one of these formations? That's a good question and while the Ifezouane formation to me remains a much of a mystery as I have only ever dug in this area twice here is a general description the fossils are usually lighter in color can range anything from light sand to heavy conglomerate depending on where you dig, the fossils from this formation are normally more water worn and the layer that produces the greatest abundance are usually fast moving river deposits. Now onto the formation I know too well at this point and how do I know it so well? that's a good question the area I dig is only comprised of the aoufous formation. How do I know this well you can keep digging downwards but you get nothing this area missed out on the earlier formation and for this reason I keep it a knowledgeable secret not for stop people from having fun but this area only the father and son mine (and they claim the land is theirs ...i'm not going to get into politics in this topic) but now comes a further question well there is just the aoufous you are digging in yeah? ....well nope there are four layers to this formation mostly comprised of clay and sand but always a mix of two these photographs might help show this the bottom aka the floor is a layer and the roof is also a layer.

Hi! I also found this today but it looks like some kind of eggs.Like a nest with eggs to be exact.I found it in Popovac Marlstone Quarry. Here has been found Diplocynodon moraviensis,so maybe this could be from Him? Also maybe concretion...I need your thoughts! Thanks

Bone? Just found this over the weekend. About 5 to 6 inches. Solid rock. I've found a Mosasaur vert and another mystery bone in the same spot, previously. Would love to hear thoughts.

Something that comes up for me now and again(like right now), is when someone is selling a fossil of something that is extremely rare, or maybe BEYOND extremely rare. Is there an easy place to check that kinda stuff? Find out if fossils are being found of them? Specifically Ive seen sarchosuchus teeth and scutes for sale, but as far as I know, only 1 specimen has ever been found, and that was only the skull, and....I dunno, maybe a few verts or something. Even if a number more have been found, like a dozen individuals or something, there's really no way you would ever find something like that for sale would you? And if you did, it would HAVE to be in the hundreds of thousands or millions, or something?

Hello everyone! I hoping to get some clarification to help differentiate Cretaceous crocodile teeth from Mosasaur teeth. These two were found in the New Jersey Cretaceous. The first one is a shade under 1/2 an inch. It is conical and doesn't appear to have any cutting edges (but they could be worn off). I was leaning towards Mosasaur tooth on the second one because of the size of 8/10ths' of an inch, but it is slightly more slender than my other Mosasaur teeth, very conical and the root looked a bit different. It appears to have one very weak cutting edge but I'm not positive. It was pointed out to me that crocodile teeth roots tend to have concentric rings so I was wondering what everyone thought regarding these guys. Thanks! @Plax @josephstrizhak

Does anyone know if toys/models of Steneosaurus (the slender-bodied longirostral Jurassic teleosaurid crocodyliform often found in Europe and the UK) exist? I'd like to get one if I can.

Hi friends, Recently I've received this neural arch from Kem Kem beds. It was identified as Spinosaur vertebra...but I'm not sure on this identification, then I'd like some help....someone who can help me, please? could be really a spinosaur or a crocrodile? Below follow three photos of the same vertebra Thanks

I bought this interesting jaw which the seller said is a section of the upper croc jaw. He said it could be Elosuchus. What do you think? This is from the kemkem beds. I've lowed the size of the images so I can upload more.

Hi all, I have a mysterious croc tooth that needs identifying. It measures 7cm in a straight line, with a crown length of 3cm. It was found in a backwater near Savannah, Georgia. It came out of an old stream bed eroding out. The area is normally a Miocene deposit where there are Gavialosuchus americanus but the original owner (who is a fossil croc expert) sincerely believes it's something else as there are supposedly earlier deposits there as well. He thinks it is from the lineage of Deinosuchus. Has anyone seen such croc/alligator teeth in Georgia? Has anyone heard of late Cretaceous deposits near Savannah? Thank you.

Hi all, Bought this little tooth for a low price. It was sold as an Elosuchus crocodile tooth. Is that correct? It's from the Kem Kem beds, Morocco. There are two small cutting edges, each on either side of the tooth (photos 1 and 3) (photo 2 is not a cutting edge I think, as it looks more like a split/groove in the tooth). I can always make more pictures if needed. Thanks in advance for replies! Max