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These two claws were collected from tar seeps in Kern County, California by the late George Lee back in the 70's. I have seen bird claws identified to species before and would like to know if these two can be as well. A friend has a variety of fossils from there and asked me about these today. The larger claw is 31 mm from tip to most distant part of the back of it. The other is 27 mm. Thanks, Jess

Greetings. Working through my prep pile, I got around to putting the scribe to this tooth. I assume it is a plesiosaur/pliosaur tooth as opposed to some kind of fish, but I'm not sure. I'm curious if someone more knowledgeable could assign this tooth to a genus, if there are sufficient diagnostic features showing. Eagle Ford Group, Balcones Fault Zone, Texas. Thanks

As a generalist, sometimes I like to scratch around in the Eagle Ford Group at various points along the Balcones Fault Zone from the Red River down through DFW, Waco, Austin, San Antonio and out into west Texas. Sites come and go, and wax and wane in productivity. Every now and then I find a new, untapped resource. Some are ephemeral, some have been around for a while, but what they all have in common is that they each seem worth 1 guy’s while at most 1-3 times per year, so I tend to keep strategically silent regarding provenance. I am at liberty, however, to share a few specimen photos from the last year. Let’s start with the last fossil people tend to associate with the Eagle Ford...echinoids. Mecaster batnensis shown below.

I went on a 6 1/2 mile kayak adventure with a couple of friends on the North Sulphur River. We started off the day at 7AM by seeing 2 bald eagles and almost getting one truck stuck in the mud. We managed to get the truck out and started our adventure. As soon as I got down by the bridge I found one of my best artifacts to date and a nice piece of mastodon tooth enamel. We got a mile or so in and something made me ask my friend if he had the keys to his truck that was parked 6 1/2 miles downstream? Lol he had left them in the other truck without thinking. He went back and got his keys and the adventure begin. We saw very little footprints the entire trip. We didn't find many artifacts but I filled up a 1 gallon ziplock with mosasaur bones and other random fossils. One of my friends found his first shark vert, mosasaur vert and point so he was really excited. I gave my new hunter friend all my lower quality items and didn't bother taking pics of them. The water was low in some places so we had to drag the kayaks a lot but it was fun. We were finding so much stuff that we realized we would never make it the other vehicle before night if we did not quit hunting and paddle. It was so hard passing by untouched bars lol. We managed to make it back to the bridge by 7PM which was 12 hours later. Getting the kayaks up the steep bridge at the second location took all 3 men and a long rope. I got home at 9:30 PM. I'm sore but found some great fossils and artifacts. My phone died early in the trip so I missed out on some great pics. For some reason I can only post a few pics at a time since the latest update.

While searching the beach for sea glass near Surfside Texas I came across this fossil. Maybe some sort of eagle claw core?