Search the Community

Usually when I hunt, I stay in the same location as long as I am finding enough to justify my efforts. There were lots of larger rocks and digging was strenuous. After 2 hours, I started "prospecting" downstream looking for easier and more productive places to dig, About the 3rd place I tried, BINGO.. I was finding some almost perfect small Hemis and Tigers..easy on the eyes. Then some interesting ear bones showed up.. The 1st could be horse although it has some extra features. The 2nd is almost certainly Dolphin. Not sure if it is broken or not. Then a number of fossils , I could use help on.... A tiny 20mm black fish with curious scales... Broken Echinoids A mud rock with some Boytriodal on it.... Daniel, can to ID the fauna from its tooth enamel.. This 30 mm enamel is new to me.. There were lots of flakes but no artifacts.. meaning that this was not a manufacturing site, just a source of materials, silicified barnacles, shell, urchin spines, sections of dugong rib etc. All in all, just the type of place that could keep a fossil hunter on the edge of anticipation... Enjoy. Jack

I recently had a great chat with Ben Francischelli, a paleontologist from Melbourne, Australia, doing an amazing job finding fossils and very involved in scientific outreach. He talked about the fossils he and some citizen scientists found in 2022 across a number of sites. Sooooo many shark teeth, whale teeth, cetacean ear bones and crazy giant marsupials! He is on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_fools_experiment/ Check out his LinkTree for other cool links (YouTube, Patreon, papers etc) https://linktr.ee/a_fools_experiment

Out with my most frequent hunting partner. With the cold weather turning warmer, and the river dropping, we have been prospecting sites that proved productive in previous seasons. It does not always pay off.. sometimes the locations have been covered by feet of sand or the gravel we were digging in last year has been carried downstream to parts unknown. Today was sunny and warm, we checked one location for 90 minutes followed by another and both were good (lots of small shark teeth) but not great.. We moved to a third location that we had hunted extensively in previous years and once again it has some real potential for finds that are new and rare.... This was my first hint.... I have found 1 equivalent and 1 better in 15 years.. They tend to be fragile in the churn of the Peace River... This was next, once again rare for the instance. I believe it is an Osteoderm, but what mammal and where on the body is it positioned? Then this Cetacean ear bone, I need some time to try and ID but more likely , I need @Boesse to validate any ID I make.. Then , while I was thinking about Cetaceans... This showed up in my sieve... There were many Hemis, Aduncus/Contortous, half a shark vert, many in good shape. I will sort them tomorrow. My partner found a fish tooth, very small Armadillo edge vert, and at the end of the day contributed this rarity... I am jealous. At 3 inches, I think it may be from a big toothed whale.... One of those great days on the Peace River... I am indeed fortunate...

Hey all, Part 2 of my blog series on whale and dolphin earbones is here - my guide to identifying isolated dolphin/toothed whale (Odontoceti) periotic bones. Check it out here: https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2023/01/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html Sample image:

Hi all - it's been a while, since I started on twitter and started teaching much of the itch I scratched through blog writing was taken care of by twitter - but now I've thought about returning to more long-format science communication. The blog format is certainly more informative for most fossil collectors anyway. The new post is just the first in a series on whale and dolphin earbones - the first is an introduction to the basic anatomy and function of earbones, along with basic differences between baleen whale (Mysticeti) and dolphin (Odontoceti) earbones, with comments on their preservation, discovery, and their uses in cetacean taxonomy, cladistics, and studies of diversity. The next post will be the one most anticipated by the majority of collectors - a guide to identifying dolphin periotics by family. The third post will be similar, but directed towards mysticete periotics, and the fourth will cover mysticete and odontocete tympanic bullae. Read it here: https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2022/12/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html Obligatory photo of some periotics we collected out on Charleston harbor on Dec. 1, well worth boots full of freezing cold water: