Search the Community

Hey guys. I decided to share with you my two very recent reptile fossils that a friend kindly gave to me as a late birthday gift. It is a incredibly detailed neural arch bone (I believe) from a Plesiosaur. Feel free to tell me which part of the skull this belonged to as I can’t find any answers on Internet. The second gift is a amazing ichthyosaurus plate with from left to right: - a ichthy skull bone - a small paddle bone -a rib -a cute little worn tooth ( very interesting because you can see the inside) Also added to those are three fossils I bought at Lyme Regis : ichthyosaurus : vertebra,vertebra and paddle bone. The smaller piece I believe it to be a paddle bone (found it myself). The big vertebra I believe is from an adult Ichthyosaurus. That is it for my british reptile fossils, always eager to get more regards

The tide tables for the Bank Holiday weekend suggested we should perhaps make a return visit to Beltinge to search for more sharks teeth, but the weather forecast put us off; predicted onshore winds would probably hold the water in the estuary preventing the best parts of the beach from being uncovered. So, having been offered the use of a caravan on the north Norfolk coast, we decided a change of scene would be interesting and looked forward to the challenge of a new beach to search. East Runton and West Runton beaches are famous for their geology and wealth of fossils. Rocks from the Cretaceous onwards are present and a wide variety of finds can be made if conditions are favourable. Several recent postings on social media showed some lovely mammoth teeth and other bones had been found, probably brought ashore by the strong north-easterly winds during the winter and early spring. Due to other commitments we didn't arrive until late on Sunday night. The following morning we were greeted by bright sunshine but there was no rush to get down to the beach as the tide wasn't due to uncover the foreshore until late morning. After a leisurely breakfast we headed down to the beach. Unfortunately for most of the holidaymakers, the northerly breeze had brought thick fog off the sea and it clung to the coast, turning the conditions decidedly cold and damp - not good for making sandcastles and having picnics, but fine for fossil hunting! The majority of the morning visitors had abandoned the beach and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Looking east towards Cromer. Not much sign of spring bank holiday visitors!

Hi. I found this in Dorset UK the pictures dont show as much detail as you can see in person, looks like you can see scales and possibly fins. I can see the bones of the head and neck possibly backbone but not sure what exactly it is

Hello all, This is my first posting on the forum, but I have been avidly consuming its contents for quite a while. To start off, I thought members might like to hear of my recent visit to one of England's finest sites for Eocene sharks teeth: Beltinge, near Herne Bay in Kent in the far south-east of Britain. I was born a few miles along the coast and, in my youth, was aware of the possibility of finding fossils at Beltinge, but never discovered much during a few half-hearted teenage searches. My mother still lives where I grew up and I take my family to see her four or five times a year. During these holidays we spend as much time as possible scouring the beaches for fossils and other beach treasures. Our latest trip at Easter coincided with some of the lowest tides of the year. Combined with favourable winds and a fine weather forecast it looked like we might get lucky... Beltinge is famous for its sharks teeth which are eroded out of the 'Beltinge Fish Bed' where it is exposed on the foreshore. As such, fossil hunting is entirely tidal dependent and the best conditions occur when the lowest tides coincide with offshore winds; the retreating sea reveals areas of the beach that are usually submerged. On good days there can be several dozen people searching and it's not unknown for coach loads of Dutch, Belgian or German enthusiasts to descend on the best areas. There is plenty of beach to search but the most productive areas are exposed for less than an hour so competition can get a bit fierce and the tide waits for no man... To maximise my chances of success I had a few tricks up my sleeve. The lowest tides over the Easter period were all very early in the morning so I had packed my high-powered fell-running headtorch. The plan was to head down before sunrise, get on the beach as the tide receded and start searching by torchlight. I assumed nobody else would be as keen, most sensible people waiting until it was properly light. Thus I was rather surprised, when I arrived at the car park at 04:30hrs, to see a small bright light in the darkness, bobbing down the path below me towards the beach. It didn't take me long to get kitted up and fully equipped to set out and follow the unknown stranger down onto the foreshore. The tide was already heading out very quickly and there were plenty of patches of pebbles and shingle to search through. I had not tried hunting by torchlight before and soon discovered it wasn't as easy as I hoped; I needed to keep the beam at the correct angle to prevent it reflecting back off the glistening sand and rockpools and temporarily blinding me. Fossils were proving elusive but the favoured areas were not yet exposed. By the time the sun finally rose at 06:38hrs I had found around twenty small and mostly broken teeth and a fragment of chimaera mouth part; not a lot to show for nearly two hours of searching. Sunrise over Reculver Towers at low tide, 06:38hrs Good Friday 30th March 2018. The only other pre-dawn 'enthusiast' can be made out crouched by the tideline at the left; he has found what is usually the best area. It was a relief to turn off my headtorch and look using natural light. It was now dead low tide. The other person was already sorting through the best exposure and I joined him, starting from the opposite end. The pebble and shingle bank was mostly clear of sediment. Sharks teeth started appearing as if by magic, most of them lying on the surface and very obvious. Quite frequently I would spot one and then notice two or three more as I reached down to pick it up. My collection pot was starting to feel 'weighty' and the buzz from finding so many made me forget my aching back and neck. So far I haven't mentioned the techniques required for finding stuff at Beltinge. Everyone seems to do it slightly differently, but basically it involves crouching or kneeling down and peering intently at the patches of shingle, picking up whatever you spot and popping it into a pot to be examined later once the tide has covered up the beach. There is no point wasting valuable time cleaning and checking every item when the tide is inexorably advancing. Some people use a kneeling pad, others don't. A few prefer to put spoonfulls of shingle into a sieve, rinse them in the sea and them check through the contents. Tweezers, tongs, forceps, blunt knives and other implements can be used as aids to pick up the fossils but fingertips are just as effective although they can get very cold. Whatever method is used you can't avoid getting a very sore back and neck from stooping down. / Can you spot it? A fairly typical find in a pretty standard situation. By 07:30hrs several other people have joined us on the beach, all searching in the best area, but the tide has started coming back in and it's now a race against time. I notice a chap working a little further east along the beach. He is using a large circular panning sieve and concentrating on an area of shelly shingle very different in texture to the pebble bank. His name is Tim and he tells me he has been 'harvesting' the teeth for nearly 40 years. He can no longer look using the usual methods as his back and knees won't allow it and his eyesight is no longer good enough either. He produces a sizeable handful of sharks teeth from his coat pocket and it's clear his method is very efficient; most of them are large and complete! He has also found four bony fish vertebrae and a large piece of chimaera jaw. The advancing waters push us further and further up the beach and the rate of finds drops rapidly as we are confined to areas that have been scoured many times. There are still surprises to be discovered and I'm delighted to stumble across a large, if somewhat battered, Otodus tooth. These are not common at Beltinge and it's only the second example I have ever found. Otodus obliquus, or minimeg as my 12 year old son likes to call it. Before the waters consume all the best areas I put my second secret weapon into action. I have brought along a bucket, a garden trowel and a 1mm metal kitchen sieve. I use these to collect as much suitable shingle and small pebble patches as I can from around the boulders and beds, which I can then sort through at my leisure once we return home after the holiday. There's nothing like being able to continue the hunt when you're 200 miles from the sea and you don't have to worry about the tide coming in! Eventually, all the other fossil hunters depart and I'm left on my own. The tide has covered almost all the foreshore; only The Rand is left exposed. This is the local name for a large raised bank of pebbles and mussels that juts out perpendicularly into the sea. It used to be a prime site for fossils but the building of sea defences, discovery of King Ragworm by bait diggers and encroachment by invasive American Slipper Limpets have resulted in it becoming resistant to wave action and far less productive for fossil hunters. Still, it's the only area remaining and I have found some nice pieces there in the past. I search, mostly in vain, until the tide finally reclaims the last outcrops and I'm forced off the beach onto the promenade. It's now 09:00hrs, the weather is gorgeous - sunny, calm and warm - and the seafront has been claimed by dog walkers, joggers and cyclists so I head home for a well-earned breakfast. Later on in the day I wash all the finds in fresh water and lay them out on kitchen towel to dry before sorting through them. It's been a very successful morning. The break down of finds is as follows: Striatolamia macrota 71 (11 complete) Carcharias hopei 46 (7 complete) Palaeohypotodus rutoti 6 (2 complete) Sylvestrilamia teretidens 2 complete Odontaspis winkleri 2 (1 complete) Chimaera jaw fragment 4 Ray dental plate piece 1 Turtle carapace fragment 1 Striatolamia macrota. A big anterior. Striatolamia macrota. Some very tiny laterals (mm scale bar) So ends day one. The early start was definitely worth it. I have never experienced such a low tide and the potential it uncovers. I still have four more days to go. Can't wait until tomorrow...

I am very fortunate that our house is built upon Jurassic rocks so I can go fossil hunting in my own back garden! I'm doubly lucky that there is also a small brook at the end of our garden, the stream bed gravels of which are amazingly fossil rich. Over the years we have found many, many gryphaea - they're extraordinarily common - plus good numbers of Belemnites, pentacrinites crinoid stems, bivalves, ammonites and kuldrinchnium (infilled anemone burrows). Our 'beach'. The bridge interrupts the stream flow causing deposition of new gravels during winter floods. Today was the first nice sunny day for over a week. After returning from work I mowed the lawns front and back then had half an hour spare before the boys returned from school. Until recently the water level in the brook has been very high (we've had a very wet winter and early spring) so this was the first chance I have had to see if anything new has been unearthed from the gravels.

I bought this ammonite at the MAPS fossil show recently and I'm going to make a unique display for it. The old label that came with it is what caught my eye at first then I picked it up and held it up to the light. The calcite filled chambers are translucent and "glow" nicely when back-lighted. I have a few ideas on how to display this guy but would like some input. I will post pics to this thread when I have started to work on this so stay tuned. Thanks mikeymig

Hello everyone! I am very excited; In 2 weeks I am going fossil hunting on the Jurassic coast of Lyme Regis,Charmouth and the nearby fossil beaches. I have already went to Lyme Regis when I was a kid and all I remember was spending hours flipping stone for small ammonites. I would need some advice... Where are the best places and areas to find fossils,I am really on a vertebrate hunt more than a invertebrate one but it’s cool to come across some aswell. I am considering doing a guided tour with a professional fossil expert from Lyme Regis. Do you have any suggestions/advice/addresses? I would also be looking for the best fossil shops around Lyme Regis and Charmout, I know they are a few, I just don’t know which are the best and worth it. Any English fossil experts? Really Appreciate all the help and suggestions Kind regards.

Hi everyone, We found this unusual looking ?fossil? at Seaham in the shoreline. The pattern on it is striking but what was unexpected is that it is on both sides. The whole item is about 2 inches thick and curved. It looks like the pattern on it is quite worn but is still visible. My first thought was is was bark of some kind as I know plant fossils are common at Seaham but when I discovered it was both sides I joked that it looked more like part of a body of a fish. I would appreciate any input - probably nothing that exciting. Photos show each side of the item.

Funny story with this one, these are from a hunt from about a year ago. I put my bag in the washer and when taking it out this fell out. Lucky it survived after a wash. These are very small ones if they are belemnites.

Hello everyone , Thank you in advance as this forum and in particular the fossil identification will help with the inevitable what's this dad questions in the summer when me and my eldest daughter Ruth go hunting again

This small crocodilian fossil was collected on the beach at Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It comes from the Bouldnor Formation and is about 33 million years old. I'm certain it is crocodilian (from the small aligatorid Diplocynodon) based on the distinctive pitted texture. Scutes and vertebrae from this small croc are fairly common finds on this coastline. However this particular piece has stumped me, it is 3D and hollow on the inside, not like any scute i've picked up. I was thinking it must be some sort of skull element but i'd appreciate any help to rectify this! It measures 4 cm long.

Just watched this fascinating documentary.

Hi all, I recently found this massive bowling ball sized rock at Saltwick Bay near Whitby on the Yorkshire coast (Northern England). It is lower to middle Jurassic, i think about 180-170 million years old (possibly the Whitby Mudstone Formation). As you can see it it's full of various bones, which occur on almost all sides of the rock so they are probably running right through it. Prep for this one is going to be a nightmare i can tell and i don't have the right tools, but for now i really just want to try and figure out what i've got. I think it's fair to assume the bones are associated. The options for this bit of coast are fish (Gyrosteus), ichthyosaur, marine crocodile, plesiosaur or dinosaur. I was hoping based on the cross sectional shapes of some of the bones, and the texture of the bone itself, someone would be able to narrow down what it might be. Fish or reptile would be the first thing to determine. My obvious first assumption was marine reptile, but some of the fish on the Yorkshire coast like Gyrosteus are also huge (5m long) and i'm not very familiar with their bone structure. In this picture, i thought the rectangular bone towards the bottom might be a vertebra in cross-section. If so, from what? Could it be the edge of an ichthyosaur vertebra before it dips down in the centre? This bone is the biggest in the block, about 8 cm long and 3 cm thick. Continued in the next post!

Collected recently from Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight. It is about 33 million years old (earliest Oligocene). Fossils of turtles, a small alligatorid (Diplocynodon) and land mammals (most commonly anthracotheres) are the usual finds. This is the first ungual i have ever found from this location, and i am having trouble finding images of other examples to compare with. It measures 18mm long. I first thought crocodile when i collected it, but i would like other opinions. I'm now tossing up between mammalian and crocodilian. I understand going further than that will probably not be possible. Cheers!

Hi I bought this pterosaur tooth. On the specimen there are also numerous remains of fish and sharks. But one tooth is different. Did he belong to another reptile or brachiopod?

Hello, I am new to this forum but not new to other UK forums or fossils. I live in the West Midlands, England. I have been interested in fossils since 1992. My current fossil interests are fossils under the microscope, I have larger ones in my collection but I have been studying for 9 years now ones from the Oxford Clay, from which I have found two new species of Brittle Star. For many years my favourite place to go is the Isle of Wight. Looking forward to reading lots of posts and learning even more.

HI, I'm Sharkyy I'm new to the forum I have been in to collecting fossils for the past 15years. I live in England all my life. The reason I have come to the forum, is learn new things and learn what's being found in our world. Also I would like to show my find to the public as we all have material that have been in the ground for millions of years untouched by man.

Does anyone know of a good site for Riker cases located in the UK, besides Just In Case? They are not only pricey, but mostly sold out every time I visit their site. Thanks!

Paleoniscum freieslebeni I thought you would like to see a complete fish that was found in 2001 and was donated to a geologist friend of mine for his lectures. Never taking my brother with me again as it was him that uncovered it, lump hammer and bolster chisel, he is 6 foot and has the weight to split the large slab it came out of, after that he panicked and did not know what to do, sis to the rescue. No prepping needed except to cut the block down to size, magnificent blue enamel like scales right down to the tip of its tail. Nose to tail 9 inches with only a few scales missing. Will post some more fish photos from the area later. A jaw with teeth from the same quarry and other complete and nearly complete from one nearby, different year. Watch this space. Enjoy

Hi everyone, i don't know if this is the right section; if it's no, i'm sorry. I want to become a paleontologist, I was suggested to continue my studies at the University of Bristol. Can anybody give me some general information about Bristol or suggest other universities in Europe, where i can continue my studies?

Out hunting today on Whitby Jurassic coast and came across this beauty, measures 10", now I have came across bits n pieces of these in the past but never a complete specimen, does anyone know the name and how would I go about prepping this ? Worth polishing for best results ? Thanks.

Took a family trip to Saltburn yesterday, just up from where we normally go (Redcar) and made some discoveries, one of which looks like a nautiloid. I made a video of that last one, the possible nautiloid:

I found this some time ago on the coast of Lyme Regis. Cant identify it. Its like 20 cmt long