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When I am running out of time to hunt, I do not take any time to identify a fossil I do not recognize. This was one of those cases. Today, I am sorting and came across this tooth. I have my fingers crossed 1) because I have not found a tooth with the crenulated enamel pattern, and I hope that @Boesse can confirm it as marine mammal. The location is late Miocene, the tooth is 38.6 mm long. I know that this type of marine mammal tooth can occur in Georgia and South Carolina. Have others found similar in Florida. Please post if you have. Comments and suggestions appreciated !!! Jack

I found this yesterday on a fla beach. Appears to be fossilized dental plate from a ray. Can anyone help me verify the ID and estimate the age. Im guessing based on internet photos.

Howdy yall born and raised Hoosier living in Florida the past 8 years. Always since i was little wanted to be an archeologist and travel the world uncovering ancient artifacts. Finally persuing my dream slash the traveling the world part and im hooked. Look forward to seeing yalls discoveries and you mine! Cheers

My husband and I found these 3 bones in the Peace River in Florida. Can anyone identify them for us? This is my first time posting, so I hope the pictures are OK. Thank you so much!

Hello everyone, as the season winds down I’m trying to ID some mystery bones I’ve found through the year, help with which animal is greatly appreciated!Bone #1 a hand/finger bone I thinkBone #2 some kind of magnum

After my fourth trip to the peace river here is my collection of my favorites. No close ups of any single teeth, but I’ve included a shot of four of my favorites. While I love the mammal teeth, my favorites are still shark teeth. It does amaze me the number of Meg pieces you can find. Its just a matter of time before a real nice one comes up in the sifter. That said, I never thought I’d find just piece of one, so overjoyed with what the river gave back. Not shown are the 700 plus other teeth that didn’t make the display.

I haven't posted in a while, but have had some pretty good hunts over the last couple of years. This year has been busy with work. I made it down to the river for some fossil hunting for my first time in 2021 last Friday. I had a really nice day. The weather was beautiful. I had great visiblity. I'm hoping to go again tomorrow. I took some photos of some of the days finds. First photo: - One of the things I was most excited about is a potential talon of a bird of prey. It is broken, but you can see it in the photos below. I am pretty excited about this. I actually bought a couple of fossil eagle claws several years ago. I don't buy many fossils and I really never buy anything that I think I have a chance to come accross in my hunts, so this was totally unexpected. - I also found more shark teeth than usual. A lot of them are in poor condition, but there were a couple that were nice. - I found several gator teeth and a couple osteoderm pieces. These are pretty common from my experience with the area. I do like the one with the root though. None of them are very big. - I found a number of fish spines, scales, mouth plates. Those are all pretty common. - I found three items that i'm not sure of. My guess is that they are turtle beaks, but i'm not sure that's right. If anyone has an ID on that, it would be much appreciated. I don't think I have found these before, but I'm probably just forgetting b/c I found 3 in one day. Second photo: - I found the typical bone fragments and tried not to keep as much broken stuff as I usually do. The cannon bone and the bone above and to the left were found within a few feet of each other just laying on top. I love finding any bones that are complete, and I think a lot of times that happens to be bones in the tow and ankle because they are smaller. I'm not sure the species of what's below, but I would guess horse and deer. I find some smaller bones too which I think are too things like rodents and birds (when hollow), but I'm not 100% sure. I also think I found a fossil twig. The item labeled "Unk 2?" is something that is very common. I always thought these were from turtles, but I'm really not sure. - When I do find bone fragments and they include the connector pieces sometimes I keep them. The one in the second photo seemed like it had a similar shape to the end of the horse cannon, but it is much larger. - I always like finding mammal teeth (several photos). I found a number of mammel teeth, but most were in very poor condition. I think that one of them was from a camel, but i'm not sure. - I think i found the deer hoof claw core, which I was happy to find. I was very happy to see the giant beaver tooth. I think that's the best one I have ever found. The other side doesn't look as good as this side. - I think I found a peice of a rodent jaw. Not my best. I have seen them with teeth and the incisor in the past. - I always love finding canines. This is one of the smallest I have found. I'm guessing racoon, but I really have no idea. Sorry, I don't think the photo is very good on that one. - I also really like turtle shell especially if the patterns on it are nice. I picked up probably way to much, but here are a few of the nicer pieces. - I think that I found a peice of a crab claw, not too pretty, but not something I see a lot of. I have found several peices of what I think are crab shells, I will have to post some somtime. Photo 3 - I think this is a piece of a turtle shell, but it's not very similar to what I usually find. - some additional foot bones (I think) - I am not sure about these other two. I think maybe one is part of an alligator osteoderm and another is part of an alligator skull, but I really don't know. If anyone has any ideas on that, I'd love to hear it. Photo 4: - Partial mastadon tooth. Finding a complete one is on my list of things I would really love to find. I find peices fairly regularly, but this is probably bigger than most. - The top photo on the right, is something I see all the time. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but I think it's some type of fish. - The other photo is a bunch of random stuff, I'm not sure if any of them are interesting, there are some more photos of some of these on the next photo. Photo 5 This photo has a bunch of stuff that I thought was interesting, but I really don't know what they are. Some of them maybe nothing, but if anything looks interesting let me know. If I had to guess: - Unk 3 - maybe just a bone fragment, shape made it seem like a claw core, but not sure - Unk 4 - I was thinking that this might be a part of cannine with the enamel worn down, but I think it's probably just a phosphate pellet - Unk 5 - I thought maybe a tip of a mastadon tooth, but this seems wrong. Not sure. - Unk 6 - not sure... Outer layer seems to be enamel, so i'm thinking some kindof mammel tooth? - Unk 7 - part of an herbivore mammel (horse maybe) tooth that just wore and broke in a weird way? - Unk 8 - maybe just a weird shaped phosphate pellet - Unk 9 - maybe just a broken bit of a tooth. the shape repminds me of a type of sawfish, but I think that would be more flat and less round. - Unk 10 - not sure, just broken bone peice maybe - Unk 11 - not sure maybe a trace fossil

A couple of weeks ago I was in Southern Florida with my wife and my sons family for 8 days. My wife, my 7 year old grandson and your’s truly. During this time I was able to get out and collect fossil Pliocene-Pleistocene shells from the Caloosahatchee Formation. Collecting fossil shells is one of my favorite fossils to collect and I love it when I find complete examples. I have been to the Peace River a couple times, and even stopped there on the way home to take a look at it, it was very shallow, there was a group of people sifting, but I did not partake. I do enjoy collecting fossils from the Peace River, but I would rather collect fossil shells. During this trip I did collect hundreds of fossil shells, but I am only posting a few species of complete fossil bivalves, some of these have predatory drill holes in them. @MikeR hopefully you can let me know how my identification is on the following shells, I tend to mess these up. Eucrassatella speciosa Chione elevata Arcinella cornuta Plicatula marginata Carditamera floridana Same as above- Noetia ponderosa macnelli Lucina pensylyancia Solecurtus cumingianus Arca wagneriana Dosinia elegans

Out again today (4th day this week) trying to beat the summer rains. Big focus is bones, two of them. The 1st bone seems to me to be a Calcaneum. The 2nd Bone.

Every now and then something weird shows up in my sifter. Look at this cute little guy. Hexagonal shape with a faint raised area in the middle. Texture, shape, thickness all seem right for a giant armadillo, but the size is tiny. I've never seen one this small. Can someone confirm or deny this? Could this be from a baby/juvenile? Could it be a baby glyptodont. I'm stumped.

Peace River, Florida

Hey there! My daughter found this broken Molar and we are looking for an ID please. I have a couple ideas but I'm not 100%. She found it in the Peace river. Thank you so much received_346860370331641.mp4

I'm stumped on this oddball. It looks damaged and is suffering from some delamination of the outer shell, but the core is intact and it looks like the entire top chewing surface is visible. What is it? A very worn cetacean tooth? A suggestive broken portion of mammoth tooth? Some other vertebrate critter? Found in the middle Peace River, Bone Valley formation, Hawthorn group - Desoto County Florida. Thanks!

Got up with the chickens yesterday morning and got on the road at 7:00am with my wife Tina, stepdaughter Rebekah, and grandson Ben. Tina, Ben, and I were in "the barge" - my big flat tandem kayak that maneuvers like a battleship. Rebekah took the single kayak. We got to the ramp right about 9:00am and went upstream with the goal of heading far north to a good spot we had scouted previously. Immediately it was obvious that the river was extremely low - lower than I have ever seen it. Several kayakers were launching at the same time as us and most of them didn't look local - it must have been some kind of meetup and group paddle. Only one of them had a sifter visible, so I figured most of them were not hunting. We ended up talking to a nice young woman in a tiny kayak who asked us about this stretch of the river. She had no idea how low it was or how high it could get. She was moving quicker than us and she soon vanished upstream ahead. On the paddle up, we passed a couple of casual hunters in a rented Canoe Escape canoe. They had those scoops on a long handle that is better used at the beach to collect shells. It's not really the right tool for this stretch of the Peace. We exchanged brief pleasantries and moved on - eager to reach the spot I wanted before anyone else could park on it. I hadn't expected so many people on the river on a tuesday, so I was a bit worried about losing our spot. Eventually we stopped seeing people and we took a brief break on the side of the river to catch our breath (I am paddling for three). By this point, we were about half-way to the spot. Already I had to get out of the kayak and pull it over sand in an inch or two of water. The river was so low that this trip was turning into more of a "wet hike" than a paddle. The sun was out and bright, the water was well illuminated, and so I walked in ankle to knee deep water, pulling the tandem kayak behind me while my wife and grandson rode in it like royalty. LOL. On a couple of occasions, everyone had to get out and walk - the water was that shallow. We finally reached our desired spot after almost two hours of walking and paddling. This spot is known to the locals, but it's not hunted as heavily as some of the spots closer to the ramp. I didn't see any bomb craters or recent spoil piles, so I was hopeful we might find some good stuff. With two shovels and two sifters, we took turns and moved a lot of chunky gravel. I must have turned over 100 sifters full and found chunko(a)saurus, turtle, dugong, and tiny teeth. This spot has a ton of large gravel and I started noticing the total lack of quality or larger teeth. It soon became obvious that this gravel bed had been largely hunted out, despite it's seeming remoteness from the ramp. The first thing to go in any gravel bed is the triangles - megs and larger teeth. In a bed this big with gravel this big, we should have found at least a meg or two and many larger snaggles, bulls, etc. Instead, we found tiny teeth and not even many of those. The "triangle hunters" had hit this place up pretty good. Oh well. I did find some decent stuff by digging one deep pit and by sheer volume of gravel searched. I picked up three tiny to small verts, a big partial vert (?), some nice river-polished ivory chunks, a deer metatarsal, and a few oddballs that will get posted in the ID forum soon. After a few hours of digging and picnicing, we saw a lone hunter approaching from downstream. He was a middle-aged guy walking and pulling a nice Hobie kayak behind him. Had a sifter, a shovel, and a probe. This guy wasn't a casual hunter. We spoke for a few minutes and he told me that this gravel bed had been uncovered a couple of seasons back and had been hunted to death. He said he was taking advantage of the low water to see if any new spots were accessible further upstream. He moved on upstream and we never saw him again. I did something unusual also - I left a big spoil pile in the middle of the river, poking up out of the water like an island of rocks and chunkosaurus. My grandson was having a fun time helping me build it. At the end of the day, we made a face on it with rocks and driftwood. If you come across a big gravel bed with a "smiley face" spoil pile in the middle of it, you know you found our spot. It was a beautiful day and not as hot as we feared it might get. The humidity was still moderate and we had nice breezes all day. We had a little picnic on the side of the river and my wife took a couple hundred photos which she is downloading now. At one point, Ben turned to me and said "Pops, we should do this more often. This is really fun." and I agreed that we should and we would come more often if we lived closer, to which he replied - "I would live here. We should live here!". That made me feel good and was better than finding a sack full of megalodons. We'll make a river rat out of that boy yet. We stayed at the spot until about 4pm and then took a long slow drift back to the ramp - I had to jump out several times and pull the kayak over exposed sandbars and shallow areas, but it was a nice leisurely float (a few inches lower and it would be too darn low). We saw a lot of wildlife - deer, gators, turtles, herons, turkeys, hawks, fish, cows, and a lone big blue crab who must have wandered up from the Gulf - weird to see him there. Well, rainy season is around the corner. Not sure how many trips are left until after summer. Get out there while you can! Will post some photos later, stay tuned. PS - when we got back to the ramp, there was a party going on. A big monster truck was parked in the middle of the river (!) with lawn chairs around it and a boom box blasting music. You gotta love Gardner. LOL.

Not sure about others, but I realize that I am finding bones that I have yet to recognize, but think might be alligator. Found this nice comparison photo... What is the name of these bones? Are they ribs? Did I find one of them here? A couple more. I think the 2nd photo is a Calcaneum, what is the first and is either this bone?

Found this on the beach ( low tide ) at Manasota Key, Florida. This area is known for fossil shark teeth from the Peace River formation. Is this a fossil turtle, tortoise or a rock concretion? Thanks

When I am hunting, and there is a lot of interesting material and I am running out of time, I over_collect. Anything that looks fossil gets taken for later review. Most of it is unidentifiable bone that gets tossed or donated. This fossil is one of those, but I am thinking that even as broken as it is, it might be interesting. The 1st photo is looking directly down on the chewing surface. At first, I thought no way will I ever identify this tooth. But now I am getting hope. The photo of this tooth is directed left to right along the jaw line of the animal. I am thinking that my thumb is on the tongue side of the jaw. An unusual thing is that the tooth is an hourglass shape, and the length of the tooth running down the jaw is shorter than the width across the jaw. The half hourglass on top is 14 mm and the lower half is 10.5 mm . I am already thinking sloth, glyptodont, giant armadillo.. If you look at the above photo, the left side of the fossil looks like this !!!! The tooth not present has left vertical grooves in the jaw. I have seen similar grooves in the broken fragments of Glyptodont jaws. but the shape of the tooth does not say Glyptodont to me. That seems good enough for a start. Help !!! @Harry Pristis, @digit @Brett Breakin' Rocks @Thomas.Dodson @Plantguy @PODIGGER There is an answer somewhere here.. Additional photos:

Not sure what this one is. When I pulled it out of the river, it appeared black. It turned tan after it dried. It looks like a piece of carapace or something along those lines. Soft shell turtle? Crab? Armored catfish? Does anyone know what this weird little thing is? Thanks in advance!

This little tooth (I think) is missing the crown. Is there enough of it remaining to ID what it is? Or is this some weird partial fragment of mammoth tooth or something like that? Found in the northern Peace River, Florida. Thanks!

I found this oddball in the northern Peace River. It's a paddle-shaped bone with "streaks" or "lines" running the length on one side. It also has some curvature to it. I can't decide if it's a partial bone or the entire thing. Does anyone know what this is? My gut is saying something like turtle. Any ideas? Thanks in advance! PS - sorry my photos suck. My hands have gotten shakier lately and I need to invest in a tiny tripod.

I was out yesterday... No fantastic finds but a few interesting ones. A Shark tooth, 38 x 23 mm. I thought it was a Shortfin Mako, my friend said giant thresher. Help @Al Dente, @MarcoSr. What differentiates the two... The 2nd is a fish spine. I am used to seeing Catfish spines that look like the one below..... I am wondering and usually pleasantly surprised, when I reach out fro detailed knowledge on any fossil topic, in this case identification of catfish spines.

IMG_0290.HEICHello! I recently went to Venice Beach, and I was hoping to ID my findings. One of which seems to be a large tooth without enamel, but I’m not completely sure. Let me know your thoughts on my haul! IMG_0291.HEIC IMG_0292.HEIC

My brother and I visited Levy County Florida on May 5 as a short diversion on a recent family trip to Florida because I was determined to find an Eupatagus antillarum (Eocene echinoid from the Ocala Limestone) It has taken 10 days to post a trip report because, well, I had to return home, clean the fossils and write a poem. Write a poem because this trip would not have happened if I had not met the TFF Chief Poet @snolly50 in a lovely rhyme-off in support of a recent TFF auction. I would not have been introduced to @Sacha … and @digit … and then read some of their posts and seen those beautiful echinoids!!!! And so in honor of the fossil chain: Ode to THE Echinoid This Eocene invertebrate is regularly found, Reports from Fossil Forum members really do abound! I read with so much interest, @ClearLake’s and Sacha’s posts, And vowed that I would find this treasure somewhere near the coast! Pentameric symmetry, is subtle in this kind So beautiful this lovely gem, I’ll seek until I find! Adorned with petal-shaped tattoos, with nature’s ageless art It did not need this added way to catch my beating heart. Irregular describes its shape, a dome-topped oval-oid Sought in Ocala Limestone, a fossil quest enjoyed! Irregular its status too, a state fossil in waiting What must occur to elevate this echinoid’s curating? Star of Levy County, exquisite echinoid Eupatagus antillarum! I am now overjoyed! Our foray followed an excellent afternoon with Ken (digit) and his wife Tammy wherein we received advice on the search image …as well as such wonderful hospitality that it reminds me, again, that fossil hunting always introduces me to the most welcoming people around. Although we hunted for only a couple of hours, we found several different items and three Eupatagus antillarum. They may be common, but they are new to me and I believe the largest specimen may be exceptional. As for (tentative) IDs, (corrections welcome) top row, left: Periarchus lyelli floridanus (Fischer, 1951) - big sand dollar bottom row, left Rhyncholampas ericsoni (Fischer, 1951) - high test, star shaped peristome bottom row, middle Neolaganum durhami (Cooke, 1959) - little sand dollar entire right column Eupatagus antillarum (Cotteau, 1875) - main attraction of the site! Whenever I hunt in Eocene material, I invariably end up looking for crab (I can’t help it). So, the second photo is presented for comment. Crab or “Just My Imagination?” (I can’t help it) Thank for reading.

Hi all, This is a tiny little find from a creek here in Florida. It could be nothing more than a polished bit of fossilized bone with some coincidental marks, but the markings are odd to me. I haven’t found bone pieces with such symmetrical and aligned cuts like this before. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas what this may be?

Hey guys, I found this in a creek close to me in south Florida, and while I originally presumed it to be a small, worn down bone upon first glance, further inspection made me suspect it might be something else. It has a unique enamel-like texture and there are rings visible on top. Yet it’s quite dull and tiny, it wouldn’t be a very effective incisor. I’m stumped! I’m hoping someone might have some ideas?