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Here are a few small fossils that a friend and I found while hunting the creeks in Gainesville, FL a couple weeks ago with Sir.tommy.the.toad. I know that two of them are toe bones, one is a tooth, and one is a vertebra. What I can't figure out is what animals they came from and am hoping that someone here recognizes them. The scale is in mm and hopefully the pictures are clear enough. They looked clear on my phone but once I started editing them on the computer some of them became slightly blurry. I'm posting each fossil separately.

Hello! I'm a new member I'm an avid shark tooth hunter in the Gainesville area, searching primarily in Hogtowne creek. I've had amazing luck recently, collecting over 300 good sized teeth in just two short trips. In my most recent trip, I found a tooth a little over a half inch long, with smooth edges that looks very much like a very small juvenile Meg tooth, but I'm probably just letting my hopes get up. It's in my profile picture if anyone can take a look at it. I love tooth hunting and I'm always looking for new spots in Gainesville with big teeth. If you know any, shoot me a message!

Found this on my most recent trip to Alfred A Ring Park. I have never seen a tooth this shape with serrations extending so far out and only halfway down the tooth. Does anyone know what shark this could have come from? Click for the larger image, which is much sharper. Thank you!

Here is a few photos of some of my finds recently! Any help on some identifications would be great. Find some nice hemi's and what I think is a fragalodon (megalodon) half tooth which was awesome to find, but also a bummer. If you would like to see some of the photos I could not upload due to size restraints, please visit my Instagram profile under username: theroachmotel. Happy toofin!

Exciting times in Florida. The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) has announced the volunteer opportunities for 2016. More information can be found directly from their website: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/volunteering/field/ This year the Thomas Farm site will have a limited opportunity for field work--April 4-8 which is a Monday-Friday (no weekends). The reason for the minimal field work at Thomas Farm is actually for a good reason--they are focused on a brand new site! A new fossil site (on private property) southwest of Gainesville near the town of Williston is showing signs of being spectacular. Unlike the random disarticulated finds at the Thomas Farm sinkhole, the new site seems to contain some associated skeletons. They have already found gomphothere and rhino and there have been signs of llama, horse, and some carnivores. Additionally, there is a high diversity of turtles (6 species so far) as well as fish and gators. The sign-up for Thomas Farm won't be till early March but the extended field season at the new site is already underway (started last Saturday). The link above contains an application form with the schedule of days that they are digging at this new site. If you've got the opportunity and interest to see a brand new site as it is uncovered, don't miss this opportunity--you'll regret it later if you do. I encourage any TFF members looking for a rewarding volunteer experience to give this a try. If you do, you are, of course, obligated to take lots of cool photos and post a trip report here. I'm going to try to make time for the short Thomas Farm week and I've already put in for a block of time in mid-March at the new site. If I have the time I'll try to make it up for a second trip to the new site before the season is over on May 13. Don't delay--volunteer opportunities to work side-by-side with experts like Dr. Richard Hulbert don't come along every day. [End of infomercial] Cheers. -Ken

Well, the Peace River was still about 7 feet too high to consider dipping a sifter in it (much less trying to stand upright against the current) so my wife and I set our sights on an alternative destination for our anniversary weekend. Yup, that's right--if you marry well you can actually go fossil hunting as part of your anniversary celebration. In the end we decided upon, not Niagara Falls nor Acapulco, but the relatively closer destination of Gainesville, Florida. We've been wanting to visit with Dr. Richard Hulbert, Collections Manager and Coordinator of the Program of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History located on the campus of the University of Florida campus in Gainesville and so we thought we'd make a long weekend of it. I'll post more about our visit to the FLMNH collections in a separate topic soon. Once we decided upon Gainesville as a destination we contacted TFF member Khyssa to see if she was available for some hunting in Rattlesnake Creek which, thankfully, she was. We rendezvoused at a local park nearby where we would go hunting (easier for us to find) an then headed off to Rattlesnake Creek. The trick to hunting any of the many creeks that run through Gainesville is to find a good access point. For those unfamiliar with Gainesville (which, I admit, includes me) there is a nice PDF available online produced by the City of Gainesville: https://www.cityofgainesville.org/Portals/0/plan/docs/GIS_Creek_Names.pdf The location we arrived at to explore Rattlesnake Creek must be well known by both the people of Gainesville and the local government as they have provided numerous parking spaces along both sides of the road where it crosses the creek. We parked, changed into shoes that we didn't mind getting wet, grabbed our shovels and sifting gear and scrambled down the slope to the culvert. Anybody considering sifting in these creeks should be wearing shoes with sturdy soles as there is a crazy amount of broken glass--remnants of those with little respect for the natural beauty of wild places. Some people have decided they needed to "beautify" the culvert and overpass by tagging it liberally with multi-chromatic grafitti. We passed through the culvert and emerged on the other side where there is a gravel bed a very short distance from where we had parked. This was important as my main goal was to collect some Rattlesnake Creek micro-matrix and buckets of gravel get mighty heavy when lugging them back to the car. We soon got down to work collecting the micro-matrix. I had brought along the same setup I've used before on the Peace River and Cookiecutter Creek. This consists of two of my normal sifters (one with 1/4" mesh screen and one with the larger and sturdier 1/2" mesh). The process is pretty basic--I place a piece of window screen material (1/20" openings on that mesh) inside the lower sifter and then stack the sifter with the 1/4" mesh on top of that. Then I toss in a few shovels full of sand and gravel dug up from the gravel bed on which we were working. In an area with deeper water it would be relatively easy to use the water to sort the gravel and sand through the sifters. The creek here was only a few inches deep and so with the help of a flexible plastic bucket I was able to scoop up some water and pour it over the sifter stack. This took a lot more time than sifting waist deep in the Peace River and was also much more tough on the lower back (and every single joint below that). Progressing slowly I was able to wash the finer material from the upper sifter into the lower one. Once most of the small stuff had passed through I took the coarser gravel (> 1/4") over to the sand bar where my wife had a quick look through it for larger items. I then shook the lower sifter to get most of the finer sand to pass through the inserted window screen. Once it was relatively sand-free I then picked up the piece of window screen by the corners and carried it over to my waiting bucket where it was dumped. I repeated this process till my 2-gallon bucket was filled (maybe a dozen or more times). I then lugged this bucket up to the larger 5-gallon bucket waiting in my car's trunk. Since the car was nearby it was easy to repeat this over and over till I had all the micro-matrix I felt I needed. -Ken

I found this tooth in Hogtown Creek in Gainesville, Florida yesterday! I need some help to identify it. Here in Gainesville we have the Miocene Epoch prevalent in our fresh waters. I am thinking it's a fossilized ancient horse tooth. A partial molar perhaps. Can some of you help me out? I am brand new to this forum, and hope to post many more finds! I recently got back into fossil hunting again, used to dig in the creeks as a kid and have many shark teeth, bones, and other fossils! Thanks!

I finally got my microscope attachment for my phone in the mail and spent a little time last night playing with it. Of course it got here the day after I started moving everything around in preperation for getting out the Christmas decorations! I've posted pictures of this tiny tooth before but they were not very clear and I wasn't able to get it identified. Now that I have good pictures I have hope that someone might be able to tell me what it is. The tooth was found in micro matrix that I collected from Rattlesnake Creek in Gainesville, Florida last year. I believe the age of the area is miocene to pliocene. The tooth is 3mm long by 2mm wide. Forgot to include the scale in the pictures.

I'd like to post a trip report for a different kind of fossil hunting adventure. A few weeks ago my wife and I made a trip to Gainesville to celebrate our anniversary. Yes, fellas--if you marry well you can get away with a fossil hunting trip instead of buying a bouquet of roses. We met-up with TFF member Kara (Khyssa) on Saturday to collect some micro-matrix in Rattlesnake Creek. On Sunday we returned to the creek for a little bit to top-off our bucket of micro-matrix and then did some sightseeing in the Gainesville area. The Devil's Millhopper is an interesting geological feature well worth the short drive. On Monday we planned a trip to the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) to briefly meet with Alex Kittle and Dr. Richard Hulbert for a quick tour of the invertebrate and vertebrate collections (respectively) at the museum. For those of you who think I forced my wife into doing something this geeky on our anniversary--she chose this among several options (and we did make it back home in time for a romantic dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants--complete with cheesecake ). We found parking in one of the larger lots on campus (parking is a nightmare at the University of Florida and we had no desire to be ticketed or towed). The weather was gorgeous outside and the short walk over to Dickinson Hall was pleasant in the slightly chilly morning temps (a tad bit cooler than South Florida). After signing-in and receiving our visitor's badges at the reception desk, we were met by Alex. We got another chance to talk with Alex on the following weekend when we made a second road trip north for the field-trip/meeting of the Florida Paleontological Society (FPS) for which Alex is the Membership Secretary. Alex escorted us down to the working area of the museum. Dickinson Hall has named after Joshua "J.C." Dickenson, Jr. a former director of the museum in the 1960s and under his management the museum's collections, research and education grew impressively. The Seagle Building in which the museum was located quickly became too cramped and Dickinson spearheaded a drive for a new building. In 1970 Dickinson Hall was completed and the collections were moved to the new building with the top floor housing educational programs and public exhibits. Continued growth over the years lead to the need for yet another expansion. This time a new facility, a couple miles west of Dickinson Hall, called Powell Hall was built and the public exhibits moved to the new facility which opened to the public in 1998. I was previously unaware of the history of growth of the FLMNH and thought the research collection was held someplace behind the scenes at Powell Hall. I quickly came up to speed as we walked down to the lower level of Dickinson where the scientists do their work and the research collections are stored. As Alex brought us into the invertebrate portion of the museum's collection we were first shown into an office area where numerous boxes of a variety of invert specimens were being reorganized and records checked and updated. It was a splendid sight to see boxes of fossils of all types covering just about every horizontal surface. It kind of reminded me of the tables of fossils you might see at a rock and fossil show except that each box had accession numbers instead of prices. Just behind one of the tables were an aggregation of suitcases. These held some of the specimens from a collecting trip to Panama which had just returned. You may have heard about the recent project to enlarge the Panama Canal to allow larger container ships to traverse the isthmus. The new excavations have been of interest to the museum as it cuts through some fossil bearing layers. As I've dragged 80 pound roll-on suitcases full of Green River fish plates through airport security so I know how much fun these must have been to get home. I asked Alex if he could provide a clue as to the identity of the silicified fossil corals I had collected with TFF member John (Sacha) and Jim (coralhead) last year on the Withlacoochee River in southern Georgia. Alex took us back to his desk and looked through a bookshelf till he found a pamphlet from 1973 from the Bureau of Geology entitled "New and Little-known Corals from the Tampa Formation of Florida". There we found photos of the coral I had described to him. I mentioned that, from what little polyp structure remained on the pieces I collected, it appeared to me to be similar to extant corals I'm familiar with in the genus Siderastrea (specifically S. siderea). I was moderately pleased with myself when Alex found the plates he was looking for which he knew to be found in the Withlacoochee--Siderastrea silecensis (a perfect name for my silicified coral). A link provided here for those interested: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00000252/00001 While I waited for Alex to locate this pamphlet I was intrigued by a collection of fossilized cowries (Cypraeidae) that he was trying to key-out using the latest diagnostic texts. There are relatively few features on these smooth shells and so it is quite the challenge. -Ken

I recently collected some micro-matrix from Rattlesnake Creek in Gainesville. See my other posting if you want to read more about that here: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/58470-rattlesnake-creek-rendezvous/?p=622403 This morning while sorting through the micro-matrix I spotted an unusual (for me) tiny shark tooth that has me guessing. This little one is only about 4.5 mm across the base of the root and around 5 mm along the long edge of the blade. It is novel solely due to the presence of the side cusp(s). There is an obvious side cusp on the side toward which the main cusp angles and there appears to be a bit up a "bump" in the enamel at the other side of the tooth that is subtle but apparent when looking at the tooth under magnification but, unfortunately, does not photograph very well. Basically, there appears to be a faint "notch" at the base of the long edge of the main cusp and the enamel is ever so slightly raised past this notch. The tooth does not really resemble the tiny Tiger Shark or Sand Tiger teeth which I know to have additional side cusps. The root is too flat and not as U-shaped as I'd expect for a posterior Sand Tiger tooth. It also doesn't seem to have the correct "bend" that I'm used to for the various species of Tiger Shark teeth that I'm familiar with from locations in South Florida. Any help with a possible identification on this tiny little mystery tooth would be welcome and educational--for me and possibly for other readers. Cheers. -Ken

It has been more than 2 months since I hunted the Peace River and I have withdrawal symptoms. looking for any place where I can find some fossils. My nephew has an apartment in Orlando and invited me up to watch our team NYG play the Boys Sunday night (this game may forever surpass the Pisarcik fumble in infamy among Giants fans). In any case, courtesy of Sacha and Cris (a big KUDO award) I had a couple of spots in Gainesville to try and decided to look for the micros at Rattlesnake Creek. This a DIFFERENT style of hunting, sitting in the creek, squinting at the 1/16th inch screening. The back of my thighs and my back-neck area are killing me but I loved getting back to the hunt. and I found a bunch of teeth, more than 100; Not big teeth mind you, but fossil teeth all the same. I hunted for about 4 hours (11 am to 3 pm) and left just as afternoon showers were threatening. I had a few that were half this size. Thanks again to Sacha and Chis. I may go back in October, but only if the Peace is still too deep. I loved the hunting but I believe that I am too focused on the bigger teeth!! SS

Found this sticking out of Miocene clay in Gainesville's Beville Creek. I collected a lot of other stuff that day, including some mammalian bone fragments -- but this thing is quite odd. Linking to the images here because they are too large to upload: https://www.edwardrjenkins.com/images/specimens/gainesville/1.jpg https://www.edwardrjenkins.com/images/specimens/gainesville/2.jpg https://www.edwardrjenkins.com/images/specimens/gainesville/3.jpg https://www.edwardrjenkins.com/images/specimens/gainesville/4.jpg https://www.edwardrjenkins.com/images/specimens/gainesville/5.jpg Thoughts? Edward

I have these last few odd finds from the Rattlesnake Creek, Gainesville, Florida matrix still without IDs. I am putting out there in the hopes that someone will recognize them. All 3 photos are multiple views of each item. This matrix is mainly Miocene - Pleistocene. Thanks for looking. 1 2 3

Hey everyone, I have a few trips lined up in the next few months and just wanted to share so that I could maybe get some advice, or just hear some success stories from others who have hunted the same places. My first trip will not actually be in 2012 (but close enough). I'll be heading to Gainesville for a day trip to do some hunting in the creek. I'll need the most advice for this trip because I am completely unfamiliar with the area. I know that the main creeks (Possum, Rattlesnake, etc) are mostly picked over so it is best to search in creeks 'off the beaten path'. I guess any advice for a starting point would be much appreciated. My next trip in early Feb is to a phosphate mine in Hardee county. I cannot believe I finally found a way into one of these mines! Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to at least find one decent meg. Has anyone else been fortunate enough to make their way into one of the Central FL mines? I'd like to hear how it was and what you found. I'll be trying to hit Venice for some diving throughout the Spring. Can't get enough of that place! Hope to get some feedback. I can't wait to find some megs!