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One of my nice Lee creek mako teeth were sitting in one of my pockets with a few Hershey's chocolates with paper wrappers (don't ask why I was pretty hungry). after I ate them all, I looked at my tooth, and to my dismay saw that what looked like the ink from the wrappers had rubbed onto the root. Aside from the weird story, I have tried using a toothbrush with soap and water, to no avail. What would be the best way to get rid of the stain? I have attached before and after pics below. I know there are a few lighting differences, so I also put it aside one of my other lee creek makos that used to be a similar color as a reference to the darkness of the stain. Thanks.

G'day, Just went on a 4 day long trip to Melbourne to go to Beaumaris and while we were there we bought/traded a few things from a dealer. For the first few days we were there we snorkelled at Beaumaris and found a few alright things... These two Cosmopolitodus (Carcharodon) hastalis teeth were encrusted in 'stuff' when we first found them. Nothing much compared to what you find in the U.S but they are pretty good for Australian teeth!: Posted multiple times again :/

Hello everyone! Yesterday I found some of my best teeth yet. Take a look, and tell me your favorite!

I'm a little late in posting this but, I'm finally getting around to it. Last weekend, Mrs.SA2 and I took the dogs for another walk with our good buddy Mel (of Phatfossils.com), since much of the ice has melted or moved on. It was a great day for some exercise with the forecast showing sunny, high around 55-60F, an offshore breeze and lower than normal water levels. As an added plus, we had very clear water meaning we could walk in water between our knees and waist and still see the bottom pretty well. That is, if you like 32-35F water on your lower body. Some may remember from last post about walking in cold/icy water that Mrs.SA2's feet got cold (numb was the word she used.) Being the wonderful hubby that I am, I went online to my favorite "major supplier of all things ever needed", and ordered her a couple pair of 1mm neoprene socks that have fleece inner layers. She tried them out on last Saturday's trip. More on her opinion and comments later. As we started our walk on the waxing tide, (not preferred, but it is VA in late January & we certainly aren't greedy enough to complain about any day we get on a river fossil hunting this time of year), we were all amazed at how clear, calm and low the water was. If you had the opportunity to pick all of the variables for a day of fossil hunting in VA in January, this day shaped up to be everything we would have requested. Wasn't long before we found a few small to medium size teeth. Not long after that, Mel started finding whale vertebrae in thigh - waist deep water. We kept finding whale verts ALL day long. I think we ended up finding over 35 with about 25 of them being in nice shape and the other 10 being so-so with various amounts cleaved off along the long axis. Mrs.SA2 was walking in knee deep water, trying out her new neoprene socks and was the first to spy a tooth bigger than 1", scoring a nice, reddish hastalis. Not to be outdone, Mel had to go big with another hastalis. It's a little worn but it's a big 'un. All this time, i'm walking along the tide line picking up small - medium teeth listening to the Mrs. and Mel talk about how much they both can "feel" the megs calling them. I'm pretty sure I heard a few comments about how small my teeth were compared to theirs at this point, but I'm not sure. About that time, Mrs.SA2 decides she wants to find the 1st meg of the day and pops this up out of the water. A little on the small side, but its cute and "a megs a meg." And of course, Mel has to answer right back with this b-e-a-u-t-y of a hastalis! I'm pretty sure he could still have shaved his arm hair with those edges. Here are both of his monsters side by side. A little further down the beach (and a few more comments about my small teeth later), Mrs.SA2 spots a double. Notice how close the dog came to stepping on it and burying it in the sand. This now makes her 2nd meg in 1 day, albeit this one is on the smaller side too, but again, "a megs a meg." She looked at me, smiled and said "I'm not done yet." I just put my head down and kept walking, as it appears at this point that I've become the dog walker and the chauffeur for the day. And, I swear, I heard Mel giggling in the background. I knew better than to ask her how she went from collecting in thigh - knee deep water to collecting on the beach, directly in front of me. Nothing good was going to come from any response I made. As we kept going along, true to her previous statement about not being done yet, Mrs.SA2 found another meg, again on the smaller side, but it was her 3rd meg of the day and 5th in 1 week. Now, I'm positive I heard snickers and giggles coming from Mel's direction this time. By then, it was getting embarrassing for me cause Mel had the 2 monster hastalis and had picked up 2 megs and another decent sized hastais to go with them. Talk about a handful! So, Mel too now has a multiple meg day, meaning everyone but me has megs (plural). By now its well past lunch time and I'm getting hungry so i sat down on a log and ate my chicken salad sandwich. Mel, the Mrs. and the dogs kept walking a bit further. After my sandwich, I felt better and was done sulking and I wandered around where I had been sitting. Lucky for me, I found a few decent teeth. I was hoping for a meg, even a small one, but that didn't happen, but at least I got a few nice specimens. (Sorry Ray, @aerogrower the Mrs. had the scale cube with her.) I'll finish up with the rest in the next post.

Slurpee, Slushee or Icee Beach......Take Your Pick VA Miocene on 01/14/2018 Since I didn't get to do much fossil hunting in December due to work, I've been determined to get more time out during January. I convinced Mrs.SA2 to venture out with our buddy Mel (MarcoSr's youngest son) and me this morning. We would have brought @Daleksec along with us, but his dad said he forgot to keep his bedroom clean, AGAIN, so he had chores to finish. The morning started out with us getting up at 0400 hours and making the drive to meet Mel at one of our favorite places. When we hit the beach the air temp was 13F with a 15 mph north wind and a 3-5F wind chill. Luckily, we all have "the gear" to keep us warm and dry in this weather and we know some tricks. We were excited and hopeful when we realized we were the first (and only) people on the beach. Pretty obvious why and not sure what that really says about us. When we got down to the beach, we realized that overnight the strong north wind and the wind chill had combined to freeze the surf and push ice on the beach. (The ice wasn't there the day before.) The surf out about 10 feet from the beach had the consistency of a Slurpee, Slushee or Icee, whichever is/was your beverage choice when younger. Mrs.SA2 and I were Slurpee fans (and she still sneaks one in every few weeks during the summers.) Photos of the beach and surf. The ice pushing in from the surf and the frozen beach left by the last high tide were pretty disappointing, until we started finding teeth. Here were my first couple of frozen teeth. All of the teeth we found had to be dug out of the frozen beach. I even managed a two-for. (Please excuse the lack of scale in many of the photos, I had Mrs.SA2's custom pink scale cube made by @aerogrower, but it kept freezing to the beach, then I had to scrape/dig it off the beach.) Here is a decent hastalis I found and dug out. On the walk back the wind had died down a little and the air temp had come up to 20F with wind chill around 15F. Talk about being spoiled, but alas, the beach was still frozen solid and ice covered. Here's Mrs.SA2 and Mel working their way through some obstacles along the beach. Mel is an awesome fossil hunter and has the eyes of an eagle. Mrs.SA2 and I always enjoy hunting with him because we have great conversations about stratigraphy, possible paleo-environments and the local fossils. This morning we chatted quite a bit about fossil hunting this coming spring and summer. As we were walking along, Mel looked down and spotted this beauty entombed in 3/4" of ice on the beach. It was worthy of breaking out Mrs.SA2's pink scale cube, even if it got stuck too. Took quite a bit of digging to "save" it from its frozen, watery grave. I have a great video of him digging it out but I'm going to let him be the first to show it on his Facebook page and website. Here are a couple of photos instead. That 10 minutes sure warmed us all up and it ended up being the biggest tooth we found on the day. At least we didn't get skunked and we all got some much needed exercise. I did manage this smaller hastalis as my last tooth of the morning. Here is what Mrs.SA2 and my finds looked like cleaned up. The vertebrae was a nice addition and you can see my "frag-a-lodon" by the scale cube. Over the 4 1/2 hour walk along the river in the cold, wind and ice, we managed to stay warm and dry and most of all, Mrs.SA2 continues to redevelop her confidence while out fossil hunting, following her fall back at the end of September. She was quite the trooper today and never complained. I'm sure the story she tells tomorrow at work will start with, "it'll be fun, he said......." and go downhill from there. Cheers, SA2 and Mrs.SA2

I visited a quarry in eastern North Carolina today that is not often hunted. It contains early Oligocene River bend Formation, Pliocene Yorktown Formation and a pebble Pleistocene lag. I managed to find a few Oligocene echinoids (Rhyncholampas gouldi newbernensis) and another unidentified to this point, echinoid from the River Bend Formation. Pictures of these will have to come after they get cleaned up. From the Yorktown Formation I found this gorgeous 3 and 1/4 inch Carcharodon hastalis; finally making the coveted 3" club. This is it on the tailgate of my truck, will post more pics later. and from the Pleistocene pebble lag I found this gorgeous leg bone. Complete and in stunning condition. Not sure if it is horse? camel? bison? I will take more pics tommorow of the identifying areas and post it in the ID forum. There was also an amazing 5 x 5 meg found in the Yorktown by another hunter (and forum member) hopefully he will post it.

My wife and I worked the Slow Curve location at Ernst Quarries (Sharktooth Hill, Bakersfield, California) this past weekend and collected an exceptional C. hastalis from the bone bed. This is a very large lower tooth that measures 3.25" and is in pristine condition. I saw a post recently about Sharktooth Hill mentioning the road to East quarry was closed due to recent rain damage and questioning whether the Slow Curve location (the only location still open) is still productive. I can assure everyone it is a productive location to dig for middle Miocene marine fossils. In addition to this large hastalis, other uncommon prizes from the weekend included a complete lower Hexancus andersoni (sixgill shark), a pair of Allodesmus kernesis teeth (primitive sea lion), and an excellent Aulophyseter morricei tooth (pygmy sperm whale). Each day of digging will produce many of the species and sizes more common to the locale to complement any of the uncommon prizes you are lucky enough to find. If you happen to be near Bakersfield, CA and can afford the time, put this on your list of sites to visit and collect. It will be worth your time - just plan your trip before, or after, the brutal summer heat settles in. I am undecided as to whether I should remove this once in a lifetime lower hastalis from the matrix, or preserve the piece in the matrix as is. I'm curious about other collector's preference regarding the matrix - remove? OR intact?

Hey all, I have a tooth here, and I'm a bit confused. It comes from Hoevenen (BE), and dates from the Miocene. I'm pretty sure that it's a mako tooth, but I'm not sure what species: Isurus hastalis or Isurus oxirhynchus? Or perhaps another one? Also, how exactly can you distinguish I. hastalis from I. oxirhynchus? Best regards and have a nice Sunday! Max

Hello everybody I have some shark teeth from Belgium for trade. These teeth are al from Antwerp, but at a closed place. These are legal collected in 1970 (not by me). I don't know what species are in this sac. But at least Hastalis, Notorynchus and much more. But I'm not a shark teeth specialist. I want to trade at every interesting offer. You got exactly like you see on the picture. Pm for more info Greetings

So I just picked up my first Mako tooth from an auction site. It came from Georgia according to the seller. I usually don't buy shark teeth, but this one just jumped out at me, plus, I am going to be using it for a display so it seemed appropriate! It measures 2 1/8 inches (5.398 cm) It has the most lovely colours, I couldn't pass on it and wanted to share!

Does anyone else get confused between Isurus Hastalis and Desori? For example some hastalis lowers kinda look like desori. Is there a good way to tell between the two for sure?

I know you are probably tired of the Ernst Quarry posts but my three grandkids asked to go for their birthday present, all three have birthdays between 12/29 and 1/1. It was a beautiful day albeit cold for these California natives! Here are a couple of the highlights. My eldest grandson is nicknamed "Old Eagle Eye" for a reason... He found the one on the left. I found the one on the right. C hastalis lower and upper I believe. The lower is truly stunning to hold. I shoveled it into his sieve and he snagged it right away. I tried to claim it but alas, our rule is first to establish possession is the keeper! He found two of the nice ray plates and generously gave me one. I found the puffer plate but didn't know how nice it was until I got it home and washed it. This is our portion of the haul, my wife and I share. This is typical of a day of seiving at the Ernst Quarry. It is a "Pay to Play" site but you get a lot of nice fossils for your investment. The kids get to keep whatever they find no matter how painful it might be for me! Everyone found at least 100+ teeth. My son and three grandkids at Sharktooth Hill, Bakersfield CA. January 3, 2015. Happy New Year!