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Hi all, So on Tuesday afternoon, I was lucky enough to only have a half day of school. Seeing that the weather was nice, and that I had nothing else to do except go home, I decided to take the bus in the other direction, so to Kijkduin, in order to do some fossil hunting! I bought a sandwich and a chocolate bar at the Shell gas station, and set out on the beach. From the beach of Kijkduin I walked south, so towards the Zandmotor, while of course looking for fossils. View of the beach (mind that the sea is on the right side, on the left side it's just a small lagoon), with the haven of Rotterdam in the background. View of the beach with Kijkduin, and then Scheveningen, in the background. (Sorry for the blurriness...)

Out today to the Peace River, Great day, great weather, good friends. Barely time to post a few photos of finds before going to sleep. Many of my co_hunters keep only the best and toss the rest.. I keep everything I find somewhat interesting. So a couple of group photos... In the 1st photo, a collection of Glyto stuff in lower right, a couple of very strange mammal verts that I might put up in the Fossil ID section tomorrow. Upper right is a unique Mammoth tooth fragment. 2nd photo has an Equus Phalanx on the right, a couple of lower hemis (38 and 45 mm) on upper left. A few more photos: Other side of Mammoth fragment: The backside of that round vert on right of photo #1, I have no clue on this one. and finally, a small chunk of coral with crystalized polyps. I have found these before and could track down the name. Some of these finds are relatively rare for me.. I also enjoy finding different stuff. Hope you do also Jack

I would really appreciate your help in identifying these fossils from eastern Virginia. I'm not familiar with the formations enough to give a name. I think number 6 may be a Pleistocene horse? I'm having trouble with photo sizing. I will try to add another pic of the other side in the comments. Cheers!

Hi, I recently finished processing 4kg of matrix from a horizon in the Upper Hamstead Mbr. of the Bouldnor Fm. from Bouldnor Cliff and thought I'd share the results! The White Band is definitely the most diverse vertebrate fauna I've collected so far in my short time screen washing, with at least 2/3 genera of fish, 2 genera of reptiles, and 2 genera of mammals, it also has some interesting taphonomy. The White Band refers to a thick Polymesoda shell bed in the Upper Hamstead Mbr. and dates to approximately 33 million years bp during the Rupelian. The Upper Hamstead Member is the youngest strata in the entire paleogene sequence of the Hampshire Basin (Late Palaeocene to Early Oligocene). The horizon was deposited in a shallow freshwater lacustrine environment on the low-lying Solent Group coastal plain of the southern Hampshire Basin. By the time the White Band was deposited average annual temperatures in the region were beginning to warm up again after the sudden and rapid cooling that marked the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Global sea levels were also beginning to rise. The Grande Coupure, the large scale turnover of European mammalian faunas had been and gone, and the endemic Eocene groups such as Palaeotheres, Omomyid primates, and anoplotheres had long vanished. The lake/pond system that deposited the White Band was home to aquatic plants such as Stratiotes and was fringed by patches of open woodlands of Sequoia, Pine, and broadleaf. With the post-grande coupure fauna now established the landscape was home to anthracotheres, hornless rhinos, hyaenodonts, bear-dogs, entelodonts, primitive ruminants, choeropotamids, and a myriad of smaller mammals including bats, adapid primates, rodents, insectivores, marsupials, and the otter-like pantolestids. Not to mention the alligators, birds, and freshwater turtles. 1. Worn fragment of Emys carapace 2. Possible fragment of crocodilian osteoderm? 3. Fragment of Bowfin skull bone 4. Isoptychus sp. cheek tooth. Theridomyid rodents like Isoptychus are the most commonly found micro-mammal throughout the entire Solent Group. This molar has been heavily worn which may suggest an older individual. Theridomyids were bipedal and foraged along the ground and in low trees. They also seem to have fed on the seeds of marginal aquatic plants such as Stratiotes, which may be the reason this individual was in the vicinity of the pond/lake. The Theridomyids were one of only a few Eocene mammal groups to survive the Grande Coupure and seemed to have survived fairly unscathed in terms of diversity etc. showing what hardy and adaptable rodents they probably were. 5. Fragment of M3 from a talpid, most likely Myxomygale sp. (just 1.5mm long!). Talpids (or as we call them today, Moles) were newcomers to Europe with the Grande-Coupure, arriving from Asia. Belonging to the tribe Urotrichini (Shrew-Moles) which are only found in North America and Asia today, Myxomygale may have spent most of the day underground in burrows before emerging at night to feed on invertebrates. Modern Shrew-Moles prefer moist habitats such as swampy areas, a habitat which was abundant on the low-lying coastal plain of the Oligocene Isle Of Wight. The taphonomy of the White Band is also interesting. Some specimens i.e. the Emys fragment and osteoderm are highly 'polished' and worn, suggesting transport prior to deposition. Whereas others such as the mammals and most fish material I've recovered are unworn and 'fresh' looking. I'm not sure what conditions could have caused this, and if anyone has any suggestions I'd be really interested. My take is that the mammals and fish were likely living in the immediate area, in and around the lake/pond, whereas the polished material is from animals living some distance away brought to the pond/lake by floods or streams etc. although I'm no trained geologist or palaeontologist. Thanks for reading, Theo

Hi, I thought I'd share some of my best finds from what has been a brilliant start to collecting in 2018! The Isle Of Wight has been hit by heavy storms, with torrential rain and gale force winds, numerous times over the last month or so. This has caused some serious erosion and slipping to the soft clay cliffs and foreshore of the Bouldnor Fm. and the coast has been highly productive. I've made some of the best finds of my fossil hunting "career" (if that's the right term for it), including some very nice large mammal finds that I have dreamed of coming across for a while now. 1. The partial cranium of a mammal. This is without a doubt one of my best finds. I collected it ex-situ from the foreshore and at first thought I was looking at a large piece of fossil wood, which are common in some of the fluvial and freshwater horizons of the Lower Hamstead Member. Luckily I spotted the cancellous bone texture, and quickly realised it was a large piece of mammal skull. The cranium is essentially the left portion of the brain case with the parietal bone, part of the frontal bone, jaw articulation surfaces and saggital crest with scars from the temporalis muscle. The brain case is filled with sediment and Viviparus gastropods, which may be the culprits for the extensive mollusc bore marks on the parietal bone. There is also a Stratiotes seed in one of the gastropod shells indicating the skull was deposited in a shallow (less than 6.5m deep) freshwater pool, probably already broken. Skulls like this are incredibly rare, and I've heard that it looks like it was probably out on the shore for just a couple of hours! As usual with my big or unusual finds I took it straight in to Dinosaur Isle Museum where it's currently on loan for preparation and identification in case it's an important find. I believe it may be something like an Anoplotherium although I'm not sure. 2. Partial Bothriodon mandible. This is a really cool find that I've always wanted to come across! Bothriodon is an abundant part of the Post-Grande Coupure mammal fauna, arriving in Europe and Britain around 33.6 million years ago from Asia. This was facilitated by the Oi-1 glaciation event in Antartica lowering global sea levels and opening up several migration routes from Asia into Europe for a myriad of immigrant taxa. The habitat of the early Oligocene Hampshire Basin was ideal for the proposed lifestyles of anthracotheres (low lying coastal plain with wetlands, lakes, and open woodland), which along with a preservation bias, makes Bothriodon the most common large mammal encountered. I found this jaw in two pieces, 14 days apart and 5m from each other in a mudflat at low tide. The bone is heavily crushed and has P2 - M3 in-situ, although P1 is missing (possibly pre-fossilisation) and I still haven't found the other jaw section with the M2 (fingers crossed it'll turn up one of these days!). I think the jaw washed out of the Upper Hamstead Member during this winter's storms and smashed into several pieces which were subsequently scattered over the immediate area. (P1 to M1 section found 14 days after the M3)

How common were mammals in the cretaceous?

Hello! Later this year I'm planning on moving from Florida back to New England. I was hoping to make the voyage into an interesting road trip... I've heard of several places in the Eastern half of the US where you can dig your own fossils. I know that there are some places in Georgia and the Carolinas that are good to find Megalodon teeth, and some places in the northern US that are good for finding trilobites... I'm up for anything interesting and was looking for suggestions on exact places, tour companies, people, anything that you can offer that might extend my collection on the trip!

Hello! These a few Australian mammals from Pleistocene cave deposits from near Kempsey in NSW. I have many more and I will post them when I figure out how to use my camera. Also, sorry about the writing in the background, it is unrelated. The paddle pop stick is for size comparison. And I'm aware I've already posted these on other posts, but this is the "official" sub-forum that i will post them on 1. Macroderma gigas (ghost bat) right lower jaw and upper canine Continued... 2. Other smaller bats - partial skull, lower jaw and lower molars. Oh thats a terrible picture... oops Continued...

A new article from Geology of the Intermountain West: A preliminary report of the fossil mammals from a new microvertebrate locality in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Grand County, Utah Article https://www.utahgeology.org/openjournal/index.php/GIW/article/view/25 PDF https://www.utahgeology.org/openjournal/index.php/GIW/article/view/25/47

Hi, I've recently fully processed some matrix from the Lower Hamstead Mbr. that I collected back in November, and I thought I'd share some of my finds in a similar way to my Bembridge Marls Mbr. material. The matrix originates from a 'shelly' horizon in the Lower Hamstead Mbr. and was collected from fallen blocks at the base of a low cliff exposure at Bouldnor Cliff. The Lower Hamstead Mbr. overlays the late Eocene Bembridge Marls and dates from the very earliest Oligocene epoch, approximately 33.75 - 33.5 million years ago. To put the finds into an environmental context the Lower Hamstead Mbr. was deposited during a period of rapid global cooling and drop in sea levels associated with the onset of antarctic glaciation (Oi-1). The cooling and eustatic change had begun in the late Eocene, with the palaeo-environments of the Bembridge Marls becoming increasingly terrestrial towards the Eocene/Oligocene boundary. By the Lower Hamstead Member the southern Hampshire Basin was a low lying coastal plain with extensive wetlands, lakes, ponds and sluggish rivers flowing south east towards the early channel (at this time the channel was more a large embayment with only occasional connection to the North Sea). The dense sub-tropical forests of the late Eocene had disappeared and the landscape was dominated by open woodlands of pine, sequoia, and oak. The environment was much cooler and annual rainfall had significantly dropped since the Eocene, although temperatures would begin to rise again further into the rupelian and Hamstead Mbrs. The basin was surrounded by areas of chalk upland (still existing today) with forests of sequoia and broadleaf species. This dramatic climate change is likely what triggered the Grande Coupure, in which endemic Eocene mammals like the palaeotheres disappeared and were replaced with Asian groups such as carnivorans, rhinocerotids, anthracotheres, and a variety of other artiodactyls. The mammals of the dense tropical Eocene forests simply couldn't adapt fast enough to the new open environments of the Oligocene and ultimately failed to compete against the better adapted migrants. By the Upper Hamstead Member the mammals on the Hampshire Basin coastal plain are almost entirely of Asian origin. Therefore the micro-vertebrates lived in an environment of large scale climatic and ecological change, which I think adds another level of interest to collecting from this member of the Bouldnor Fm. The material I've collected so far is a lot more varied than the Bembridge Marls, but overall is less abundant. So far it's produced at least 3 fish taxa, 2 mammals, and an indeterminate piece of jaw which may be reptilian or mammal. 1. A skull element from a Bowfin (Amia sp.), these fish are very common in most horizons of the Bouldnor Fm. 2. A vertebra from a Bowfin (Amia sp.) 3. A damaged lateral scute from a Sturgeon (Acipenser sp.) showing the transition to a freshwater environment 4. An indeterminate piece of a tiny jaw, may be crocodilian although I'm not sure. 5. The nicest find of the lot, a lower incisor from the theridomyid rodent Isoptychus (ID'd by Jerry hooker from the NHM). These rodents looked similar to modern kangaroo rats, hopping along the ground on large rear legs. Bite marks on Isoptychus bones collected from Thorness Bay suggest that they were common prey for the bear-dog Cynodictis. 6. Finally 2 images of an unidentified mammal tooth. I'm unsure as to whether this is part of the tooth or the entire crown, but it doesn't appear to be from a rodent. Hope you all enjoyed the finds, Theo

Hi all, It's a little late, but then again I have been kinda busy lately and am very tired... So writing this took me some time Anyways, so on the 26th of December (2017), the day after X-Mas, my family and I met up with @Cris Cris & Kyle from Fossil Voyages (or here), for a long-awaited hunt together. We got the small motorboat and a canoe ready to go to the spot where we would hunt. After having discussed a few things, we set off on the river, and after a short row past many turtle families (these red-eared sliders are apparently very common; but what an exotic sight for me!) we attached our boats to tree stumps on the river bank.

Hi, I headed out for a full day of collecting at Hamstead on Saturday, and thought I'd share how it went. I reached the beach at Hamstead Duver around 9am and began searching the foreshore. The finds on this part of the coast are washed round by longshore drift, but it can be a productive section. This was definitely the case on Saturday, within the first 20 odd metres I picked up various pieces of trionychid carapace, Emys fragments, and the worn trochlea of an anthracothere humerus. I continued west along the coast before reaching the slipway (a disused boat launching ramp, apparently used by the US military in preparation for the Normandy Landings) the point where Hamstead Cliffs begin. Having not been able to visit in nearly a month, and after weeks of pretty violent storms over Christmas and the New Year, the coast at Hamstead Ledge has now completely changed. Most of the sand and gravel has been taken off the beach leaving large exposed areas of Bembridge Marls strata on the foreshore. The junction bed between the underlying Bembridge Limestone and Bembridge Marls is also now visible (usually obscured by sand and gravel). The Bembridge Limestone Fm. lays beneath the Bouldnor Fm. and was laid down in a series of large carbonate lakes on a heavily forested sub-tropical coastal plain stretching across what is now the northern Island. At 34.0 million years ago rising sea levels flooded the plain and the estuary/lagoons of the lower Bembridge Marls were deposited, which can be observed in the low cliff face. (A small normal fault can be seen in the Bembridge Marls highlighted in yellow, additionally the 'thin white horizon' is the western limits of the famous Insect Limestone. However it is un-lithified and does not produce insects at this locality) The largest change however was an enormous landslide just west of the ledge in the high cliff face. As well as several smaller falls and slips, this slip has littered the beach with clay debris and small trees. It's on the site of a large mudflow from last winter, I reckon the heavy rain saturated the already weakened area and triggered a large scale failure of the cliff face. I checked through the debris (and the exposed strata) and found some very nice pieces, including a huge piece of trionychid hypoplastron (the largest turtle piece I've ever found), a fragment of alligator jaw, a large fish vertebra, and two large baso-occipital bones from Bowfins (Amia sp.). As the beach was covered with clay blocks the foreshore wasn't very productive for ex-situ finds. As the tide dropped I moved further west towards Cranmore and beach conditions returned to normal with shingle, sand, and gravel, and a nice variety of finds. The best finds were a couple of anthracothere teeth, including a very nice canine. Coprolites were also very common as usual, most, if not all, are likely crocodilian. Further west there are exposures of the Upper Hamstead Member on the foreshore which if you're lucky turn up in-situ finds. The Upper Hamstead Member dates from approximately 33.2 - 32.4 million years ago. This time I was in luck, I spotted a large bone fragment and a piece of Emys weathering out of the clay. I checked the areas adjacent in case there was anymore associated material but unfortunately not. The bone fragment appears to be a rib. I reached Cranmore and collected some matrix for micro-sieving from the cliff face, and after collecting a few more bone fragments and coprolites, and with the tide now rising I called it a day and headed up to the main road. Overall it was a good collecting trip, with some good finds. Hopefully as the winter goes on the landslide debris is eroded away and some nice vertebrate remains are produced. Hope this was interesting, Theo 1. Huge piece of trionychid hypoplastron 2. 'Interior' view of the hypoplastron

Hi, I thought I'd share some of my finds from what was a pretty good trip up to Bouldnor Cliff on Tuesday morning. This was my first collecting trip in over a month due to tides, being ill over Christmas and being generally busy, so I missed out on most of December. But hopefully I can start getting back into going twice a week again as usual. Low tide was at 09:48 so I decided to head for Bouldnor instead of Hamstead, as it's a lot easier to quickly access. My hope was that the prolonged stormy weather we've had for a couple of weeks now would have brought up some nice finds, and I wasn't disappointed. Walking along the shingle I quickly spotted a worn mammal vertebra sticking out of the sand, then a couple of metres away in an area of mud was the distal end of an anthracothere humerus. Pieces like these can be pretty rare finds so I was really pleased with them. They both seem likely to be from Bothriodon based off their larger size. Moving further along the coast the productivity dropped and the finds were the usual fish vertebrae, alligator scutes, and Emys fragments punctuated by the occasional piece of rolled bone. I checked the surface of the log bed and any shelly horizon for bones or teeth that may be weathering out, but unfortunately no luck there. An interesting sight though was the log bed's huge tree trunks. Usually obscured by sand the log bed marks the boundary between the Upper and Lower Hamstead Members. It correlates with a eustatic lowstand attributed to the onset of antarctic glaciation and rapid global cooling. Around this bed is where the mammal fauna at Bouldnor passes through the famous Grande Coupure, marking the extinction of earlier endemic Eocene mammals like palaeotheres and anoplotheres, who are replaced with rhinocerotids, carnivorans, and a wide range of artiodactyls and rodents, including entelodonts and anthracotheres. The log bed represents a large log jam in fluvial swampy conditions, intermixed with the trees were the carcasses of mammals (a nearly intact Anoplotherium skeleton eroded out of the bed between the 1960's and 2002). Large tree trunks of pines and redwoods can be seen weathering out on the foreshore, and look pretty impressive. There's a long hiatus after the log bed, before the deposition of the Upper Hamstead Member above. Having passed the log bed, productivity picked up again and within the space of around 20 metres I made some pretty nice finds, including teeth from Bothriodont anthacotheres, an alligator tooth, a large section of trionychid costal plate, alligator jaw fragments, and a large cervical vertebra from an alligator (Diplocynodon sp.). Despite missing the neural arch and cervical ribs on one side the vertebra is quite well preserved and unworn, and is definitely one of the best bones I've collected from the Bouldnor Fm. I walked on a bit further towards Cranmore but decided to turn back as the tide has begun to turn. Overall, it was a great trip with some really nice finds. I'm planning on heading up to Hamstead for a full day of collecting on Saturday so I'll post on how that trip goes. Thank you, Theo 1. Worn Bothriodon vertebra 2. Distal anthracothere humerus, most likely Bothriodon 3. Diplocynodon cervical vertebra 4. Front view of the Diplocynodon vertebra

Hi, after sieving through a load of mud from the fossil river bed I found a few tiny vertebrae about 5mm X 5mm. I assume these are small mammals like a vole or something, but would be good to know what the likely contenders are from this site.

Hello! Just some more stuff from Pleistocene cave deposits near Kempsey, Australia. If any more info is needed feel free to ask. As usual, I will be uploading more for ID later 1. Fish? Lizard? (excuse the red number, its for something else )

Hey everyone! I want to know your favorite extinct animal and why. Theropods, ornithischians, artiodactyls, cetaceans, carnivores, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, gastropods!!! Megatherium, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Anzu Wyliei, Leedsichthys, Stegosaurus, Megalodon, Glyptodon, Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, Punk Rock! (just kidding) ANYWAYS, there are no limits here. Even if its coral. Get specific! Do you have a fossil from your favorite creature? If not, is it even possible to acquire one? Have any interesting discoveries been made about your creature as of late? Just looking to learn and start some interesting discussions. GO! ------ Cheers! Lauren

Hello fossil-hunters! My most recent fossil hunt was rather successful! I went to the Zandmotor, in the Netherlands, which is known for its abundance of: fossil seashells, big Ice Age mammal bones, fish material and more Pleistocene fossils. Here are the things I found: 1) All the black/brown things on the top are bones/bone shards from big Pleistocene mammals such as the mammoth, the cave lion, the cave hyena, the Irish Elk, the woolly rhino, the bison, etc. - 2) The big white shells on the right are Acanthocardia tuberculata - 3) The smaller shells next to them are Mactra plistoneerlandica (clams) - 4) Next to the Mactra we have some Cerasroderma edule (cockles) - 5) Underneath those are some Macoma balthica - 6) The big grey things to the left are Ostrea edulis (oysters) - 7) The "tooth" underneath the oysters is actually a crab pincer - 8) Next to it we have a small piece of mammoth ivory - 9) All the small black things at the bottom are fish vertebrates - 10) And finally the small black thing above the fish verts is a partial fish jaw with one tooth! In the close-ups we have: 1) The partial fish jaw with the small tooth - 2) The fish verts - 3) The crab pincer - 4) A big piece of bone, maybe a partial femur of a rhino, bison or mammoth - 5) A small piece of mammoth ivory. Some of these fossils were given to me by a really nice young man named Rick, that I met that day on the beach. Rick was searching for fossils just like me, and he gave me some tips for the hunt, and have me many cool fossils! Some of you might notice this is the same post as on my Instagram account @world_of_fossils. What do you think? Best regards to all, Max

According to this recent study, the popular belief that mammals diversified after the extinction that killed the non-avian dinosaurs is incorrect; mammals diversified in the shadow of the dinos long before the extinction, and actually had a drop in diversity after it. The reason for this diversification was the evolution of angiosperms (flowering plants), which provided mammals with new food sources. Research paper: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1832/20160256 Simplified version: http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/early-mammals-diversification-03931.html

These are a bunch of bones from the pleistocene period found in Florida, USA. I haven't got a clue as to what these come from so I am guessing raccoon, giant armadillo, duck, deer and maybe birds. Not sure what species but I am psyched. It would be very much be appreciated if anyone can take a look and with your pleistocene expertise maybe help me decent what bones belong to what animal.

Can anyone help identify this vert? Found in the Seymour Formation in Seymour, Texas.

Hello! I am a young enthusiast, recently a volunteer for the Paleontology Research Program of the Natural Sciences Section of Vasile Parvan Museum, Barlad, Moldavia, Romania. I work under the supervision of Ph. D. c Laurentiu Ursachi, Museum Vasile Parvan, Barlad, Natural Sciences Section. The Museum Collections owns skeletal elements of Miocene and Cuaternar fossil mamals. At the moment we try to identify some teeth that may be a Chalicotherium and I have found some interesting bibliography on the forums. TY Fruitbat if you read this! We also started a voluntary program and I am in charge of this. If anyone wishes to give us some help in research we would be happy to establish contact. Please bare with me, because I am a newbie! Simon Salca jr.

While doing a search at Paleobiology Database, I was curious to see if I might find records of marine vertebrates from the Cenomanian-Santonian of the Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona because most tetrapods found in the Cenomanian-Santonian of Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas are primarily mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, marine turtles, and seagoing birds (e.g. Ichthyornis, Hesperornis) and terrestrial vertebrates have been found in the Western Interior dating from the Cenomanian-Santonian interval (e.g. Oryctodromeus, Eolambia, Sonorasaurus, Albanerpeton cifellii, Nothronychus graffmani, various species of mammals like Ameribataar, and terrestrial lizards). Given the paleogeography of North America during the Cenomanian, would it reasonable to assume that Cenomanian terrestrial tetrapods retreated farther west into areas of Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana that were not covered by the Western Interior Seaway to escape rising sea levels?