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Several trips. Will be digging more soon, deer hunting season's over. I miss global warming lately. Usual cow sharks, eight. Some times I think the "vein" has run out. Some little sand tiger. At the beach after the recent storm, a bunch of makos (up to just over an inch, 2.6 cm), a weathered small hemi, and a few bigger sand tiger. A broken skate denticle/ scute. The reddish makos tend to fade with time (maybe oxidation?) Another big wind storm tomorrow, hope to hit several beach spots next week.

Went out three times. Actually the beach was more relaxing, talked with others there (two others had found cow shark teeth there, I found two; a whitish cowshark tooth was washed out of the photo). We had two warm days, light breezes, and walking the beach is a nice break from screening cold mud and black leaves. More fossil bone bits and skate stuff (usually teeth) but I found a nice scute/ denticle and a fossil stinger piece. The people out hunting shark teeth at the beach generally do not know what types of teeth they find (mostly sand tiger) and one had a pretty broken Tilly bone, but no clue what it was (just picking up interesting stuff). Reliving their youth. Supposedly there will be a new state park in Middlesex, VA according to the people I talked with, near Bush park. They claim there are cliffs with lots of complete Chesapectins as well as beaches with lots of fossils and shark teeth. Hopefully this is true. There is a lot of bemoaning the loss of local access to waterfront areas where earlier generations of kids used to hunt shark teeth, as the property values have skyrocketed. York River state park has lots of shells and fossil bits, but shark teeth are rare, and that's what children want. The locals were complaining the State Park beaches only allow collecting on the beaches and screening of sand at the water edge, but no digging, and any important fossils belong to the State. Not sure when it will happen or what the rules will be. But there may be a rush of collectors to the new state park site before it sets up. Nothing spectacular in my three hunts, but freezing temps in the morning and highs between 40 and 50 F may cut down on collectors. Indian summer is over.

Recent trips. A couple of skate dermal scutes, rare for me, a nice cowhark bottom lateral (unfortunately not the "sharp-nosed" I'm looking for), puffer plate, and a heavy tiger shark tooth, plus a lot of mostly small sand tiger teeth.

Found a few teeth not sure what they are. The biggest teeth in the photos are just under an inch (~2.4 cm). I thought the first was a big lemon shark tooth, but it clearly isn't (no serrations, blade slightly broader than the teeth below). Ventral mako? Both sides shown: The second I'm hoping is an upper cowshark, but not as weird and twisted as usual:

Nothing too exciting, typical trip, highlight the perfect mako. No cow shark teeth last two trips. A lot more activity in "my" spots. Overdue to find something really nice!

I was on a good run with bottom lateral cow shark teeth in a new spot (seems to have ended lately; thought it would get better in the winter but footprints everywhere). While most cow shark teeth I had found in the past were rootless and broken, they were easy to identify with the multiple points, and by serrations on the first spike (or so I thought). I have a fair amount of these serrated first spikes. Recently I found two "pathological" bottom lateral cow shark teeth (out of less than a dozen I had found there). I've been looking hard but not finding much lately. I gathered up most of my previous collected cow shark teeth and looked at the serrations on the big first point. I was surprised that, while not as obvious as the first two, several had serations on a separate smaller first point, some seemed to have fused large serrations, and many could just be loss of serrations with weathering. The scan is of most of my bottom lateral cow shark teeth, all from Middlesex county VA, from three hunting spots. In one spot, where most broken and small teeth are from, almost all have serrations on the first spike (most of those in the right four columns). The ones from the recent spot and similar from other spots (left two columns) are much more variable: some have small spikes rather than serrations on the first spike, some have a small spike with serrations, several have fused serrations, and some are weathered but no obvious serrations on the first spike. There of course is overlap. It's unclear if this is just normal variability that varies by hunting site, or if the new site has a different subspecies. The new spot has a lot less shark teeth beyond the interesting cow shark bottom laterals (seems I would have found a symphyseal by now?) Mostly just the same I usually find, but less teeth. A few interesting things, will need IDs and will post soon. @flyersfan805 has a nice collection for comparison (and I'm sure there are others):

Nice to be out before the mosquitoes, but the pollen is a pain. Worked a spot with lots of gravel. Expected drum teeth (found), angel shark teeth (two) and vertebrae (one and pieces). Except for cowshark teeth (no roots), nothing really special. But lots of small teeth (many broken).