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A really good day. I was wondering what wetsuit to wear based on a forecast of clouds with showers starting at noon. Made the mistake of taking the 3 mm instead of the 7 mm. The air warmth was OK, but the water was very cold and I did some shivering. Along with many small shark teeth and turtle scutes, here are the best finds of the day:. Some nice Hemis, tigers, and a Mako with 2 Armadillo osteoderms and my favorite fossil on the lower right is a Sloth tooth -- very nice and 2 inches long. Happy! Happy!! Happy!!! Found it in the 2nd sieve and it makes a great day even if I had found nothing else. Here is the ID request -- there are some likely candidates: Harlan's? Jefferson? and what likely tooth position? I am always a little unsure. A few more photos: There is a rodent jaw with 2 teeth and the smallest nice Meg I have ever found. So new additions to the keeper collection. Blowup photo of the Meg. Thru it all, my fossil hunting partner was only finding small shark teeth but raved about my finds. I have been on that side of hunting and his enthusiasm is just one of the reasons that I treasure him.

Hi, Im strictly amateur, but have always found fossils fascinating. While walking along the shore of the Peace River in Wauchula awhile back, I found this fossil. I've searched and searched the web to try and identify it, and the closest thing I've come to it is a raptor toe. I've also found that that's extremely unlikely, but none of the other toe bones I have seen seem to come close, except for perhaps a giant sloth or a jaguar. Anyway, any help in identifying this fossil would be greatly appreciated!

Very tiny find. Would love some help with this. Found Dec. in the Peace River, FL. Thank you!

This was pulled from the Peace River (FL) several years ago. My science teacher (gradeschool) at the time told me it was likely a chunk of a mammoth or mastodon tooth. I never had a reason to question it, nor was it really valueable based on size or condition but I thought it was cool. I've got some guys at work questioning the validity of the claim, so I'm looking for a second opinion of someone who actually knows what theyre talking about (I don't). I know these types of finds are pretty common in the Peace river along with Shark teeth and a host of other less exciting finds. Any info/tips/ID's anyone can provide I would appreciate a lot! The piece is very light, and smooth on one side. Not sure if that helps. It was sifted from gravel/sand. Thanks for the help!

My brother and I are headed down to bowling Green to stay in the very best western. (Hot tub) we are driving down today to hunt tomorrow and thanksgiving. I see that we are going to have some serious rain on wed. And I am wondering if anyone could tell me roughly how much I can expect the river to rise based on an inch of rain... we plan to go back into Charlie creek. we both have full hooded 8mm semi dry suits and are not too worried about getting cold just trying to figure out how much I can expect to see the river rise while I'm there.. i am trying out a couple of dive lights my friend gave me. Hope they help. We have only been down to the peace a total of four times and have done well each trip. Fingers crossed...our family does thanksgiving on Friday due to work schedules of the fam. So hopefully we will be back to hunt sat and Sunday too. Anyone who has a kayak and a suit are more than welcome to join us we are going to the canoe outpost in Gardner at 7:30 tomorrow morning. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Also if any members ever make it to Jacksonville I would love to show off some great spots on the saint Johns river and on some spoil piles. Happy hunting to all.

I now have 4 or 5 of these with this one found today. I often thought this was an ankle bone of a white tailed deer, but maybe not.

I am sorting (and enjoying) the normal finds in ziploc bags from last Spring and Summer and finding some fossils that definitely deserve my attention. Including these 2 shark teeth -- I think one is relatively rare and hope that the other may be the same species. So what are these 2, and if different, how so? Thanks SS

I found this mammal looking tooth in the Peace River near Arcadia, FL. Just not sure what it is exactly. What i can tell is that it was probably from a mammal... to me, it does resemble a plant eating animals tooth... It didn't look like a Tapir tooth to me... (it certainly wasn't a horse tooth, i found plenty of those) heck maybe it is just a fossil cow tooth or something hehe. But yeah, just thought I'd share it here, see what y'all think. It does seem to have an enamel top part followed by some roots that have been damaged/broken off over the years of fossilization. Hope these pics are ok. Thanks for the help!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a topic about a rodent incisor that I found in the micro-matrix gravel that I collected from the Peace River at the end of the last river fossil hunting season. Consensus had it as an upper incisor due to curvature of the tooth. That topic can be found here for those who missed it the first time: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/47538-micro-matrix-incisor-from-the-peace-river/ While sorting through some of the same batch of micro-matrix I came across something else of interest that stood out from the usual tiny shark, ray, drum, porgy and other fish teeth. It was a tiny mammal molar. I'm still working out a good system for micro photography and my current setup reflects back the lighting too much when I use my millimeter ruler scale so the photos are sans scale. The tooth dimensions are approximately 1.5mm x 3.5mm across the occlusal surface and the length is about 4.5mm long to the extent of the root. Based on the size it had to be from some small rodent so I checked my bible, The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida, to see if I could find a match or at least something similar. From my (extremely limited) understanding of rodent molars, I believe this may be a arvicoline rodent molar as they are characterized by the occlusal surface being composed of a series of "triangles" which this tooth seems to show. The two sinuses (I guess that's the proper term) on either side of the tooth between the three triangular lophes/cones seem to point in the same direction (posteriorly, down in the photo below). The overall shape seems to most closely match the dentition examples shown in Fig. 12.13 [C] on page 235 of the aforementioned book. If this is the case that would make this a right m1 (first lower molar) of Ondatra annectens which is known from the early Pleistocene of Texas. Early Pleistocene would seem to match the age range found in the Peace River and I would expect that rodents (much like today) were generally wide ranging. In fact, consulting the checklist of Florida fossil vertebrates on page 58 shows this species as being known from Florida. This is about the extent of my fossil sluthery skills (actually I'm operating well past the comfort zone of my current knowledge). I don't doubt that there are members on this forum who have a much more comprehensive understanding of the arcane skills of mouse molar morphology. I'd love to hear what others make of this tiny little prize. I apologize for the quality of the photos in advance. I'm still trying to come up with a good system for taking pictures of specimens this tiny. I think I'll need to drop some $$$$ for a nice macro lens for my DSLR. Till then I'm stuck with crummy photos with a lack of depth of field and resolution. Here are the photos (such as they are) showing a side view (occlusal surface toward the top) and an occlusal view (anterior side presumably? toward the top): Cheers. -Ken

I've been making progress in the bucket of micro-matrix that gathered from a spot on the Peace River back in May when I made my last sojourn to sift there this season. Looking through my 10x photographer's loupe with one eye while scanning the matrix was giving me a bad case of double vision if I gave into temptation and picked through more than a Solo cup full of micro-matrix. In attempt to find a technique easier on the eyes I purchased a 5MP digital microscope (basically a USB webcam with an adjustable magnifying lens). I found this too slow and cumbersome to use in my search for micro fossils but it does seem to be reasonably proficient in taking acceptable quality images of the finds. I was struck with a brilliant thought yesterday (and I'm afraid I've probably now used up my quota of these for 2014). Being an old gray-haired codger now my eyes seem resistant to focusing on anything close-up. It's not that my eyes are too bad to read restaurant menus but my arms seem to be too short. I do wear contact lenses to help me with my distance vision (and have for decades). I know that without my contacts in place that my close-up vision is actually pretty good after all. The epiphany yesterday was to simply tuck my contact lenses safely in their case and then use no magnifying optics at all to scan for micro fossils in my matrix. It turns out that with the aid of a good LED light that I can clearly spot and identify micros less than half a millimeter with the naked eye. This has greatly speeded-up the search through my micro-matrix and done away with the eye strain and double vision I was experiencing when searching under magnification. This evening while relaxing with a fine sipping rum I searched my way through a plastic Solo cup full of micro-matrix. In addition to the usual very tiny shark teeth and ray plates I came across something novel (and I love novelty). It appears that this micro fossil might be a curved incisor of something mouse-like in size (and construction). Though it is difficult to show in photographs, one end (root) shows a bit of a hollow concavity and the other seems to show a beveled (occlusal) surface. I tried to include a scale in the images but the shiny surface reflected the circle of LED lights in a very distracting way. The actual length of this incisor is about 9mm if that helps to narrow down who could have formerly owned this bit of dentition. I'm assuming something mouse-like but would be curious to hear if any on the Forum have any more detailed opinions. Two sides: Cheers. -Ken

EOS = end of season. I always push the envelope, going out after the gauges indicate possible stupidity. Last Friday, I switched to my high water locations and pulled out a nice mouth plate for my digging. The current was a little fast and I was digging in water just above my waist. But today, in the same spot the current was fast and the water was up to my chin. No chance. I then tried a number of different locations, all with the same result. The only excitement was trying to get back into my kayak from 5 feet of water. I guess it is time to categorize, sort, display my recent finds and do maintenance on my gear, especially the sieves. and go into fossil withdrawal...

I'd appreciate opinions/confirmation on a tooth I picked up June 3rd from the Peace. The tooth I'm holding in the top photo is the subject tooth. The left tooth in this following photo is a previous find (broken) identified by Richard Hulbert as a cat (Jaguar/Lion??) lower molar or 1st pre-molar. The tooth on the right is the new tooth, with 1 of 2 roots intact. The deep grooves impress me as a cat tooth, but pre-molars always confuse me. Thanks for the help.

Been having fun picking through my small cache of collected micro-matrix. So far I've found mostly tiny versions of the larger teeth I usually find and some pharyngeal "button" teeth from drums and other fishes. Been looking for the elusive cookie cutter shark tooth but haven't come across one yet. Turned up this in my searching today and I'm thinking this which looks a bit different from the normal micro fossils I've uncovered. I'm assuming it is likely some sort of ray tooth but I'm just learning about these little guys that usually fall through my sifting screen. The scale is in millimeters so it's a little one. Cheers. -Ken

Pam and I went on a Peace River kayak trip Friday 5/31 guided by Mark Renz. We had a great time on the river and talking with Mark, who is very knowledgeable about the river, fossils and the history of the area. The weather turned out great even though we had to postpone the trip a couple days due to thunder storms in the area. We found some great fossils and lots of teeth (another post, another day, I'm a couple years behind in shooting pictures). No alligators, I'm sorry to say, I was hopping for some close up pix but not too close up. All in all it was well worth the trip and a lot of fun and we would recommend a trip with Mark anytime. Thanks, Mark.

Found this new Zolfo, looks to be peccary or sus? looking for confirmation.