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Went hunting yesterday. We have had a lot of rain and the Peace River is 3-4 feet too deep but it has been dropping and just due to withdrawal symptoms, we decided to try one of the streams that might have some low spots. The lighter colors tell you these are from a stream. That is a dugong rib segment upper right, mostly small shark teeth, a couple of Meg Frags, chunk of Mammoth plate, puffer fish mouth plate bottom. A Beluga periotic made my day. They are far rarer than Megalodons.. Only my 2nd in 15 years... the 1st was October 2021. There are other notable finds: A very small dolphin tooth (I will try to identify it, just based on size likely a small river dolphin). A Sawfish rostral tooth and then what I am trying to get identified.. a 31 millemeter enamel fragment with a unique tip. Additional Photos... This last photo of what I thought was the root end seems to have a chewing surface like enamel, so the "tip" above might be the end of a tooth root ??? This may be obvious and I'll but I have seen LOTS of broken enamel over 15 years. For example, that very thin broken enamel is similar to broken horse teeth, but I have not seen a tip that looks like this one on any Bone Valley tooth. All suggestions greatly appreciated. Jack

Hello everyone Below are some finds from my last trip to a dredge spoil island that has Miocene to modern marine and terrestrial fossils. The dredge and river action unfortunately beat up the fossils and make it hard to ID. The scale on the white graph paper is 1" for the boxes. Photo quality a little off due to the poor winter sun angle. Large Un-numbered Bone: Possibly a mammoth or bison femur? Weighs more than 3.5 pounds. It looks like the head of a femur and a heavily worn limb bone. May be too far gone to ID. #1: Two small mammal (likely cetacean) periotics #2: Edge of a Turtle shell? Just didn't see the typical interior turtle shell texture #3 Broken coprolites? Interesting interior compositions on them #4 Worn turtle nuchal shell? #5 Wild guess-fish tooth in jaw? Has a smooth enamel on the pointy end that tapers on both sides to a broken point #6 No idea-Probably unidentifiable? #7 Small broken horse scapula? Thanks for looking. Hopefully the photos stay in order, with an outdoors photo followed by another photo indoors due to the outdoor light this time of year. Be happy to add better photos if requested.

Due to the holidays, my last time out was 2 weeks ago. The nights have been cooler lately and we had some recent rains. Yesterday was sunny/overcast highs in low 70s F. I went out yesterday to a favorite location. Took a 5 mm wetsuit which was not quite enough to avoid occasional chills. The water was deeper so I could not quite reach the gravel and moved to a spot that had smaller gravel, more sand and shell. I recall thinking I might just try a sieve or 2 here and then move upstream prospecting. So much for that idea. In the 1st sieve was a tridactyl horse lower tooth. I would hunt here for the next 6 hours. I was finding fewer fossils than normal at this site, but the quality was better. For example , instead of 250 small shark teeth, I found 50. There were many broken bones and I kept a few that had potential for identification. In searching for comparisons, I found a @Plantguy thread where he was looking for IDs on horses, tapirs, and filefish. @Harry Pristis help out on differentiating Tapirs.. https://www.thefossilforum.com/topic/76697-florida-vertebrate-unknown-questions/ I wonder if Chris ever IDed his tapir. A few closeups of what I believe are accurate IDs looking for comments. Early in my hunting days, I found an almost complete 3.5 inch Ray barb... Any time I see one near 2 inches, it makes my day An upper hemi around 2 inches, even broken is a welcomed find One of the best filefish verts I have ever see, Look at the detailed lines on the inside of the centrum.. Nice tooth.. HSB traverse lines on the enamel. I say peninsulatus based on the age of the location AND the long time ratio of peninsulatus versus any other Tridactly at this site. There are at least 6 species of tapir in the Florida fossil history, I have found 2-3 of them at this location, but this ones looks a lot like Tapirus haysii, much more than others . That was the show and tell part of this thread... Here is the request for ID. I know that 1st photo looks like a conglomerate rock.. I almost tossed it, then turned it over to see the 2nd photo and thought maybe Dolphin earbone, At 16 x 11 mm, really small. What do you think?

Hey all, Part 2 of my blog series on whale and dolphin earbones is here - my guide to identifying isolated dolphin/toothed whale (Odontoceti) periotic bones. Check it out here: https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2023/01/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html Sample image:

When the Peace River is too deep, I sometimes try land hunting and fortunately I have very good fossil friends who make me smile when I see them AND who have the skills. My son and I got together on New Years day and had a great time sloshing in the mud and making a memory. The mud turns to concrete when it dries on equipment and boots and it took more than a few hours to get cleaned up. A couple of nice finds , one to try and ID. The 1st is a nice little Meg that I sent on to my grandson in Texas. Liked the Olive drab color in the sunshine. The 2nd is a small dolphin periotic. This is gorgeous, looking at the unworn tiny lines still visible 3-4 mya later. They say that identification of cetaceans from periotics is a "black art" and I am not the magician. I get it wrong more often than not. But I have seen earbones before even from this locality. How about an ocean delphinid, maybe a Bottlenose dolphin , Tursiops .sp like this one , somewhat smaller, 4 years ago. There are always differences but there are a bunch of similarities also. About a year ago , @Boesse stunned me by Identifying this one as possibly Beluga Whale (HERE in Florida ). Could not have been more pleased. Note that it is about the same size as my new find..... Life is good, and we each have a whole new year to make great memories. Jack

Found this little fossil on the James River shoreline near Surry, Virginia (US). Wondered whether it might be an incomplete dolphin ear bone, but not entirely confident in that ID! It's just about an inch long.

Hi all - it's been a while, since I started on twitter and started teaching much of the itch I scratched through blog writing was taken care of by twitter - but now I've thought about returning to more long-format science communication. The blog format is certainly more informative for most fossil collectors anyway. The new post is just the first in a series on whale and dolphin earbones - the first is an introduction to the basic anatomy and function of earbones, along with basic differences between baleen whale (Mysticeti) and dolphin (Odontoceti) earbones, with comments on their preservation, discovery, and their uses in cetacean taxonomy, cladistics, and studies of diversity. The next post will be the one most anticipated by the majority of collectors - a guide to identifying dolphin periotics by family. The third post will be similar, but directed towards mysticete periotics, and the fourth will cover mysticete and odontocete tympanic bullae. Read it here: https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2022/12/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html Obligatory photo of some periotics we collected out on Charleston harbor on Dec. 1, well worth boots full of freezing cold water:

I was out hunting yesterday to a miocene_pliocene site that produces mostly small shark teeth with occasional surprises. In this instance there were three. 1st up... Upper molar Nannippus aztecus (11-5 mya) upper molar. Certainly Nannippus, likely aztecus based on size and location. Next , my unknown, a dolphin periotic earbone, 29 x 16 mm well worn and found in a miocene site. @Boesse And finally a Bison or Bos lower m3 unerupted enamel cap .. no roots. I was quite excited seeing the complete enamel in excellent unworn quality. But based on size and lack of wear, it is probably Bos... Looking for any different opinions

I am blessed to(still) be finding a few interesting but small fossils. This 1st one is a very high quality horse ear bone, and the 2nd is a clump of silicified coral with a little Botryoidal druzy growing inside. I always enjoy sharing these. And ... the last is easy. It is a Dolphin earbone (size 33 x 18.5 x 11 mm) ... a periotic. But I want to know which dolphin. and for that I need an experienced eye. @Boesse I hope that I have provided enough views. It might be a number of different Marine Mammals. See this recent thread to understand why I ask for assistance on most of these.

Hello all! Sorry for the not-so-great photos here. My phone camera is... kind of a fossil. I found this mystery fossil on the beach in North Carolina, USA, somewhere near Emerald Isle if I'm recalling correctly. My best guess is that it's a periotic bone from a dolphin, porpoise, or something of the like, but it doesn't totally match up with images I've seen. I've also considered that it could be a ballast bone, but again, hard to confirm via Google search. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Got out to the Peace River yesterday and a beautiful day it was! The river continues to be very low and slow moving. As I was heading east on the 1 hour drive I was listening to news reports of several Florida Mayors wanting the counties or state to issue stay at home orders. This would certainly put a damper on visits to the river, I travel through 3 counties just to get there. So I hit the river thinking this could be my last outing for a while. With very few people on the river on any week day there really isn't a reason to stop folks from getting out and enjoying a day of exercise where they won't be in close contact with anyone else. As I was approaching within a few hundred yards of my most recent hunting spot I saw a tent on the river bank and a canoe alongside. As I got closer I saw a man and what I took to be his son. We exchanged greetings and the adult said he had spent the night on the river to get his son out of the house. I continued on and shortly had to get out of the kayak due to the water level being too low to paddle. I set up south of where I saw the campers and got busy digging. Various shark teeth started turning up pretty quickly. I was also rewarded with two small sections of dolphin jaw bones, mammoth and mastodon fragments and more. Every time nice finds seemed to be dying out I would come up with another nice shark tooth or a piece of mastodon tooth that convinced me the big prize was only a shovel away. Unfortunately, these turned out to be a bit of a tease. I did have a good day with the number and variety of shark teeth, a piece of deer antler, puffer fish mouth plate, whale tooth, dolphin periotic, a nice turtle scute, some sting ray dermal scutes and a small gator tooth. About 10 am I looked up and saw my friendly 4 foot gator lazily swimming by about 20 feet away. He slid under a downed tree and left his tail sticking out. He was there for about an hour and then disappeared. We seem to have an understanding, I ignore him and he ignores me. This was backed up by his return in the early afternoon to crawl up on his favorite sandy spot and watch me for the rest of the day. He was still laying in the sun when I headed north back to the launch site. On the way back a Bard owl graced me with his presence by suddenly flying in and landing on a tree limb directly over me in the river. He patiently waited while I circled under him taking pictures. A short time later I saw a 10' to 12' alligator slide into the river a little ahead of me. When I see that it does cause me to have second thoughts about my inflatable kayak! Shot of the owl and picture of the best finds of the day are below. I will be posting the whale tooth and one other questionable find in the ID section for help with an ID. Right now the plan is to return to the river Friday. Hope the politicians don't shoot that idea down with a stay at home order.

Hi, just going through some rocks I brought back from Norfolk, UK, thinking quite a few may be fossils (I didn't have long so just grabbed anything I thought looked suspiciously organic by intuition) and as it turns out I think I was quite correct in a number of cases - I think I have quite a few pieces of whale and and a few little bits of mammoth tooth. Trying to confirm this to myself led to a lot of reading and learning online about the local geological formations involved and also whale anatomy, both new topics for me which I always enjoy delving into - part of the enjoyment of fossil hunting for me - I'm less of someone looking for beautiful specimens for display (though I'm not going to turn those down!) and more someone who loves the detective work of trying to identify obscure parts and recreate some aspect of the vanished world before us from its traces. And searching through whale anatomy and what these weird chunks could be I came across a picture of a whale periotic and realised that the weird little pot structure I had was almost definitely one of these, which if I am correct is good because I believe they are one part of a fragmented whale anatomy that is quite diagnostic. Also I then realised that a strangely hooked piece I found right next to it could well be the tympanic! The preservation here is unusual because many theorise that these kind of whale fossils were first laid down in sandstone in the Miocene when Norfolk was covered with a shallow warm sea, and then later in the Pliocene and early Pleistocene when temperatures dropped sea levels dropped too and the area became land (part of the reason the geology of this area is interesting is the constant transgression and regression of the sea over a few million years), these Miocene rocks were eroded away and the harder fossils reworked into new estuarine or nearshore sediments of this era, often but not always with a layer of hard iron-rich concretion coating them which helped protect them (I guess one question would be, is there anyway of easily removing this hard concretion layer?) So if I am right, these are bones from Miocene whales (many showing signs of shark damage), reburied in the Pliocene / Early Pleistocene and then finally eroded out again in the modern day - quite a journey! Anyway, enough background, for starters I'd love to see what people think about this periotic / tympanic. Am I right? Here's a summary of my findings (note I used a pic of dolphin periotic someone posted here for comparison so I hope that isn't too cheeky)

I finally made it out in July to a location near Charleston I am always mentioning, but had never personally visited. After 3 dry years of no ear bone periotics they started showing up in triplicate this summer. Probably was able to discern their shape better after seeing so many examples. Not much else showed up for me that day save a few tiny teeth. But it led to my first, albeit small donation. Common or Scientific Name: Odontoceti indet. (delphinid periotic ear bone) Geologic Formation: Undetermined - ( Fossil dredge from this site typically contains Oligocene Ashley Formation, Lower Miocene Marks Head Formation, Lower Pliocene Goose Creek Limestone, and Pleistocene Wando Formation ) Geologic Age: Undetermined - Oligocene (?) But potentially Pliocene - Pleistocene Region the fossil was found: Charleston, South Carolina Museum or University that received the fossil: Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston Reason for donation: Well preserved and perfect for the fossil survey. Found and donated (July 23, 2019) to Dr. Bobby Boessenecker Dr. Bobby Boessenecker - " Ashby (Gale) and I (but mostly Ashby, since he's out more often) have been putting together a collection of riverbank ear bones from West Ashley, Johns Island, and Mount Pleasant, and this is quite a well preserved one that would go nicely into the eventual paper. "

I have spent many hours on this forum, but this is the first time I am posting because this inner ear bone has me completely stumped. It is the first inner ear bone I have found, and it appears to be the periotic of a small/medium cetacean. I see strong similarities with some dolphins and pygmy sperm whale specimens also pulled from the Peace River in Arcadia, FL, but none that really match up. I am new to identifying anything beyond teeth, but I was excited to find this and would love to have a better idea of what animal it is from.

My friend found a couple of interesting bone pieces while digging at Ernst Quarries last weekend. In the same hole, she found what may be two small cetacean periotic bones, as well as a small dolphin tooth. All three are included included in associated images. She wasn't digging a particularly large hole, so I can't help but wonder if they are all from the same animal. While there may be no way to tell, the possibility is intriguing to this newbie's mind. Of course, I may even be wrong about my ID of the bones. Any input regarding the donor species, etc., is greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Well I was looking at Marcos cool post about coprolites and was scrounging thru some of my Manatee Cnty boxed material and didnt find any coprolites so here's several potential whale/dolphin type frags that I'm not entirely sure about and was wondering if any of you all can confirm. I'm thinking A is a root of a maybe a dolphin tooth, B is a bulla of some sort , C is a fragment of some type of fish jaw--seems like I've seen this somewhere before? D and E appear to be anterior processes/ of dolphin periotics. I added a closeup of the end view of A and a closeup of C. I also found this little guy which is fairly well preserved and has some very distinct symmetry...seems to be a tilly of some sort. Thanks for any help. Regards, Chris

Does my ID look correct? This came from Miocene spoil piles at the Museum in Aurora, NC. -greel

...at least for me for this season. I'll be out of the country over the next two weekends and then off to Greece on vacation for most of June so I'll likely not get another chance at hunting the Peace River this season unless something really unusual happens with the weather. I expect rainy season to have started by the time I'm back from Greece and the Peace will likely be several feet higher that it is at the moment. Currently, the Peace is as low as I've seen it this season. During a heavy drought several years back I've seen the Peace about a foot lower than it is now which made for a long trip from Brownville to Arcadia with a lot of time out of the canoe pushing it over shallow sandy areas. Yesterday, we had to get out a number of times and that combined with the headwind we fought all the way back to Arcadia meant we had to allocate more travel time which left less time for digging and sifting. On the (Canoe Outpost) bus ride up from Arcadia to Brownville we spotted a couple sitting the seat in front of us who looked to be new to fossil hunting on the Peace. They had loaner sifting screens and a shovel from Canoe Outpost and I figured we might help introduce them to a fun (and addicting) passtime. We hadn't planned on spending much time at the large (well-known and hard-hit) gravel bed just downstream from Brownville but changed our plans to help Mike and Samantha (if I haven't misremembered their names by now--names, not my strong suit). After a brief stop before the main gravel bed we stopped at another area with very chunky gravel that is even closer to the boat ramp at Brownville. This area is well within walking distance from Brownville Park and I suspect it gets hit hard by walk-ins. Lots of gravel to be found at that spot but it wasn't even giving up small shark teeth so we soon moved down to the primary gravel bed near Brownville. I gave some tips and pointers on how to hunt the area and let them use our larger sifting screen with 1/4" mesh while we poked around with the 1/"2 mesh sifter trying to find an area that was producing fossils. The gravel bed at this location is virtually from bank to bank and runs for somewhere between 100-150 feet so it is not a tiny area. Even though it is large it is by no means cryptic and it attracts lots of attention. Evidence of holes and piles litter the bottom here (till they are erased like a big Etch-a-sketch each summer during flood stage). The big trick to hunting this site is to find some place where you are not digging through someone's spoils. Prospecting lots of sites in this location till you hit an area that is producing some nice finds is the best way (IMHO) of working this location. We poked around without much luck till we found an area that my probe told me had some gravel under a topping of sand. Within a few minutes digging there I pulled out a rather large chunk of giant tortoise (Hesperotestudo) carapace that should have been identified and kept by any previous hunters. This made me feel more certain about spending more effort in this spot. Before long we were pulling out some larger shark teeth (and fraglodons) as well as a few other things like gator teeth and mammoth and mastodon tooth fragments. Every so often I'd bring over some donated finds to our new "students" so they could start to understand the diversity of finds that can be pulled from the Peace. I continued to dig in the spot we finally landed on as it was giving up a variety of small prizes which were useful in demonstrating the types of things to look for in the Peace. Shark teeth are relatively easy to find and identify but more obscure fossils require obtaining a search image to be able to spot effectively. Shortly after I had shown the river's two newest fossil hunters a small piece of mammoth tooth we pulled something interesting out of our sifting screen. Tammy got to it first (she works the sifter while I man the shovel). Initially, she thought it was an odd piece of turtle shell (a good assumption as the Peace has lots of varied pieces of turtle and tortoise carapace). She had picked it up and was holding it sideways. I took it from her to look closer and upon rotating it saw the occlusal surface. "Horse tooth," I said instantly seeing the crenulated enamel ridges on the top of the tooth. But something was odd about it--it just didn't look right. Lower horse teeth are more narrow and elongated (better to fit into the narrow lower jawbone) while upper horse molars are more squarish. This piece wasn't quite square nor was it as elongated as a lower tooth should be. It was the right size for an Equus molar but the square peg just wasn't fitting into the round hole. Finally, the penny dropped and I excitedly understood why this horse molar looked so odd--it wasn't equine at all! It was mammoth--BABY mammoth! I went over to show this new find to our fossil partners do jour and while I was explaining to them how you could tell it was mammoth (by the very characteristic bands and loops of enamel sandwiched together with layers of cementum) Tammy came over and said, "Guess what I found?" I hadn't a clue--the Peace can give up a wide variety of items. She held out in her hand another chunk of baby mammoth tooth--one entire loop of enamel. It only took a few seconds to verify that this piece fit neatly into the chunk we had just found--the tooth was growing! You can be sure we dug around in that spot for another hour or more but never found another scrap of this tiny tooth. Likely it had previously fragmented on its path from where it was eroded out of the river bank to the spot we recovered it. The two pieces had probably recently separated but didn't make it far from each other--they may have even separated just with the agitation of shaking the sand out of the sifting screen. I'm glad we were able to reunite this pieces. Still, by no means a complete baby mammoth molar but a good size chunk and my trip-maker for the day. I had originally planned on skipping past this location and prospecting some other gravel spots we have hunted in the past but haven't tried for several years. I'm glad the decision to instruct some newbie fossil hunters paid off so quickly with fossil Karma. Before too long our new acquaintances headed off down river and we soon gave up our search for any more of this molar and continued down as well. On the way down we spotted a large gator in the same spot as we saw one when we were there last time. It looked to be about the same size (9-10 foot) and I suspect it was the same individual in its current favorite sunning spot. We prospected a bit here and there but had spend so much time near Brownville that we wanted to make it down to our favorite spot near Oak Hill. We stopped again at this location to hunt for a bit because it has chunky gravel and sometimes gives up nice prizes. Mostly, it's just big chunks of matrix with lots of dugong rib bones and very few shark teeth but this is the same spot that gave up two nice gator osteoderms last time out. The water is quite low without much current at the moment. If fact, the wind that was blowing steadily from the south was actually pushing my sifting screen upstream. You can see from the photos below that the water is also quite cloudy as there is a major algae bloom going on presently. This is making the normally tea-colored clear river water quite opaque and greenish. Vertical visibility is less than a foot. This lack of clarity is not impacting fossil hunting too much but it makes the paddling downstream more difficult as it is making the sand bars and deeper water channels more difficult to discern. Hidden logs below the surface are also more difficult to see making for more dangerous navigation. We had to think more while traveling but since we know this stretch of the river pretty well we didn't have major difficulties. Here I am enjoying the Peace for my final trip of the season. This second stop of the day didn't give up any large prizes but did produce a nice diversity of items. The second find of the day was this tiny jaw with several molars in place. It looks to be something from the a rodent or lagomorph but I'll need to spend more time getting an ID on this.