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I posted a thread discussing finding barnacles and seashells in the Peace River on Monday. I did have a few other finds and decided to post these separately... 1st -- a very small tooth that looks like deer but I do not think it is, and if it is not deer and in the Peace river it is very rare. Back in February, @Harry Pristis identified another small tooth I had found that was from a Pliocene deer, Eocolieus gentryorum... and it looks very similar, just a little smaller, but I need one more photo, I do not think this is Deer, I think it is Llama, and the only llama I can think of at this size is Hemiauchenia gracilis... Let's see what Harry says... 2nd up is a pretty small Dolphin tooth... I was digging in pea gravel,, small gravel generally leads to small fossils. A marine mammal periotic. Usually these are 30 mm, not 20 . I will be curious what @Boesse identifies it as.... When not hunting, I have been working most of the days, cleaning up and cleaning out my collection... NOT ENOUGH ROOM... While sorting the ones to keep, I found this in a ziplok bag from years ago.. It is about the same size and looks a little similar but did not come from the Peace River.. curious that I should come across these two 24 hours apart...

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:

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: