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Hi everyone, This is first time I create a topic, apologies in advance if any mistakes. I am a newbie into fossils And I have been searching for a long time trying to figure it out some ID for this unidentified fossil bone. I got it some time ago and I would like to know if thanks to the knowledgeable members of the forum it was possible to get a closer ID. I know that getting species on isolated pieces is impossible, but I would be happy to get a group, family or closer genus of the type of animal it could belong to. *Could it be a pterosaur (as it has very thin walls that was my first guess)? Or some other reptile or even a bird? How to differentiate? * Is a radius as per seller description? Or could be a metatarsal, phalanx... It is from the Phosphate mines of Khouribga, which seeing the bit of matrix attached looks true. Internally is completely crystallized with a thin bone wall around. I took some pictures of the section. The only information I got from the seller is the following: - Location: phosphate mines, Khouribga, Morocco. - Age: Late Cretaceous 96-66 MYO - Probably radius - Unidentified species Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6

I went out on Saturday, hunting the Peace River. Did not find very much. It was one of those days when my hunting partner, digging 5 feet from me was finding excellent fossils and me , not so much. I was also feeling out of sorts most of the day, and that turned into a stomach virus that I am now mostly over. Add about 150 somewhat bruised small shark teeth, and the hunt was not up to par. There are always gifts from the river... I hardly ever find connected ray teeth in the Peace, This is about 50% of an noncommon find. The big lift for the day is that my friend worked in the Phosphate mines in the 1980s and still connects with old friends who did the same. One has some interesting items and traded some small horse fossils including 20 plus teeth that I got before I started hunting Saturday. I am truly blessed. A few toe fossils A Medial phalanx L 25 x 22 mm Another Medial, L 20 x 16 Both are too large to be a good fit for this L 29 x 15 mm Proximal phalanx.. Big thrill ,, these are my 1st Horse Phalanx at this size... and the quality is crisp because they were never eroded by water... Naturally 3 lower right molars, possibly /likely Nannippus This one has no protostylid , thus N. aztecus APL 14 x width 8 x crown height 27 mm This one has a protostylid and very small APL 15 x width 10 x crown height 25 mm, possibly N. westoni and then this one APL 18 x Width 10 x Crown Height 34 mm. I can not tell if it has a protostylid or not...and will leave to experts to ID tooth positions... I have another 17 teeth needing photos..

So the Mulberry Phosphate Museum in Florida, which is quite close by, gets a bi-annual delivery of a spoil pile from the Mosaic Phosphate Mines. They got the pile a week ago, unbeknownst to me, and I only found out yesterday! They dump it on the ground and you can search through it, it’s essentially just gravel! Anyway, went for a couple hours, came away with a whole bunch of teeth. Nothing extraordinary, but here’s the finds! Handful of sting Ray barbs: Pretty worn horse tooth: Gomph or Mastodon enamel fragment: These are either more barbs, or fish teeth - if anyone knows, let me know: A sawfish rostrum, fish vert, and my biggest Ray dermal denticle to date: And for the teeth (Not included is the Meg frag I found I gave away to a kid - have too many frags, it would sit in a box, so may as well): Mako blade: All these sand tigers, including 2 small ones with both cusps! First time I’ve found double-cusped sand tigers! The nicer ones: double cusps: And finally the rest of the teeth:

I was was catching strippers and drinking gin in Cape Cod a week ago, lower Vermont Sunday and Monday, ate cod in a restaurant on Long Island Sound Tuesday, spent Wednesday in Connecticut, on a plane home Thursday, out hunting fossils yesterday. Did not find much. 10 small shark teeth and a few worn bones. A whiskey bottle from the the 30s or 40s. It was brutal, lots of bugs, 95 degrees, high humidity... Loved every second of it. Had lunch with a good friend, went back to his place to take photos of fossils he found 30 years ago in BV phosphate mines: So think Florida Bone Valley, Miocene, 10-25 myas. I am just going to select individual photos. I have more but sizes limits in a single thread slow me down. A few of these I believe I know the species, but for the 1st day will encourage guesses from those who do not know or are not sure. Enjoy EDITED: Most Identifications added on July 30th Fossil #1: Fossil #2 IDENTIFIED as Large kentriodontid-grade dolphin tooth Fossil #3 IDENTIFIED as true Seal Cervical vertebrae Fossil #4 Fossil #5 IDENTIFIED as true Seal Axis vertebrae Fossil #7 IDENTIFIED as true Seal sacrum bone Fossil #8 IDENTIFIED as Rostral node shark snout. Fossil #9 Indentations on BOTH sides.... IDENTIFIED as symphyseal portion of a mandible where the lateral edges have fallen away - this is from a Large kentriodontid-grade dolphin. I will be thinking about these, looking at the internet fossil sites, checking with fossil identification friends.... Just sharing with my friends at TFF. These are miocene. Out of 9 fossils, maybe I would find 2 or 3 in the mostly Pleistocene Peace River. Jack

Summer is usually a drag for SW Florida fossil hunting. I was flushed out of the Peace River on May 28th and have not been back. So I was commiserating (generally whining) with my pretty constant (in season) hunting buddy Steve a week ago. What can we do,, what can we do? Steve was a drag line operator for most of 25 years in Bone Valley Phosphate mines and has lived within walking distance of the Peace River most of his adult life. So, he and I both made suggestions on a Florida Fossil Focused agenda for what turned out to be yesterday!! 1) Arrive at Steve's home and unidentified fossil museum to check out some of his treasures and maybe purchase a few of my favorite tiny horse teeth from the Miocene era phosphate mines. Here are just a few of my new tiny horse teeth.... 2) Take a road trip in the Vicinity of Fort Meade, checking out feeder creeks to the Peace River, to determine whether these smaller creeks present an opportunity for fossil hunting. I am not trying to dissuade anyone but it is worth your life to go into many of the creeks I saw. As an example, little Paynes Creek is normally 1-2 feet meandering thru the woods. We went over a bridge where it was a torrent 30 feet wide and 8 foot deep. Best to wait until that subsides. 3) We were on a historical trip back in time visiting the Phosphate mines from 30 years ago and 100 years ago, passing old rusting mine buildings, cemeteries where mine towns used to be and are not any more, roads that went nowhere, huge tracks of land with no trespassing signs from MOSIAC Company. Steve talked about places he work for decades that had perfect Red Megs that no one bothered to pick up because the money was in mammal fossils. He said that in the 1970s, anyone could walk into the mines searching for fossils. The owners did not care as long as you stayed away from buildings and equipment during working hours. Kids would go searching for fossils on Sundays. 4) We were in the area , so we stopped at the Phosphate Mine Museum in Mulberry Florida. Really interesting place, I liked the baby Gomph tooth, Rhino tusk, Croc, and dugong ribs... In that 1st photo above, that is a Drag line bucket from decades ago. The museum fills the area with pebble rock that contains small fossils and tiny shark teeth from the mines. There was a family with 2 kids digging for fossils. I was fortunate to have some waste fossils in my pickup that I gave them and they thanked me profusely. I am not selective when I hunt, I pick up almost everything that is not rock, sort it out at home and on my next trip back, dump it back in the river, so broken unidentified bones, dugong ribs, ray teeth, turtle pieces, etc, etc. Sometimes fragments of gator . mammoth, mastodon, horse teeth. 5) From the museum, we went across the street for the big mac meal with fries and a drink. And then back to searching for those feeder creeks and defunct phosphate mines. All in All , it was a better fossil day than I had in over a month. We talked about visiting more local museums (Bradenton, Clewiston, Ft Myers), Steve loaned me a book on Florida Artifacts and so I have a lot of fossils activities to do for a few weeks until I need another day, hunting with Steve.

When I can not go to the Peace River... I clean, sort, categorize fossils or I do some family genealogy research, or I watch a ballgame on TV. It is ALL good. Here I am, going thru the bottom of an old box that has mostly whale teeth, some ray dermals, a few horse teeth, and some odds & ends, all coming from a Florida phosphate mine. Ball game on TV, drink on the table... as good as it gets. A couple of the odds-ends, and a couple of pre_Equus horse teeth to identify. You must be a horse fossil expert to do this and I am not nearly good enough... The 1st is an Upper, Cormohipparion I think... The 2nd very small... maybe Nannippus. I have sent photo to Richard Hulbert. Just sharing the good feelings I have today. Scraps in the bottom of a box, waiting for me to get interested. Jack

A hunting partner asked me to ID this canine, approximately 1.25 inches. I think I know what it is because of the "ripple" in the enamel, but feel better if backed by TFF expertise. I usually search TFF and the internet for matches and saw an old TFF post from 4 years ago that never quite identified this tooth. This TFF thread discusses Peccary. In the above thread, @Harry Pristismakes this comment: With the wear facet on the outside of the curve, Gary, your find is an upper canine. That's what I seem to have , a very small peccary looking tooth with the wear facet on the outside of the curve. Are there other possibilities for the Peace River Miocene - Pleistocene mix? Thanks for the help, Jack

This morning I happily acquired a Rhino tooth encased in jaw to add to my collection. It is my 3rd Florida Rhino fossil and I have my eye on a 4th. Now I start asking questions. This seems to be a lower tooth, the first or last tooth on the left side. I am also unsure of which exact Rhino species had this tooth. The jaw segment is 4.5 inches and the occlusal length is 2.25 inches. This tooth seems different from the teeth in this FLMNH mandible of Teleoceras proterum . All comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

As noted in another thread, I purchased 5 pre-Equus teeth from a hunting friend, who used to work as a dragline operator in a Bone Valley Phosphate Mine. There were evidently perks of such a job. While looking at the horse teeth, I saw what I believed to be a miniature Mastodon tooth with some roots and a little bit of jaw material. I thought TFF members would appreciate seeing it as much as I did.