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  1. I’m trying to get better at identification so I labeled the pieces with what I think they are but some I can’t figure out. I would love some guidance if anyone has any input! Thanks Fernandina Beach Amelia Island Florida USA
  2. 2 different mouthplates location: Peace river, Florida, USA Era:Mioceen My question to the field Are the plates from the same fishes? Greetings from the Netherlands Vincent
  3. Mikrogeophagus

    Hawaiian Hunting

    A couple days ago I embarked on an adventure to a site I was never expecting to visit. The setting was a family vacation to the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Oahu and I initially had no intention of crawling around in gravel bars as I so often do at home. Nevertheless one thing led to another and I ended up going on a hunt that was perhaps the most unforgettable outing of my fossil career and I came away with some amazing specimens impossible to find anywhere else. Maui Our trip started on the lesser populated island of Maui which is a bit younger than its sibling Oahu. The landmass can be described as a valley where two large volcanoes form the east and west edges. The Hawaiian islands get older as you travel westward and this trend is true for Maui. The western half of the island is about 1.3 million years old whereas the eastern is only about 0.75 million. To my knowledge, there isn't any fossil bearing strata on the shores, but that doesn't mean a fossil hunter will be left with nothing to do on their visit. Snorkeling was my main activity throughout the trip. Of course there are tons of interesting sea creatures to admire on the visit, but I think my recent fossil interests have given me an extra sense of appreciation for the ocean life. I don't have any underwater equipment, so there's sadly no photos from beneath the waves, but I captured some neat stuff from out of the water. Horn-eyed Ghost Crab catching a wave (Ocypode ceratophthalmus) Little green crab washed out of the water Had no idea what this was at first (between starfish or urchin). Turned out to be a helmet urchin which is adapted for attaching strongly to rocky surfaces. Colobocentrotus atratus I was surprised to find that the beach sand contained millions of tiny urchin spines mostly from the rock boring urchins living just beneath the waves. I didn't take any home, but occasionally a large red spine from a pencil slate urchin would wash up as well. Rock boring urchin spines Most of the beaches on Maui weren't all that great for combing. It wasn't until I took a closer look in the waters that I finally came across a spot with gravelly deposits. As I snorkeled it was impossible to keep my eyes away from them and I kept hallucinating various fossils showing up. Eventually, one hallucination actually proved to be the real deal, so I held my breath and dove down a few meters to retrieve what I had spotted. Echinometra mathaei While technically not a fossil, these recently-deceased oblong urchins were too cool to leave alone. They belong to the species Echinometra mathaei which is the most common urchin in Hawaii. When it comes to fossils, understanding the original animal's behavior is a difficult task. In this instance, it's actually very easy as the living counterparts are literally all over the place. They are a burrowing urchin that use their spines and teeth to carve out rocky holes for hiding during the day. At night they leave to graze on algae. Makes me wonder what sort of neat behaviors are hidden amongst our local Cretaceous urchins here in Texas . Besides urchins, I also came across some beautiful Hawaiian Snakehead Cowries (Monetaria caputophidii) as well as one Granulated Cowry (Nucleolaria granulata). Both of which are endemic to Hawaii. Monetaria caputophidii Nucleolaria granulata That about sums up the Maui finds. This pushed me to do a little research on fossils in Hawaii and I was surprised to find on FF that Oahu was actually known to possess some Pleistocene reef. @hemipristis has a lot of great stuff on the island! I saw him mention finding teeth on one of Oahu's coasts in the Waimanalo Fm. I did a little satellite searching on that particular coast and found 3 potential spots to later check out. Oahu For those interested in the geology, the Waimanalo Formation is Pleistocene-aged limestone resting atop basalt at various points around the island. While the island is 3-4 million years in age, the Waimanalo Formation is only about 130 thousand. This age is significant because it aligns with the latest interglacial period known as the Eemian or Sangamonian Stage. Despite being nestled within glacial periods, this point in time was actually quite warm and sea levels were accordingly raised. The ocean was about 8 meters higher compared to today. It's fascinating to observe fossils from such a unique time period. Of the three potential sites, I was only able to find access to two. Of the two, one site was a bust and had no sign of the Waimanalo being completely volcanic. Thankfully, I found one amazing site. I made a brief initial visit where I hunted mostly the exposure itself. The finds were only invertebrate in nature consisting of gastropods, bivalves, and crab claws. These were cool, but they didn't meet my highest goal of finding a Hawaiian shark tooth. My family was waiting on me, so I didn't get the chance to browse the gravel talus underneath. On the last day of the trip, after some begging and various concessions, I was granted just one hour to hunt which I gladly took. I sprinted out to the site so as to not waste any time. It was hot and humid. The black lava rocks absorbed a lot of the heat and were uncomfortable to navigate, but that didn't dissuade me. In all the gravel there had to be at least one shark tooth. The first vertebrate find turned out to be bony fish. I've never found one of these before, but I've seen similar stuff across the web from around the world. These are usually referred to as pufferfish mouth plates, but they are actually from the family Diodontidae or porcupinefish/burrfish. This particular specimen was burnt orange and possessed partial jaw elements as well as fossilized worms tubes on its surface. I was leaping up and down! After reading more on the topic, it seems that this belongs to the genus Chilomycterus and perhaps the species C. reticularus commonly known as the Spotfin Burrfish (the only Chilomycterus species found in Hawaii today). Chilomycterus reticulatus jaw fragment Not too long after I found a couple more mouth plates, but this time not from a burrfish. Whereas burrfish (Chilomycterus) only have about 1-4 sheets exposed on their crushing dentition, porcupinefish (Diodon) have much more at 10-18 according to a conversation I found on ResearchGate. In Hawaii, the genus Diodon is represented by two species: the larger D. hystrix and smaller D. halocanthus. It's difficult for me to make a distinction between the two species, so I'll just have to stick with Diodon sp. for now. The first porcupinefish specimen was only a large broken half. The second specimen, however, is quite a beauty and one of my favorite fossils of all time! Diodon sp. in original matrix with volcanic inclusions This piece is about as Hawaiian as a fossil can get. The ancient reef bed the mouth plate is preserved in also features numerous small volcanic inclusions. After some time collecting the gastropods not already picked up from the prior visit, I stumbled upon what I had been dreaming of the entirety of my visit. Sitting plainly atop the rubble was a tan shark tooth in nice condition. I tried to milk the moment a little, picking it up slowly and soaking in every second. I was at a total loss for words and more or less silently slipped it into my pouch. It is likely from the species Carcharhinus melanopterus also known as the Blacktip Reef Shark and the most common shark in Hawaii today. I suppose there are many other Carcharhinus species present in the area, but I think Blacktip is the most likely. Before this tooth, my youngest shark was from the Eocene strata at the Whiskey Bridge. This was quite the temporal extension to my collection . Carcharhinus melanopterus At the very end of the hunt, I picked up a fragment of a shark tooth with fine serrations. I think it is likely also Carcharhinus melanopterus, but it's hard to say. Its size is very small. Carcharhinus melanopterus? So that about wraps up this unforgettable hunt! It's crazy to think that the second state I'd ever find a fossil on wasn't some place like Oklahoma. It's a surreal feeling to look at these various finds and imagine their lives 5 timezones away and 130 thousand years into the past. Hopefully you enjoyed reading this post almost as much as I enjoyed writing it! Here's the overview of the rest of the finds from Oahu: The species are based off of what I can find from modern Hawaiian waters Various crab bits Tellinella crucigera Quidnipagus palatam Unknown bivalve Ctena bella Unknown Monoplex nicobaricus? Cypraea sp. Nerita picea Peristernia sp.? Conus aff. spiceri Canarium sp.? Canarium sp.? Littoraria sp. Amplustrum amplustre? (Look up "Bubble snail") Morula lepida Ceritherium sp. Drupa aperta Cellana sp. Unknown Thanks for reading! Monachus schauinslandi
  4. Still fossil hunting indoors during the summer (and the pandemic) amusing myself (and helping the FLMNH) by picking through micro-matrix from the Montbrook dig site in Florida. I've made some other posts featuring the interesting micros I've been finding to try to share a bit of the world of micro-fossils with a wider audience (Florida has more than megalodon teeth). I was picking through a sample of Montbrook micro-matrix. It was collected back in 2018 and was subsequently washed, dried, and sat in a zip-top bag for years awaiting someone to spend about a dozen hours picking through it for interesting specimens. In addition to the monotony of the very abundant common fossil types (fish verts, fish teeth, gar scales, Rhizoprionodon and Dasyatis teeth) my efforts are occasionally rewarded by spotting something out of the ordinary. Sometimes the novelties are just a rarer type of previously seen fossil--a tiny ray dermal denticle the size and shape of an asterisk * or a pretty little serrated Galeorhinus (Tope Shark/Houndshark) tooth. What really makes the long hours pay off is when I encounter a good mystery. Some of the mystery finds are only mysterious to me as they are answered promptly by Richard Hulbert when I send him micro-photographs of some "unknown". I am slowly crawling up the learning curve and broadening my knowledge of the micro-fossil types being found at the Montbrook site. The real fun happens when I get something that's a stumper--a real novelty for the locality. The Montbrook micro-matrix material has a large amount of marine (and freshwater) fish material hiding in it. There are teeth from drum, barracuda, porgy, pinfish and several other marine fish families found floating loosely in the matrix. Tiny button-shaped teeth that resemble those from drums are likely the pharyngeal teeth from wrasses. One of the former mysteries that I now have locked into my set of search images is the tiny (only a few millimeters across) pharyngeal tooth plates for a small species of wrasse. Here's one I found which was full of these little button teeth. About two weeks ago I spotted an unusual little specimen in my picking plate. I could tell from the bone structure that it was "fishy" (in a good way ) but the attached tooth type was something new that I had not encountered before. I could see that this piece was a (mostly) complete lower left quarter jaw--you can see the zipper-like symphyseal suture at the midline of the lower jaw indicating that it was not fragmented and there would be no additional teeth expected in this portion of the jaw. My first thoughts about fishes I knew that had a single tooth in each quarter jaw led me to think about parrotfishes but this was quickly dismissed because I knew that parrotfish "beaks" were composed of tiny tooth plates which are continuously added from the base as the plates wear and break-off on the occlusal surface while the fish feeds by scraping algae from the surface of the substrate. BONUS FACT: Parrotfishes ingest a large amount of calcium carbonate (old coral skeleton) while feeding and the majority of tropical white sand beaches are in fact composed primarily of parrotfish poop. Richard forwarded my photographs to a student who specializes in osteichthyan (bony) fishes and I went back to picking more micro-matrix. I had a feeling that the answer would be blindingly obvious in hindsight. Had I thought about it for a moment or two more I probably could have arrived at the answer myself but so many of these mystery finds turn out to be something unexpected that I just trusted that an expert would soon solve the mystery for us. Our fishy expert was in the process of a long cross country move to continue her education at UC Berkeley but before long we got our answer--as obvious as I'd predicted. In her opinion the jaw piece belonged to a member of the order Tetraodontiformes and likely in the family Tetraodontidae (pufferfishes). The answer is right there in the scientific name (Greek, tetra = four + Greek, odous = tooth, teeth) referring to the 4 large teeth fused into a beak-like structure for feeding on hard shells of crustaceans and mollusks. A little bit of searching online quickly turned up images that closely matched my find confirming this diagnosis. A related family in the Tetraodontiformes is the Diodontidae (known as porcupinefishes, balloonfishes, blowfishes but also confusingly as pufferfishes). The mouth plates for this family are fused into two plates, upper and lower (Greek, di = two + Greek, odous = tooth, teeth) and are relatively common finds in the Florida fossil record. Anybody who has hunted the Peace River long enough has encountered at least one of these solidly constructed mouth parts with stacks of tooth plates edged in fine maxillary teeth. @Harry Pristis has a fine example of Florida finds in his library of images. There are copious additional images available online with a simple search. These diodontid tooth plates also occur occasionally in the Montbrook micro-matrix but it appears that the tetraodontid jaw specimen likely represents a new family group for the Montbrook faunal list. It is great fun when a tiny find starts as a micro-mystery, serves as a learning example to expand my knowledge base, and finishes by expanding the envelope about what is known of the taxonomic diversity of the site. Cheers. -Ken
  5. Sylvestersen

    Pufferfish - Moclaybalistes danekrus

    From the album: Fish fossils from the Fur Formation

    Moclaybalistes danekrus Family: Ttraodontidae Order: Tetraodontiformes
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