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Let’s see everyone’s rarest fossil specimen(s). Time for a lot of envy!

Hi all, Last weekend, there was an excursion organized by the Paleobiologische Kring (a fossil club here in the Netherlands) on the Zandmotor. As you know I had already been quite a lot of times on the Zandmotor, because it is my usual spot. But seeing that a few of my contacts, namely a fossil friend I had met at a fair, Thijs, as well as the curator of the natural history museum in Rotterdam Bram Langeveld (that I know pretty well), were going to the trip, I decided to join in just for the fun of hunting with others. Turns out that was a really smart decision, because their company brought me a lot of luck! The day started off with a small lecture by Bram about the Zandmotor and the finds that can be made there. For most people it was their first time on the Zandmotor, so the lecture was pretty useful for them. Then after that, we went onto the beach to start finding some fossils ourselves. We went from the south side of the beach (Monster), whereas I usually always come from the north side (Kijkduin) as it is closer to my house. The weather was absolutely ideal for fossil hunting. Not cold, but not very warm either. Very little wind, blue sky, few clouds, perfect. During the trip, nearly everyone was looking for mammal (mammoth and other megafaunal Ice Age species) bones. I was, along with two or three others, the only one also looking for shells. As soon as I got onto the beach, I already found a nice partial Mactra glauca, a pretty rare species. A good start already! It didn't take long before some people found mammoth bone fragments. During the hunt, I talked quite a lot to other hunters, especially to Bram and the other shell hunter. Very interesting discussions, I learned a lot of new little details about shell identification. Meanwhile, I was finding some of the most incredible fossil shells! Species that would normally be a trip-maker I found several of, and some beyond-rare species also flashed under my eyes. It was unbelievable how much I was finding! At the end of the hunt, because we went back to the starting point (south side), after having said bye to the others, I had to walk all the way to the north side, so I spent some more time looking, and that revealed even more finds. I couldn't believe how much I was finding! The sun was setting at the time I just left the beach, and that's also when the clouds started to thicken: While walking along the bike path towards the parking where my dad was waiting to pick me up, I made one last very surprising and definitely fun find: a great mammal vertebra! Just laying there on the side of the bike path in plain view. It was pretty sun-bleached, so it must have sat there for quite some time. I was surprised that no one had noticed it before me, but didn't complain either. I suppose another hunter had found it and accidentally left it there? Regardless, it was a fantastic way to finish up this incredible hunt. Apart from the sunset pic above, I didn't take any location (or in-situ) pics during the hunt. If you want to see some more pictures (and finds) from this location you can search the forum for "Zandmotor"; this should bring up some results of the trip reports I've previously made of some of my hunts (I only make trip reports of my most successful/interesting ZM hunts).