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A tooth I recently pulled from my Woodbine honey hole keeps getting better the more I look at it. I originally thought it was just a really big crocodile tooth of the species Woodbinesuchus byersmauricei, a common find for the site. After cleaning it today, I noticed it was pretty different and am now 90% sure it's a plesiosaur tooth, perhaps from the family Leptocleididae (as opposed to Polycotylidae or Elasmosauridae) and maybe with some real scientific significance! Stay with me here... Crocodile teeth are pretty common for the site. So why do I think this isn't one? Besides being quite large for a croc, the 12 enamel ridges on this specimen vary in shape and are spaced out whereas my crocs typically exhibit tightly spaced, uniform ridges numbering in the many dozens. The ridges on the "plesiosaur" are restricted to the lingual side. My crocs typically have ridges spanning the entire circumference of the crown, though they sometimes peter out on the labial side as well. Another significant difference is in the sigmoidally curved crown which is normal in plesiosaurs and generally not seen in crocs. "Plesiosaur" (L) and Croc (R); Note the significantly different enamel ridge characteristics. "Plesiosaur" and my complete crocs. Quite large relatively speaking. It's crown is about 20 mm long and 6 mm in diameter. Sigmoidal curvature in the crown. I am less sure of the familial identification and beyond. A quick google search for Cenomanian Plesiosaurs revealed an interesting article on freshwater Kem Kem Group Plesiosaurs (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105310) from more or less the same time (Woodbine = mid Cenomanian vs. Kem Kem Group = ?Albian-Cenomanian). What initially caught my eye was Fig. 5 where a handful of similar teeth are shown: Fig. 5 from the article. Leptocleididae indet. shed teeth. These are thought to be indeterminate Leptocleididae shed teeth for features shared with my specimen. The authors rule out Polycotylidae on the basis that those teeth are usually more robust. They acknowledge that longer teeth of Polycotylidae do occur, but the striations are finer than Leptocleididae. The authors contrast their teeth (and mine) from Elasmosauridae and Cryptoclididae by stating that those families have straighter teeth with more labio-lingually compressed crowns that create a strong oval cross section. My tooth and those shown above are sub-circular/slightly oval-shaped. Another point to make is that Leptocleididae plesiosaurs are UNKNOWN from deep water environments and are instead suggested to be nearshore specialists (Woodbine is famously nearshore with its crocs, Cretodus semiplicatus, and other nearshore fauna). On the other hand, Polycotylidae, the sister taxon, is a deeper water family. Hard to show a good cross-section because a chunk of root juts out of the bottom making it look more labiolingually compressed than it really is! Implications and Significance: One extremely interesting aspect of plesiosaur ecology that is highlighted by the article is their strong presence in prehistoric freshwater ecosystems. Plesiosaur teeth of the family Leptocleididae are commonly found in the Kem Kem river systems which isn't crazy given they are thought to be nearshore specialists. The authors note that contemporaneous marine deposits have yet to yield Leptocleididae material, which makes one wonder: were they freshwater specialists unable to live in the ocean? I would've been inclined to assume they could survive both fresh and salt given my preconceived notions on plesiosaurs, but there is a lack of hard proof... Until now? If this is what I think it is... this may be the first evidence of Leptocleididae found in a marine deposit contemporaneous with the Kem Kem Group! Just the missing puzzle piece emphasized in the article. Reeling it back in- Keep in mind, a few hours ago I thought this was just a big croc tooth! Also, I don't know much of anything about plesiosaurs since I had never found such material previously. My head is spinning with all these new names. Hopefully you all can provide some clarity on this matter. @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon @Jared C @PaleoPastels. Feel free to tag anyone else you know who might have some knowledge on the subject! Pics: ~Thanks for reading~

I bought this tooth on impulse a few days ago. To me it looks like a fully rooted Plesiosaur tooth. It has all the characteristics of being from the Kem Kem Beds aswell. I've not seen any other rooted teeth to compare it to. So, did I score, or did I buy a crocodile tooth?

Hello friends. Please help. This vert came from the Pleistocent Terrace deposits in Austin Co., Texas. It looks to me like it's reptilian but I can't find a match. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

So, lets figure out vertebrae from the Kem Kem beds. As many of you know the Kem Kem beds has a pretty enigmatic palaeo fauna. There is some literature about it, but not a whole lot. Some of it is behind a paywall and much information is pretty scattered. So I got this idea that maybe we could combine our knowledge and information to collectively get a better picture of which bone belongs to which animal, in this case, vertebrae. I know some of you have some fantastic specimens in your collections, if we combine these in this thread we might be able to see some patterns. We probably won't be able to put a genus or species name on each type, but perhaps assigning certain vertebrae to a morphotype might be possible. With that I encourage everyone that has any vertebrae from the Kem Kem beds to share photos of their specimens and post them here so we can use this thread as a sort of library as well as an ID thread that everyone can use to better ID their Kem Kem vertebrae. So please, share your photos! And it might help to number your specimens for easier reference. I will be updating this first post as new information arises with examples to make ID easier. Theropods Spinosaurids Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Spinosaurus is known for it's tall neural spines, which are pretty characteristic. Unlike Sigilmassasaurus, Spinosaurus does not have the ventral triangular rough plateau on the centra Spinosaurus mid cervical vertebra Spinosaurus dorsal, sacral and caudal vertebrae Caudal vertebrae Nearly complete tail from the neotype specimen of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis Sigilmassasaurus is a Spinosaurid that might be closely related to Baryonyx and Suchomimus. It differs from Spinosaurus in that it has a ventral keel on many vertebrae and a triangular rough plateau on the bottom back end. A is Sigilmassasaurus, B is Baryonyx Sigilmassasaurus cervical vertebrae From anterior to posterior Sigilmassasaurus dorsal vertebrae Indeterminate Spinosaurid vertebrae Not a whole lot has been published yet, some bones can probably not be ID'd on genus level. Spinosaurid caudal vertebrae Anterior caudal: From LordTrilobite's collection Mid-posterior caudal: From Paleoworld-101's collection Mid-posterior caudal: From LordTrilobite's collection This caudal vertebra is less tall and more pinched in the middle of the centrum than the one from Paleoworld-101's collection. Likely due to a slightly more posterior position. Mid-posterior caudal: From LordTrilobite's collection Carcharodontosaurids Due to an old paper Sigilmassasaurus vertebrae are sometimes misidentified as Carcharodontosaurid. These vertebrae should be identified on the basis of the original description by Stromer. Two species of Carcharodontosaurids are known from the Kem Kem beds at this time. Carcharodontosaurus saharicus and Sauroniops pachytholus. Carcharodontosaurid cervical vertebrae Deltadromeus agilis Anterior (left) and mid (right) caudals better examples needed Abelisauroids Indeterminate Abelisauroid distal caudal From LordTrilobite's collection Abelisaurid dorsal vertebrae From Troodon's collection Sauropods Rebbachisaurus garasbae Not a whole lot is known about this titanosaur, as only a few bones have been found. Notice that the vertebrae are very extensively pneumaticised. Rebbachisaurus dorsal vertebrae Sauropod mid caudal vertebra. Possibly Rebbachisaurid. Unnamed Titanosaurian mid caudal vertebra Crocodilomorphs more examples needed Kemkemia This crocodile is only known by a single posterior caudal vertebra. Kemkemia caudal vertebra Turtles examples needed Pterosaurs Azhdarchids Azhdarchid (probably Alanqa) posterior fragment cervical vertebra Azhdarchid Mid cervical vertebra Sources Spinosaurids https://peerj.com/articles/1323/?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_campaign=PeerJ_TrendMD_1&utm_medium=TrendMD http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144695 Sauropods Jeffrey A. Wilson & Ronan Allain (2015) Osteology of Rebbachisaurus garasbae Lavocat, 1954, a diplodocoid (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the early Late Cretaceous–aged Kem Kem beds of southeastern Morocco, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 35:4, e1000701, DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2014.1000701 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304214496_Evidence_of_a_derived_titanosaurian_Dinosauria_Sauropoda_in_the_Kem_Kem_beds_of_Morocco_with_comments_on_sauropod_paleoecology_in_the_Cretaceous_of_Africa Kemkemia sisn.pagepress.org/index.php/nhs/article/viewFile/nhs.2012.119/32 Pterosaurs https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thefossilforum.com%2Fapplications%2Fcore%2Finterface%2Ffile%2Fattachment.php%3Fid%3D432009&fname=journal.pone.0010875.PDF&pdf=true https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/RIPS/article/view/5967

Hello everyone! I'll start with etiquette questions. To be honest, I like to collect things that I think look interesting. I was at an estate sale and bought a small collection of fossils, arrowheads, stone tools, bones, and other things that I cant even begin to speculate as to what they are. I am definitely now addicted to this and plan on dedicating several hours a day for my new found love. With that said, here are my questions and another item for identification. 1. How many postings are appropriate per day for identification without becoming annoying? 2. Is there an app anyone is aware of that I can simply upload an image and get accurate results? 3. What would be the best way to share multiple, dozens of pictures in one large group, if possible to share with all the members? And finally, another set of pictures for identification. To me, this looks like a finger from gorilla. There are markings on the bag it was in that I can make out that says Nebraska and Reptile. I don't know if that is accurate, but please enjoy the photos and any identification would be much appreciated. Thanks! Dan

Hey everyone. I found this piece of bone at a late Cretaceous stream in New Jersey. I am hopeful this specimen, though incomplete could be identifiable. I've showed it to several experts and dinosaur seems to be the overall consensus so far. Some people I showed it to believe it is most likely theropod but others are skeptical. I'd love to hear more opinions on this specimen. Thank you in advance!

Hi all My son and I found this large bone in Orange County, Florida. There is a socket at one end. At first, we thought it was a scapula; however, after more searching, we are stumped. Any help IDing it is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I went to douglas point a few days ago, eager to get a large Otodus. What I did not expect to find was a skull fragment with teeth still embedded inside! None of the teeth are complete, but there is a lot of them, and it’s a pretty nice sized chunk of crocodile skull. I wasn’t even planning on doing douglas point that day, but we looked at both of the parking lots of both places, purse state, and douglas point, and I decided that zero cars was better than trying to navigate the beach with over 12 or so cars parked. There was no room for us to pull in anyways so I chose douglas point instead. The hunt started off very typically. I found a few goblins and sand tigers, some really nice bone fragments, and some busted up Otodus, one of which would have hit 1.75 if complete :(. But about half way through the trip, I found something odd. I thought it was one of the sandstone rocks from the zone 3 but it was colored brownish, so I picked it up and when I flipped it, there were rows and rows of teeth lining the bottom. I thought at first that I just found a jaw in the rock and did a little victory dance. It wasn’t until I investigated further that I came to realize that this was a piece of SKULL. WHAT?!?!? In my 10 years of collecting, I never would have thought that I’d ever find a skull. I was ecstatic! I will be taking this to the Calvert marine museum for further study and if they need this, I will give it up :(. That’s what a good scientist would do. Anyways, here are all the finds from that day. I found a lot. The whole haul: The whole haul flipped: Close up of the better stuff: I found 3 broken up Otodus teeth, a complete shark vertebrae, a scute, a coprolite with a fish scale inside, and a crocodile skull fragment. All the better stuff flipped: Underside of the skull: There are so many teeth in here! This is my first every crocodile skull, I’m now hoping to find the other pieces when I come back to this location. What a find! Coprolite: You can actually see what this animal had for lunch. This is a pretty neat fossil and would probably have been my favorite if not for the skull! Thank you for reading guys. I hope you enjoyed this trip report!

Hello, I wanted to ask about a couple fossils from the Hastings subgroup, Wealden supergroup, Wealden of Sussex. One is a tooth labeled Baryonyx and measures 0.4 cm. At that size I'm assuming this is just a tooth tip or from a juvenile? The other is a "theropod" claw measuring 0.7 cm. It's very tiny and has an odd protrusion on the underside towards the articulating end, which reminds me more of some bird claw cores. Is this even dinosaurian?

I managed another trip to Aust and as I had a better idea what I was looking for managed to get a few bits of bone bed to sift through back home - one of whch was this nicely preserved piece of what I presume is reptile bone (approx 6cm long?) My guess is a partial rib (although it is completely flat, with no visible curvature), in which case given size and location most probably Pachystropheus, but I'd love to get any more thoughts.

The unnamed giant Tylosaur of the Moroccan Phosphates is revealed at last. The great and mighty Hainosaurus is a previously unrecognized macropredator present in the latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Morocco. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365437927_First_Record_of_a_Tylosaurine_Mosasaur_from_the_Latest_Cretaceous_Phosphates_of_Morocco Authors: @Praefectus @BrennanThePaleoDude @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Abstract: The latest Cretaceous Phosphates of Morocco preserve the highest biodiversity of mosasaurid squamates anywhere in the world. Intensive sampling over the past century has uncovered at least ten genera and thirteen species from the mosasaur subgroups Halisauromorpha, Plioplatecarpinae, and Mosasaurinae. Notably missing from the assemblage are members of the macropredatory Tylosaurinae. The Tylosaurinae were globally rare in the Maastrichtian and their apparent absence has been previously explained by either collecting bias, ecological preference for deeper waters, or habitat restriction to higher paleolatitudes. Here, we describe a new tylosaurine mosasaurid, Hainosaurus boubker sp. nov., based on several partial skulls and isolated teeth originating from the Couche III layer of the Sidi Chennane Phosphate quarry near Oued Zem, Morocco. It is unique amongst tylosaurine mosasaurids in possessing blade-like teeth that are laterally compressed, encircled by enamel facets, and differentiated along the dental margin. The discovery of this new taxon in the Maastrichtian of Morocco is remarkable as it represents both the youngest species of Tylosaurinae and the first occurrence in North Africa. It has been a pleasure to work on this project and I am so happy to finally see it come to a conclusion. Tremendous thank you to Boubker Chaibi (Instagram @foussilouedzem) for discovering and donating the type material. Additionally, thanks to Carlos Espinosa (Instagram @carlost_sapiens) for bringing Hainosaurus to life. Funding for this project was provided by the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences’ Charles H. Sternberg Scholarship for vertebrate fossil research. Thank you very much the members of the AAPS. Map and Stratigraphic column of the Moroccan Phosphates Premaxilla of Hainosaurus boubker Premaxilla of Hainosaurus boubker Maxillae of Hainosaurus boubker Dentaries of Hainosaurus boubker Hainosaurus boubker right maxilla and premaxilla Anterior teeth Hainosaurus boubker Mid-marginal and posterior teeth H. boubker Discoverer and namesake of H. boubker, Boubker Chaibi (Instagram @foussilouedzem) Hainosaurus boubker by Carlos Espinosa (Instagram @carlost_sapiens) Reconstructed skull of H. boubker at the Sternberg Museum as part of the Sahara Sea Monster's traveling exhibit. By @jnoun11. Hainosaurus boubker skull sketch by Instagram @yoshisrgr8 “The Warden of the Cretaceous Seas” by Instagram @primal_art_saurus Hainosaurus vs. Thalassotitan 2 versions. No ammonites, ammonites. Memento mori by Twitter @ttorroo Hainosaurus vs. Thalassotitan Hainosaurus boubker by Instagram @icthyovenator by Instagram @primal_art_saurus Thanks for reading.

My brother found this tooth years ago at big brook. It looks reptilian to me, and seems to have the root preserved as well.

Having just gone thru the effort of identifying a Chelonia Sea Turtle Humerus, but I looked at a Humerus for a Giant Tortoise and it did not seem to match.. So others might have seen this previously. Seems distinctive enough... @digit

Hello, Could I get an ID on this piece? Permian-aged from the Ryan Formation near Waruika, Oklahoma. It's labeled as a reptile jaw piece. Has three teeth that are laterally compressed and somewhat twisted with serrations (Apparently there are serrations only on one side of the teeth). I wonder if it's shark and not reptile at all. Pathological shark tooth perhaps? Size is a little over 1cm. @jdp

Found this on a trip to Big Brook yesterday and having a tough time figuring out what it is. The tooth is missing the tip, but appears to be quite narrow, with a strong curve that would eliminate xiphactinus as a possibility. It looks too narrow to me to be a mosasaur tooth and has no visible carinae. Is there any chance it could be a plesiosaur tooth? Thanks for the help!

Here are the two fragments I found in Ramanessin of what i believe to be mosasaur. the right one im unsure of, i still think its a cretaceous reptile. the left one, I am more certain is a mosasaur. but let me know what you think!

Hi, The seller seems to be upfront about a few of the fingers being enhanced and the matrix having been repaired/glued to some mason board or something. Any red flags about the rest?

Dear Fellow Fossil Fanatics, I just had a great day at Big Brook, found some shark teeth but also 3 specimens that I am not sure at all what to make of. Any insights would be awesome! Best, Huttner

I did not find the possibility to answer on pics in other albums. So, this is the link to a wonderful tooth Archaeopteryx lithographica tooth - Members Gallery - The Fossil Forum Love to know more about it, who determined it as tooth from Archaeopteryx. I would love to see a close-up, too. Do not think it is Archaeopteryx @jacob86795

Hi all, me again, I wanted to share a closeup of the bone fragments that I found in Ramanessin to see if I could get them ID'd further since I know how the brook tends to make fake fossil bones i want to check that the ones I found are real fossil bone 1) the big one, i think it might be a cretaceous turtle shell, it passed the burn, and the lick test. 1A) I believe these are also enchodus jaw fragments. 2) 2A)

Just found wht is it

Hi everyone. It has been way to long since I posted anything. Life has been crazy for me. I still stalk the forum everyday. Went hunting this morning for the first time since the summer. I have something that really looks like a tooth. Parts of it do and others parts does not. Really need other opinions on this one. I put it under the microscope because I just cant determine what it is. I hope it is something. Thank you for taking a look! Hope everyone is well.

Good evening to all my paleo peers! Tonight I’d like to share with you a selection of some of my favorite fossils found this year. I was lucky enough to spend three weeks in Montana over the summer, along with a few other fossil hunting opportunities here and there. As we hop into the New Year I'll kick things off aptly... Frog Radioulna-Judith River formation, Montana One of my all time best single fossil hunting days was spent in late June on a microsite in the Judith River badlands of northern Montana. Among the teeth of crocs, hadrosaurs and dromaeosaurs was this absolutely tiny limb bone. When reviewing my finds from this week I gathered up several of these micro bones and put them in a gem jar. I brought this minute group along with a small portion of my collection on my recent visit to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. While exploring their collections I met amphibian expert Amy Henrici, who recognized it as the distinctive fused lower arm bone from a frog, also known as a radioulna. Yesterday I was able to take clear, close up pictures of this tiny limb on my digital microscope and subsequently posted it as my fossil friday on instagram (same username). I was excited to learn about its identity as it’s the first example of a frog fossil in my collection that I’m aware of! This little guy would have likely been on the menu for a whole host of predators, including Dromaeosaurs and Troodontids. The recent discovery of Daurlong provides evidence of a predator prey relationship between these two groups.

New paper on Kem Kem pterosaurs. Open Access. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12542-022-00642-6

Hi I came across this Keichousaurus fossil online and was wondering if it is real or as major restorations of painted parts. Thanks!