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I got a surprise at the end of August when I received notice from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History regarding them returning one of my fossils. Part of my surprise was that I have been dealing almost exclusively with the Calvert Marine Museum (the CMM) in Maryland for several years. Occasionally some of my specimens are sent to the Smithsonian from the CMM, but they are returned back to the CMM. The surprise was compounded when the accompanying letter stated it was an item I had sent in for identification. It was a section of bone that I found in the vicinity of Brownie’s Beach in Calvert County, Maryland. Most of the fossil material found there comes out of “Zone 10” of the Calvert Formation. The Calvert Formation is Lower Middle Miocene in age. The piece of bone was identified as part of a land mammal ischium. In Florida, with its wealth of terrestrial fossils, this would hardly be worth mentioning. In the Maryland Miocene deposits, terrestrial material is very rare. I can attest that it is a fossil that I found, but I do not remember sending it in for identification. I was starting to wonder if my memory was developing gaps in the paleontology section. The mystery was solved when I saw the acceptance date for the fossil. The Smithsonian received the specimen on April 14th, 1991 and it was returned to me on October 7th, 2017. I do not claim to be a mathematician, but I am quite proficient at basic math. The reason I did not remember submitting this particular specimen to the Smithsonian is that it was sent twenty six and a half years ago. I will be donating it to the Calvert Marine Museum on my next visit. The Specimen
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