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https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/04/18/New-species-of-ancient-whale-found-in-New-Zealand/8111524066374/?utm_source=sec&utm_campaign=sl&utm_medium=2 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180418100507.htm

We went out fossil hunting and found these two bones in the wash along a beach on the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County, MD by the Cliffs. Any help with identification is appreciated. Thanks. Below is the first bone.

My best hunt to date: After family events, I had some time to go hunting today (easter), the first warm time I’ve had to hunt when I actually knew what I was doing. The tide was not ideal, but not dangerous. As I walked down the beach, many where there Hunting. I correctly assumed that these were mostly normal beach goers, and I was down south alone with few fresh footprints. I walked the whole length, it took about an hour forty to the end and back. As I walked, I found a nice common thresher and I cracked a grin. I found another and that kept the smile. I then found a complete cow shark tooth and was rather chuffed, and then BANG! MEG! My first after half a year of hunting the cliffs. It’s worn and has been stress fractures, most would not hold it in high esteem but being my first I was ecstatic! This meg will always hold a special place in my heart. I said a quick prayer and continued forth not caring if I found anything else, my trip had already been made. Then I found some decent White sharks, which I have for some reason been missing. Some nice hemis hopped into my view as well. Eventually I decided it was time to go back. On the way back I noticed someone had put a block of a hard clay (actually more of a limestone I think) on a small boulder. I took a look and saw there was a chunk of bone in it! This was a little over 1.75 miles from the entrance, so someone must have picked it up, realized it wasn’t worth the trouble and left it. I’m not so easily detered. So I carried this ungainly 20 pound mass ( I’m in the tennis team so you can infer my strength) the almost two miles through the highish tide which concealed under water boulders. Perhaps stupid, but worth it. I felt pride from the strange looks I got from the beach goers, perhaps they thought I had found something important. Any way I’m going to photograph everything tomorrow but here’s what I have now, enjoy.

Hello, Found these at Glenafric, in North Canterbury, New Zealand. These large rocks had only recently dislodged in high seas. They are entirely made up of shell fragments and I assume these 'bones' were deposited on top. Thanks, Allan

I've been wanting to get back to the Peace River since I first ventured out this fossil hunting season back in early February. Back then the water was over a foot higher and much colder--the air temps were in the mid-60s and the water was a chilly 62F. I decided this was a good day to test my new chest-high waders. I ventured into a spot I like to visit when I'm on this section of the Peace as it has some pretty coarse gravel. While it doesn't produce a lot of finds they tend to me more interesting. I waded out to the small patch of gravel at the leading edge of a sandbar but before I could reach the spot I found myself on tippy-toes trying to find a shallow path while the water rose to within an inch or so of the top of my waders. Somehow gathering more than my usual amount of common sense I decided to turn around rather than risk scuttling my new waders with a catastrophic flood. While searching around for another path to this gravel exposure I tried various approached though none were successful in attaining the desired location in the river that was tantalizingly close. While I walk the river I usually have my fiberglass probe (The Probulator 3000TM) in one hand pushing the tip into the sand with each step to test for any gravel crunch. Much to my surprise I was detecting a decent layer of gravel well downstream from the tiny outcrop on the leading upstream edge of the sandbar where I usually hunt. I have probed around this area before and only detected sand save for this one tiny area. Though I had found gravel in water that was a bit shallower I couldn't stay long as I had to be real careful to not bend over much while digging for gravel as it would have meant cold water down the waders. I couldn't lift as much with my legs and my lower back was soon very vocal in its complaint of the shifted workload. My upper body was also getting quite chilled as my long-sleeved shirt (good for solar protection) was getting soaked as usual but the brisk breeze was doing an efficient job at evaporative cooling quickly dropping my core body temp. I could only work for about 15-20 minute blocks before having to sit in the canoe and try to warm up my gradually numbing fingers. Instead, I conceded and made a mental not to return to investigate this increased exposure of gravel next time. I had hoped to get out last weekend but there was a bit of a cold front moving through Florida and the chance for rain shifted from late Saturday and on into Sunday to instead start mid-morning. I've been on the Peace when passing showers have opened up and spilled some precipitation down from above--not so bad on a warm day but not optimal for preserving core body temperature on a cooler day. Saint Patrick's Day weekend looked to have weather much more conducive to standing around half submerged in a river. The water temperature had risen to a relatively balmy 70F and the air temp was forecast to be an unseasonably warm 85F--unexpected as this was still technically winter with the Spring Equinox still two days hence. I had guests visiting and staying over on Friday night so it was not possible to get to the river on Saturday as I usually do but Sunday was clear. The morning started off a bit cool. I was up at 3:30am and out the door by 4:00am. The trip cross-state over the top of Lake Okeechobee and on into Arcadia was quiet (as it usually is that time of morning). I usually monitor the outside air temp on the car thermometer and watch it dip as I leave coastal Florida and cross over through its less populated center. I usually expect the temps to dip several degrees but this time I went from 67F as I left my neighborhood to the usual dip to near 60F. This time it continued even more and bottomed out at the nadir of 49F for a brief moment before rebounding into the 60s as we approached Arcadia. Most of the trip on two lane highway 70 was made more interesting by a thick coat of fog that approached white-out conditions a few times. It can be rather difficult to locate the road when the oncoming headlights of an approaching vehicle light swirling fog in an effect worthy of a Pink Floyd concert from the 1970's. We arrived without issue and went through the normal procedure of checking in at Canoe Outpost and riding the old blue school bus with canoe-laden trailer in tow to Brownville Park where we departed from the boat ramp into a white ethereal mist. For some reason the Earl Scruggs song "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" came to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQIJuu3N5EY Since we decided not to spend time at our normal spots further upstream, we soon left the rest of the canoes in our group as we headed off downstream into the dreamlike fog. The heavy mist also muffled sounds a bit so it was peacefully quiet and most befitting of its name. For some time we heard nothing more than the sounds of our paddles and a few species of birds calling. It was well worth the effort of the early departure just to experience this quiet time on the river. We saw some ducks who took to flight at our approach and enjoyed seeing some Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, and Little Blue Herons hunting for a fishy breakfast along the banks of the river. There were lots of Cardinals, Gray Catbirds, and Belted Kingfishers in the trees that we would frequently spot flitting about or calling out to each other. Tammy mentioned that in all of the trips down the Peace that we had never seen an owl and she wished that for once she could see one here. Apparently, the officials at the Wish Granting Department had a light schedule this morning as, within 5 minutes of uttering this desire, she looked up into a tree at the edge of the river to spot a Barred Owl watching from its perch as we floated by. I pulled out the camera and we circled back for the photo. As we were leaving we saw the bird take flight. It is amazing how a bird this size can move on such stealthy wings as to be so utterly silent in flight. Our morning was made and I hadn't even broken out the shovel & sifting screen nor dipped foot into the water yet. I figured if this was a day for wishing that I'd put in my order for a reasonably complete mastodon tooth. These teeth are seemingly as fragile as mammoth teeth and mostly I've only found small but very distinctive (because of their thick pearlescent enamel in cross-section) chunks. I was fortunate enough to find a complete Colombian Mammoth tooth a few years back with John @Sacha but mastodon in anything but tiny fragments has so far eluded me. I made my wish and we continued to our destination. In time we made it down to my favorite sandbar and spent this entire trip focusing on seeing what this gravel had to offer. I couldn't determine if this was a new extended layer of fresh gravel that Hurricane Irma had chosen to spread out more evenly across the top of this sandbar or if the storm (and ensuing raging torrent) had stripped off a thick cap of sand uncovering an older previously-inaccessible gravel layer underneath. The water was lower that last time (and quite a bit warmer). No waders this time and after a few minutes for by legs to acclimate (read this as "becoming numb") I slowly worked my way into deeper water probing around with the Probulator and mapping out the extend of this newly expanded gravel. Tammy (being the wiser of the two) decided the morning was still too chilly for direct skin contact chose to sit in the canoe at the side of the river and drink from her thermos of hot tea. The river flow at this point in the river was nearly imperceptible (my tethered sifting screen occasionally floating slowly upstream rather than downstream). Being creative, Tammy decided that she could paddle out and position the canoe nearby and see what I was doing without the discomfort of standing in a river on a chilly morning before the sun was able to warm things up sufficiently. The sun finally burned off the morning fog and before long the sun's rays were counteracting the chilly water making the environmental conditions near optimal for standing around in a river. I got to work scouting out the extents of the gravel and picking some novel spots that I'd not dug before to see if I could detect some virgin gravel with worthy finds (nothing is worse than digging in spoil pile gravel with all of the work and none of the payoff). Before long some nice finds started appearing in the sifting screen. Because of the chunkiness of the gravel at this spot I choose to use my sifting screen with the 1/2" mesh rather than the finer 1/4" mesh screen. As a result, I found almost no smaller shark teeth (just a few larger ones that were not small enough to slip between the mesh back into the Peace). The gravel in this extended area was just as chunky as the former minor occurrence at the leading edge of the sandbar. It can bit a bit difficult to get a shovel into and a lot of wiggling around of the handle is necessary to slowly work the tip of the spade down between the stony chunks. Every now and then a shovel size chunk of matrix comes up on the shovel and threatens to sink the sifting screen with its bulk. I've learned to toss these behind me with reasonable care so as not to spray myself with the resultant depth-charge splash of chucking these bowling ball size chunks with too much vigor. There are some days on the Peace when even somewhat common items like horse teeth can be elusive. Today was not one of those days. The first horse tooth was a nice specimen of an upper Equus molar. It was soon followed by a nice lower Equus (the lowers are more thin and elongate to fit into the more narrow mandible). You can see the comparison of the two below.

As we all know, GMR is good for random chunks of things. I found these 2 yesterday. The first i thought was tusk. The second I picked up because I thought it was a split whale tooth but then I got home and saw faint lines and rings. The third looked like enamel but I can't match it to anything. Thanks all!

I really like going out hunting... the thrill of the instant of finding something unique is pure joy and I like to relive that joy over and over, so I take lots of photos. I also have a lot of hunting techniques and many do not require a shovel and sieve. For example , I go to fossil shows and local fossil club auctions, and sometimes I trade and even purchase occasional fossils. So here is a hunting technique.. I live in a fossil rich area of the world.. There is all sorts of stuff here in central and southwest florida, including the gulf of mexico, bone valley , the Peace River, etc. I just put out the word to fossil friends, fossil dealers, hunting buddies, that I am very interested in some specific types of fossils (whale, sloth, small horses included) and if they happen to come across any of that in their wanderings, give me an opportunity to acquire them. That is IT... Over time , it is amazing the number of "damaged fossils" I am gifted!!! and some of those damaged fossils are pretty good. The above is just background to what occurred yesterday. I went "normal hunting" to the Peace River on Sunday and found a bunch of small shark teeth, a few excellent hemis and tigers, a nice Bison lower tooth, an unerupted horse tooth, a 3 plate chunk of mammoth tooth, assorted turtle spurs and footpads. A good day but not fantastic. However, my other method of hunting really paid off... My normal hunting partner got wind of a relative of a friend who had the leftovers of his father's collection of mostly bone valley fossils from 20 years ago... and some were broken whale teeth... Was I interested ???? Do bears live in the woods??? The bucket had 30 fossils 2 half dollar sized shark verts, 1 dolphin tooth, 1 small croc scute, and 27 partial to almost complete whale teeth. Most were dusty and needed some cleaning, but I was only offering about $7 per fossil and I had already seen at least 5 that were very attractive... Here are 2 of those: This 1st is a sperm whale tooth (note the tip and shape), a relative rarity in South Florida, and will fit very well in a display of the only sperm whale tooth I have ever found in the Peace river. The 2nd one is Kogiopsis .sp. I have found these before, and while not as good as my best, it is pretty close.... Length of each tooth is approx 4.25 inches. This last tooth has the tip shaved on 2 of 3 sides from grinding against the tooth/teeth in the opposite jaw... Definitely belongs in my collection... A great day for alternate hunting techniques.

I bought these online, and the only info they had was that they were found in the south of the UK. I'll post the ones i'm unsure about on his thread and hopefully some people can point me in the right direction. Firstly, whale Bone?

The guy I got this from said that this is a whale ear bone. Is that true?

I know that this is a whale tooth, but do you guys have any idea on what kind?

A whale bone from Lake Murray, at least I'm pretty sure it is.

Hi all, My little one found this yesterday in Chelsea, VIC. He has been very curious to find out what this could be. Can anyone give us a clue? Thanks

Album link: https://imgur.com/a/rEHsb

Hello! My older sister just sent me a large fossilized bone. She lives near Raleigh, (Garner, NC) but years ago took her son on various fossil hunting trips with the local club. I know they went hunting around Aurora, NC. The is a vertebra; I know there are whale fossils in the area. She no longer remembers - I do think it is a small whale vertebra! Any other opinions? I am very pleased with it, but would like some input on an identification from a more experienced eye than mine, which is NOT TOO experienced in these matters! Thanks for looking!

Well I was looking at Marcos cool post about coprolites and was scrounging thru some of my Manatee Cnty boxed material and didnt find any coprolites so here's several potential whale/dolphin type frags that I'm not entirely sure about and was wondering if any of you all can confirm. I'm thinking A is a root of a maybe a dolphin tooth, B is a bulla of some sort , C is a fragment of some type of fish jaw--seems like I've seen this somewhere before? D and E appear to be anterior processes/ of dolphin periotics. I added a closeup of the end view of A and a closeup of C. I also found this little guy which is fairly well preserved and has some very distinct symmetry...seems to be a tilly of some sort. Thanks for any help. Regards, Chris

Extraction of a Miocene whale skull.

Found this today, something struck me as odd so I stuck it in my pocket. It’s from the peace river. I’m looking at it, and it kinda looks like an ear bone from a dolphin or manatee, but I don’t know...it’s something, just can’t wrap my head around it. Any ideas?

Heading back to Singapore with hundreds of tiny shark teeth for my fossil-less friends! I found some "whale bones" that someone had unearthed but left behind in the creek. A couple seemed unusual. One, while thick and heavily fossilized had a concave surface suggesting either hollow inside or maybe just a convex/concave bone piece? (Aquatic mammals don't have hollow bones, correct?) The second, also fairly thick and heavy but obvious fibrous "grain" on one side, has a straight v-shaped crease (about 1/8" deep) the length of the piece. Wondering if this is natural or possibly man made? There is also a much weathered piece which had some obvious fibrous grain when wet, not so obvious now. Looks like part of a joint?

An acquaintance found this in a Marble Falls (TX) thrift store - provenance otherwise unknown. With help from a capable lab assistant, the following pics were provided, with scale in inches. Might this be from a whale? Hoping we can narrow down the possibilities (and age) for the owner. Thanks in advance for your help!

Can someone identify what species of whale this is and how big the whale might have been it is from Aurora, North Carolina. I got it at fossil show the bottom is 6 inches wide 5 inches high the top is broken so I cant get a actuate measurement

Found this while fishing a pond in SW Florida. Do you think this is a whale bone? Thanks for any comments. I thought it was a hub of an old wheel and threw it away. Thought about it all day and when I got home today, I dug it out of garbage can already on the curb.

We went to a new spot and It paid off! My girlfriend found some great megs. The pics should fill in the rest.

So as Bosse quoted on the last one of these I found it seems that this would be the same thing. And I quote " atympanic bulla of a balaenopterid baleen whale." I just thought this one was unique to do the inner striations were. Found in a deep ditch, Miocene Im assuming (could be wrong), measurements shown on picture. Found in South Carolina, US