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I recieved this skull yesterday and have been working on it whenever I have time. The skull is not super complete, but I still like it. Here are the images from the seller:

Earlier this month @JD3B and I went a incredible fossil hunting road trip. The title may be a bit misleading, as only one day was actually spent in the badlands. There were however, plenty of good times. We were lucky to have the opportunity to visit a few storied formations, and even luckier to have a couple tff legends to guide us. The first morning was an early one with a 3:00 am wake up. I was at Jacob's (JD3B) by 4:00 and on the road before 5:00. First stop, the Helena, Montana area to visit the world renowned @RJB museum of natural history. We arrived late in the afternoon and honestly, this place alone would have been well worth the long drive from western Washington. One of my few regrets from this trip was not getting any pictures of Ron's amazing collection. If you know where to look however, pictures can be found elsewhere on the forum. Ron, you could charge admission! After touring his prep lab and drooling over display case after display case, it was time for a couple frosty beverages. Over the course of a couple cold ones and a lot of laughs, we went from online acquaintances to friends. He was a gracious host who not only let us park our RV in his yard for the night, but gifted us with some beautiful fossil to remember our stay. The next morning we bid Ron a short lived farewell. We were to meet up again in few days to do a little "fishin". But in the mean time, we set our sights to SE Idaho to try our luck hunting trilobites. Here are my first fossils of the trip, acquired from the "gift shop" at the RJBMNH. Thanks again Ron, you're all right. I don't care what Jacob says about you.I didn't get specific IDs for these, but first one is bird tracks, second is sand dollars, then pectin and cockles.

I just got back from an amazing and very fruitful week of fossil collecting on the White River Formation in northeastern Colorado. The White River Formation is a very easy and fun rock unit to collect vertebrate fossils on. The White River Formation was deposited during the very latest Eocene and the early Oligocene, though the faunal diversity in the areas I was collecting on suggest it was laid down during the Orellan North American Land Mammal Age, which centers on around 33 million years ago during the Rupelian age of the Oligocene Epoch. I am very lucky to have a grand uncle Gary (no biological relationship to me, is a close family friend who we’ve called “uncle” since I was a toddler) who is a cattle rancher up in northeastern Colorado, and he happens to have a pretty good amount of White River exposure on his property, in addition to some of the neighboring ranches of which Gary knows the owners and helped me to secure permission to collect on a few of them. He really is a great guy and is a real life true American cowboy. He has an interest in natural history and was eager to hear all about the fossils and geology of the area, though has never had the formal education or done the research to learn much about what’s out there. This is the second fossil collecting trip I’ve made to the ranch, though the first one where I’ve stayed for more than one night. The place truly is an amazing trove of fossil treasures and I can’t wait to tell you all about my week! In this thread I’ll make one post for each day (so as to not hit the picture limit too soon). Once I have the fossils prepped I’ll give updates here as well. Day 1, Sunday: My first day at the ranch began, ironically, at my own house. I had packed up the Jeep the night before with my field bag, two coolers filled with seven day’s worth of food, a suitcase full of clothes, and other such supplies for my fossil safari. I left my home early in the morning, took I-76 east to Fort Morgan, and then headed north to the ranch, in total about a 2.5 hour drive. The rest of the morning and early afternoon I spent visiting with and going over logistics with Gary and his wife and settling in at the ranch house I would be staying at, a property that used to be the home of another rancher before Gary acquired the property in 2002. They still maintain the house and it has both electricity and running water, so it makes a fantastic guest house and a place to stay when they’re doing work over on that side of their land. In the evening after I had made myself a quick dinner I decided I wanted to head down to a very productive exposure I had collected on last September for the evening. There was a partial oreodont skeleton that I had discovered eroding out of the hill the last time I was up there, and I wanted to see if there were any more bones there that had eroded out and I could collect. I picked up a few more bones from the feet and ankles that had been exposed in the last eight months and decided to take a scenic route back to my vehicle. A photo of the area of exposure I was in Sunday evening. This piece of badland will become very important throughout the rest of the week... On my walk back I walked over a ridge that I had apparently never been over, becase on a flat wash I noticed a pile of bone fragments. I approached the pile assuming that it would be yet another exploded tortoise shell that are so common in the area. As I got closer however, I was delightfully surprised to see the distinctive black color of fossil enamel, and a bit of digging revealed an eroded Subhyracodon jaw section, along with several loose teeth that I presume had come from the same section of jaw. This find, along with an oreodont jaw section I found later on while walking back to the Jeep that night, would be but a foreshadow of the big finds I would make later in the week. Two photos of the Subhyracodon jaw section as it was found in the field. The jaw section and some teeth after I had cleaned them up a little bit at home this afternoon.

I found this front bit of carnivore jaw while out on my latest fossil collecting trip in the White River Formation of Colorado. Only one tooth is complete, the canine tooth has broken off. It’s too large to be Hesperocyon and the cross section of the canine tooth does not match that of Daphoenus, which I have previously collected material, including a canine tooth, from. That leaves Hyaenodon and the Nimravids. After doing some comparative research with pictures of skulls, I am tentatively leaning towards this being from a Nimravid, as the contours of the jaw line near the socket where the canine tooth sits are fairly distinctive and match those in the pictures of Nimravid skulls almost perfectly, less so than the contours seen in the skull of Hyaenodon horridus. Plus, the canine tooth is triangular in cross section, and though I couldn’t find any specific references on this bit of anatomy that makes more sense to me for the stabbing canines of a Nimravid rather than the flatter canines of Hyaenodon. But alas, here I am to get other opinions. Hyaenodon or Nimravid? Or something else entirely? (I am fairly confident this isn’t just a piece of oreodont jaw, haha). Thanks in advance.

I have a few really nice fossils from the White River Formation of northeastern Colorado that I need to prep, and given I am a beginner at fossil prep I would really like to gain some advice and guidance from people with experience do I don’t accidentally damage the fossils. The first fossil is an Oreodont skull. The skull is mostly intact, and I was able to extract it from the field without using any glue or stabilizer or consolidant or anything like that, so this fossil is in its “natural state.” The zygomatic arch and upper tooth row are crumbling, but otherwise everything else that I can see is there appears to be stable. The other side of the skull appears to be still mostly encased in matrix, and is likely to be better preserved. What’s everyone’s opinion on whether or not I should apply penetrant stabilizer directly to the bone before prepping to help keep it intact? The second fossil is a jaw bone, tentatively identified by me as Subhyracodon but I will need to reveal the teeth to know for sure. There are several large cracks throughout the bone (as can be seen) but the entire bone is still in one piece due to application of PaleoBond penetrant stabilizer in the field. There is matrix in between the larger cracks, I imagine I will have to pull it apart one piece at a time, clean the pieces, and then glue them back together. I don’t have any specific questions at this point other than about the overall process. It would be great if those with experience could briefly go over how they would go about prepping these fossils would be great. Is there anything I should avoid, be careful of, or watch out for? Equipment I have includes an air scribe with compressor, dental picks/tools, and the full suite of PaleoBond glues and stabilizers, including the debonding solvent. Thanks in advance! *These fossils were collected legally on privately held land in Weld County, Colorado, with full landowner knowledge and permission.

I found this very hard piece of rock,unlike the rest of the matrix,I dont know what it is.Its dark in color and is completely unbreakable with the needle(as contrast to the oreodont jaw,which i made a few scratches while prepping unfortunately)

Hello, I have a large canine tooth (~14 cm with the root, ~6.5 cm with just the tooth) from the White River Formation that I collected this summer on privately held land in northeastern Colorado, and though the fossil in its natural state is fantastic as-is I’m thinking about doing a little bit of restoration on the fossil and am looking for some insights. The tooth itself is from either an entelodont or the rhino Metamynodon, with the shape of the tooth and root strongly suggesting the latter to me (feel free to speak out if you have an opinion one way or the other, though I’m not specifically asking for an ID in this thread). I found the tooth in several pieces and glued everything that I could find back together. I have most of the tooth, but only a small piece of the tip remains. Also, I have not glued the tooth back to its root, and instead simply display them together as if they were connected. I am thinking about restoring the rest of the tip by sculpting it in using paleosculp from Paleobond, using what piece of the tip there is as a guide. I am looking for any information anyone can give me on paleosculp and the process of restoring a fossil using this material. Would this be the correct product for the job? Is there anything I should know when working with the material? Is restoring the tip of this tooth even a good idea at all, or in the name of science should I leave it as I found it? I intend to leave the paleosculp unpainted for the purposes of not risking damage to the fossil and also making it obvious which pieces of the fossil are original (most of it) and which pieces are restoration (just a little section of the tip). I understand that dinosaur teeth are frequently restored in this way, but I want to make sure that I’m not committing blasphemy by doing such a restoration. Also, paleosculp is advertised as being sand-able and drill-able after it dries, and so I figure if the restoration ever needs to be removed for whatever reason it could be sanded away in a labor-intensive process, but do let me know if this is not the case. I also intend to clean the fossil up a bit more (ie get rid of some of the residual dirt still on it) and potentially glue the tooth onto the root. Thank you for any insights and information you may have! Picture of the fossil and of the tooth tip provided for context.

These are from Nebraska. Since it’s not oreodont, I’m lost. Do people find coprolite in this formation?

Hello, this is a small jaw segment from the White River Formation (Poleslide Member of the Brule) from Weld County, CO. This is one of a few jaw segments I cannot white identify. It does not look like the Leptomeryx jaw segments that I have collected (and indeed is even too small to fit that genus), and the shape of the teeth to me do not look like they belong to an Artiodactyl of any kind, so my best guess based on picture browsing is Ischyromys but I could be very very wrong here so I appreciate any help. Thanks!

Hello! This is a small fossil from the White River Formation of Weld County, Colorado. To me it appears to be a set of front incisors rooted to a small piece of the maxilla or mandible. There are no teeth or tooth sockets next to the two that are there, and so this makes them look like the two incisors characteristic of rodents and lagomorphs. Interested if anyone can tell me anything else about them. Two photos are through a stereo dissecting microscope at 20X magnification, the other two, though blurry, should give a sense of scale. The entire fossil is about 9 mm tall, with the tooth crowns themselves being about 4 mm tall. Thanks!

Hello, everyone, Lately this summer I’ve been doing a bit of casual fossil collecting (with explicit permission!) on some land that a very close family friend owns in Weld County, Colorado that has a lot of exposure of the White River Formation, and I’ve collected a sizable amount of material including some pretty awesome finds. Being an amateur, I need some help identifying some of the fossils I’ve collected. Since the forum has a photo upload limit per post, I’ll be making a few threads for different finds, I hope that is ok. This small bone appears to be hollow, which indicates to me it might be avian but that may or may not be the case. It does have a ridge/process on the lateral surface which may aid identification. Location (as stated above) is Weld County, CO, on the Brule Formation. Thanks!

Hello, everyone, Lately this summer I’ve been doing a bit of casual fossil collecting (with explicit permission!) on some land that a very close family friend owns in Weld County, Colorado that has a lot of exposure of the White River Formation, and I’ve collected a sizable amount of material including some pretty awesome finds. Being an amateur, I need some help identifying some of the fossils I’ve collected. Since the forum has a photo upload limit per post, I’ll be making a few threads for different finds, I hope that is ok. This is a small partial vertebra, collected in Weld County, CO on the Brule Formation. The piece next to it is one of the transverse processes, which was barely attached when I collected it but finally unfortunately broke off when in my bag. Any identification appreciated. Thanks!

Hello, everyone, Lately this summer I’ve been doing a bit of casual fossil collecting (with explicit permission!) on some land that a very close family friend owns in Weld County, Colorado that has a lot of exposure of the White River Formation, and I’ve collected a sizable amount of material including some pretty awesome finds. Being an amateur, I need some help identifying some of the fossils I’ve collected. Since the forum has a photo upload limit per post, I’ll be making a few threads for different finds, I hope that is ok. These are two small bones that look very similar, from Weld County Colorado. To me they look a lot like the toe bones of ruminants like deer, but I’m wondering if anyone has any better or specific guesses. #1: #2: Thanks!

I've spent the last three days in Wyoming hunting fossils with Paleoprospectors. Monday was spent on the Lance fm, Tuesday on the White River fm and Wednesday was back on the Lance. The first half of Monday was spent prospecting for new sites along a wide open space. The best find happened early on when a younger guy found an Anzu claw, I was not so lucky for a while as I found only a few bone bits in a mostly scarce area. I continued walking along a ridge overlooking the open grassland until I noticed an outcropping of a light brown/orange colored rock. I decide to test my luck and hit it with my rock hammer and to my pleasure, there were abundant snail, bivalve and plant fossils inside this conglomerate. This little channel deposit raised my spirits, but I was still hungry for dinosaur and other vertebrate fossils. My little hunting buddy, a horned lizard. Some shots of the conglomerate containing the snails and other fossils: My best find from this conglomerate channel deposit was this nice bivalve Although I absolutely enjoy and appreciate finding invertebrate fossils, dinosaurs and other reptiles have my heart. The second half of Monday consisted of the group spending time hunting at a microsite. This spot was where I was most successful. Top Left: Worn alligator tooth Top Right: Paronychodon tooh (the first in my collection) Bottom: A piece of crocodilian osteoderm A section of Champsosaurus jaw A nice coprolite, maybe fish or small reptile A partial small theropod or bird toe bone A hadrosaur spit tooth A croc tooth still lying in the sand

Hey everyone, I was digging in the White River Formation when I found this amazing maxilla of some creature. Through some questioning and conversations with various paleontologists, many people have different opinions of what this is. The responses I’ve had are all different, being Oreodont, Dire Wolf, or a species from the family of Brontotheriidae. The w shaped teeth might suggest Brontotheriidae... What are your guy’s opinions? The maxilla is about 6 inches long.

This has been in the family for probably 60+ years. I have handled it and seen it countless times, prior to this it has sat in the bottom of a garage cabinet drawer for the longest time, and now I'm bringing it to you! This skull was caked in matrix on one side and mostly exposed on the other before I started working on it (first picture is the exposed side). I think I have the ID correct, I believe it's a Hyracodon skull, I'm looking for confirmation and I'm also curious as to which "sub member" these are found in... Brule, Chadron, or another layer of the White River Formation (I'm new to this and the majority of my research has been more geared toward the Cretaceous period of my state, thanks in part to the Jurassic Park movies ... ) . Forgive me as I haven't done a ton of research on the White River area, or ever stepped foot there... I know it's tough to believe as I live right here in South Dakota, but I continue to tell myself every time I drive by on I90 "next time", so maybe soon I'll put my boots on that ground. (I know that it's illegal to collect bone fossils in the National Park, but its an absolutely beautiful area that I have yet to check out). Anyway, here are the most recent preparation photos. (I have a decent amount of progress photos if anyone is interested). I'm not quite done with prep yet and I'm happy to take more detailed photos of anything someone might find interesting.

I took a trip to Nebraska to collect the White River Formations for the very first time this past summer. I had two goals: recover a Stylemys and an Oreodont skull. I found both! I reported on the prep of the Stylemys in an earlier post on the prep sub-forum. When I saw the Oreodont, I yelled "Bingo, Oreodont!". So that's the name I gave the animal. This post will summarize the discovery, preparation, and reconstruction of the specimen. The skull was not complete, and only about 25-30% of the animal was present, so with apologies to the "Palaeo Police" , I decided that this specimen would have a greater contribution as a display piece than sitting in a drawer with other oreodont remains (which are common and numerous). Also, if any of these bones were later found to be of scientific importance, the procedures used in this reconstruction are reversible THE DISCOVERY Bingo was spotted on the side of a relatively steep butte. The first thing I saw was the partial skull. Here it is: After exclaiming (proclaiming) "Bingo!", I left the skull and immediately went to the base of the butte and started probing and digging in the two washouts that originated in the vicinity of the skull. These re-worked deposits were yielding lots of bone elements from the posterior to the anterior of the skeleton. I even managed to recover the brain cast and pieces of the skull that had washed down. Once the re-worked deposits had been thoroughly searched, I climbed up to the skull and began excavating. The top of the snout was crushed (predation?). The brain case area was also fragmented as well as the rear of the jaw. Some of this was pieced together later from elements found in the spoil at the base of the butte. I removed the skull via a "soft jacket". Here is what was recovered:

Looking for some help with the ID. Mineralized, large and heavy, about 10 lbs. from the white River formation in SD. Distal end of a femur perhaps? Thanks for any help with the ID.

Looking for help. Found near Lusk Wyoming in the White River Formation. Someones mandible but not sure. Horse ? Rhino? other Thanks for any help.

Hello People Looking for help with identifying the owner of this Atlas bone found in the White River Formation in Wyoming.

Thought I'd share a few photos of a tortoise prep I just completed. This is from the white river group of Chadron, NE (circa 33 mya). Here is a series of photos from discovery to excavation to restoration and preparation. The discovery: broken shell (As usual, I forgot to take a true "before photo". I've already probed a bit here). After some digging, it was discovered that this individual is upside-down. Here, the plastron is being revealed.

I've just received a massive tortoise prep job, which will be my summer project. It measures nearly 14 inches long, and somewhere around 12 inches wide. At its peak it's six inches tall. This will be quite the project (though after I clean and replace the broken side, it'll be a breeze compared to some other preps) I'm still in the planning proccess of this prep but I'll start by assembling the smalles peices togethor, and work up to larger chunks. I'm glad to actually be on the forum again.

I got this a while back, it's an oreodont haw section. I am seeking more information on it. My guess was Merycoidodon just based on pictures. Here's a bunch of pictures, I'm hoping to get as specific on taxon as possible, it says on the label it's from Chadron deposits, white river formation, 20 miles northeast of lush, Wyoming.

This was a recent find on private land near Lusk Wyoming. It is an area with lots of oreodonts and lots of turtles. Always anxious to find anything different. I think that is likely a long shot because there is not much to go on ..... but there is plenty of brain power on this site. What struck me the most was how thick and heavy this bone feels. THe teeth are all broken off and both ends are gone. The ventral aspect is also broken off so its full depth in that direction is not appreciated either. Thanks in advance if any one has any ideas.