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After yesterday’s (4/23/24) hunt I decided to go back today after work. Let me tell you all, it did not disappoint! In total I found ~36 fossil decapods. 23 crabs, 12 shrimp, and “1” lobster. This brings my total cont from today and yesterday to ~49 decapod fossils. Also to note is the scale of the cutting mat in the background, every square is 1/2 inch for scale In regards to the “one” lobster it is in two pieces that might or might not belong to each other, they were found in close proximity to one another and have similar mineralization color and the size of the tail section could fit a lobster of this size. This specimen looks most like Linuparus grimmeri, I have two other examples of this species form much higher in the Britton shale, one found by me and one by my father, another note on this specimen is the size of the mandibles on the under side. Next up on the list is the best preserved and looking shrimp fossil of the day, I don’t have an ID on these guys yet, if anyone has any ideas please let me know. In all the only thing missing is the tail fan, it still has its head, tail, and even some leges and its two claws/pincers intact, in order shown is the top, bottom, left, and right sides. Now for more crabs, a good number of crabs found on this hunt had bits and pieces of their underside, legs, and claws here are the nice ones. Crab with imprints of the claws and partial legs. Another crab in similar shape but with a little more of the legs on the underside. Another crab with a portion of the underside of the crab carapace showing. Here is the largest crab found in the past two days, and with a good portion of the underside still preserved and in ok shape! Now here is something I was not expecting at all today, a small sharks tooth, not something I’ve never found but it is now the oldest I have collected. To round everything out I also coveted a small Inoceramid clam half that was in good condition for the sight, as well as some larger Baculites for the strata that I know of, and a set of two Gastropoda and two clams. This will provost be the last hint for the week, we have some rain forecasted for the end of the week and the weekend so here’s to some good erosion.

I don’t post on this forum and much as I probably should so here’s to changing that. Had quite the eventful afternoon hear in the Dallas area in the Eagle Ford. Found the most crabs I have ever found in my life, no ID on any of these but feel free to give me your thoughts. This was the first find of the day and got me stoked for what else I might be laying around this sight. Within 5ft of the first find I found another decapod. This was when I realized what I was in for, Crabapaloza! These next two were found within 2ft of each other. The next surprise was this assortment of fish bone, this is my first time finding any bone at this location and is currently the oldest bony material in my possession. Along with the visible fish bone was another vertebra not pictured and what I believe to be a small lobster or shrimp barely visible. A reoccurring theme, this carapace was found not to far from the fish bones as well For about 20-30ft of the exposure there wasn’t much, but again, I found more crab, center of palm, along with a gastropod shell and two pieces of ammonite, in this shape I typically don’t collect them but are a good example of the shape most ammonites and baculites are in. At this point things started to slow down, but again, another decapod. And again not to far from the last fossils, another crab and a decent ammonite, for the area, within 3ft of each other. And yet another decapod for the bag And at last, on my way back and on the way out, I gave a quick look behind where I inserted into the exposure and to my surprise, one last crab, including parts of its legs. I don’t get to this site too often, as it’s quite out of the way for me, (and is wishy-washy in its production rate) so when I do go, I make the most out of it - and today I can’t say I’m displeased at all.

I’ve been busy hunting, but I got behind on posting..I’ll try to get back in the habit. Yesterday I made quite the trek around various parts of DFW. I’m a semi-professional drummer, so I had a gig at 11:30am, which gave me a short amount of time beforehand to swing by an eagle ford exposure around highway 360 (Tarrant County). The recent rains adequately eroded the ground, revealing a nice 15 inch petrified log. I suspect this is the coal zone that I find nearby at other locales, because the log has some parts that appear burned. I should have grabbed an initial in situ pic, because the end piece (not pictured) was broken but in place just an inch or two away from the larger piece, you could just tell it had been broken for a long time. I’ve had issues with previous pet wood pieces from this zone warping or disintegrating after a few weeks, so while this piece is solid and heavy, I might coat it with a polyurethane spray, since that has worked well on my other pieces. After my gig, I went to a Fort Worth formation construction spot, finding a few big macrasters but this one had been picked over like bugs off the back of a gorilla (I’m always looking for new analogies), so almost no ammonites. I then went to a nearby Paw paw spot that my accompanying friend knew about, finding my first micro fossils, some nice echinoids, gastropods, and over 100 little ammonites, I believe the mantelliceras species. My friend found a shark tooth, which I seem to not be able to find as easily. lastly, we swung by a nearby Goodland formation spot in northwest Tarrant county, with the usual broken oxytropidoceras ammos, plentiful heteraster and hemiaster echinoids, and a few nice gastropods and one perfect clam. I am including a nice big Goodland formation bivalve fossil I found a few days ago, just to show it off and keep it in the same category. We are expecting a lot of rain this week, so I’ll be resting my back and planning my next targets!

Does anyone know of a good resource for sharks in the Eagle Ford Group. In particular I am working on specimens that came out of the South Bosque Shale and the Condensed Zone below the Atco in Williamson County, Texas. I have a lot of reference material already but have no good faunal lists for vertebrates. PS I have good info on Ptychodus. It's the other sharks and fish I need. I'll try and posts some pics of the specimens as I can.

I found this tooth (2.75 mm length) while sorting micro-matrix from Post Oak Creek in Texas (Turonian). I had originally hoped this might be a posterior Coniasaurus tooth based on the more conical tooth type and root but have since found in publications that some Pycnodont tooth forms closely overlap posterior Coniasaurus teeth in general morphology. My guess would now be some kind of less common type of Pycnodont tooth form (the flat types are common in the samples) but I wanted to see what others thought.

I dug this out of an Eagle Ford group embankment yesterday and wanted to get some thoughts on it. There was a very thin layer containing a few black (phosphate?) pebbles and I dug some out to examine. This one was shaped differently so I took it home to investigate further. As soon as I recognized symmetry I knew I had more than a pebble. I'd love to learn what it might be. 1: 2: Specimen rotated away from ruler 1/4th turn. 3: Specimen rotated away from ruler an additional 1/4th turn. 4: Rotated an additional 1/4th turn. Thanks,

A quick half-day trip to a few new sights yielded some exciting finds for me. I'm not well versed in Eagle Ford fauna but here goes! There were many of the boulders comprised almost entirely of oysters and bivalves: I was mainly looking for teeth and had no idea I'd find an ammonite so I was surprised with this find. On of the reasons why I love fossil hunting so much is that you never know what you might find out there! This heron flew in literally 6 ft behind me as I was inspecting the creek bank. I heard a whoosh and turned around and there it was. After nearly jumping out of my skin I froze and watched it head upstream. A few minutes later a sounder of hogs started snorting and I walked around the bend and they were snorting at the heron - something I'd never seen before! My favorite find of the trip a 2 inch shark tooth (Cretodus I think). My first Ptychodus tooth hidden amongst the pebbles! I thought this was a goblin shark tooth when I found it because it was covered in mud. After cleaning it up at home now I'm wondering if its a partial reptile tooth (maybe Pliosaur)? The largest find was this section of bone: The only artifact (if it is one) was this possible Native American bead: The oysters and bivalves cleaned up! I was surprised with how many were present as well as how many were complete. And lastly a few more of the shark fauna: Hope you enjoyed! The trip was worth the heat, poison ivy, constant mosquitos, and running into several sounders of hogs!

I found an abundance of these small similar shape and size objects in Post Oak Creek in North Texas. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Thanks to all of you good fine folks for taking a look what I found on my two "expeditions" to the North Sulfur River. I look forward to the next expedition. I've got some others, but this will be my last request for ID . . . no doubt it will be a rock! Thanks for a great day.