Search the Community

Hello, I have positively identified three other teeth today by looking through the FF gallery and UF Florida Museum collections. This tooth is different from the Equus examples. I could not match it up with camel either. Some of you have incredible collections. Fossil collected from retention pond spoils in North Port, FL. Hole depth 5-10 feet below sea level. Area near Little Salt Spring. Thank you in advance for your knowledge. Regards, Michael

I found this tooth fragment in the ocean while vacationing at Englewood, Florida. I need help determining if this is in fact a tooth fragment and what animal it may have came from. My money is on Equus. Thank you

Hello again TFF! I just picked up this tooth that I am pretty sure is an Equus sp. found in phosphate deposits near Tampa Bay, FL. What drew me to it was two isolated cones that I haven't seen in the modern Equus teeth I've handled. Is this a positional morphology or one particular to a specific species? Thanks for your thoughts!

I found this today in a south central Texas river...the same area produced a mastodon tusk. Thanks

Good afternoon, I found this earlier today in a Travis county creek (Central Texas)...the area where the bone makes a Y is throwing me off for it to be a jaw....however the fossil world is a humbling one so I’ll ask y’all for the ID. The bone is fossilized and did come from a gravelly alluvial layer. I have found paleo artifacts at this particular bend, do y’all notice that area which appears to be cut? Might just be an area for tendons to pass by, anyways thanks

Through the years I've found these very small horse teeth in SE Texas. In the photo the 2 center teeth are each 16 mm wide as measured across the width of the crown, the rightmost tooth 19 mm. I know these pre-equus teeth can be difficult to ID. Anyone out there can help? @Harry Pristis @Shellseeker @garyc

Found this teeth in water on the right bank of the Dnieper river, Ukraine, Kherson region.

Thoughts on age/epoch? Ancient or not? Found on a gravel bar on a river in Southern Minnesota.

I found this in Dallas County, Texas. I am not sure if it is part of a bison or horse or donkey, etc (equus)..... Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

I have been working with Shellseeker in PM's on identifying several horse teeth found in the Peace River this spring. His input has been extremely helpful and we have narrowed down almost all. The two shown here raised the question as to whether they are Equus or Nannippus based on size (length/crown). I am posting them here hoping for additional input on classification. They are numbered 3 & 4 as they are part of a series we were evaluating. Any input would be greatly appreciated. The red/pink ruler is inches. The blue is metric and provided to give a close up of the crown of each.

Hello again forum! I found this tooth eroded out of a cliff on the coast in Santa Barbara county, California. I'm fairly certain it is an upper m3 molar of an Equus but have been unable to determine the species or age of it. There is some matrix cemented onto the tooth face that I tried picking off but it is quite hard and wasn't being cooperative so I stopped to not damage it. Anyone have any leads that could point to it being either a Pleistocene or just older modern tooth? Or tips on how to remove the tooth face matrix without giving it a root canal? Thanks very much!

Saturday is the day I am least likely to go fossil hunting but yesterday was the exception. Another gorgeous day, sun shining, birds chirping.. I also had some interesting finds ... Some equus teeth and mammoth chunks upper left, bones upper right and a few dolphin bullas under the bones. Nothing special like tusks or large Megs. The tiny tooth lower center is a Mako: One of the mammal bones is a 1.5 inch cubonavicular, a little larger than deer (I think) may be Bos because it is not river worn.. Then a 1.25 inch small canine, I love finding canines... Found a bunch of gator teeth, including these... odd longitudinal lines, Finally this 1/2 long inch molar. There is lots of diversity and variations on the Peace. It has been collecting for millions of years. Every day is an adventure. I am so lucky to have this hobby, and this location.

Hello, I found this tooth today in a creek here in Austin, TX. Thanks in advance

I have a few horse teeth I’ve found beachcombing, mostly after big storms. I have two that are really wide, I was thinking maybe it could be a camel tooth or something or maybe the other ones aren’t whole? I’ll put a few more pics below because I can only upload 4mb at a time

I have been OUT this week... twice to the Peace River. It is hard to communicate how happy that makes me. Neither adventure found a large volume, but there were a couple of high quality fossils, even 2 very similar. 1st on Monday. Horse teeth form below the gum line, 1st the enamel "cap", then from looking at this one the dentine, and finally the roots. I have an enamel cap, no dentine, without the roots. This horse dies at a very young age while the tooth was forming. I'm thinking this may be mighty small for Equus, but that may be because I am fixated on pre_Equus small horses. Interesting, but then maybe the fossil gods are sending me a message. On Wednesday, I went back out to a different location and found ANOTHER very similar tooth... Once again, Enamel cap & dentine, but no roots... In this case, the tooth is used !! chewed on.. How does that happen?? I am missing something here. This is a bigger tooth, Equus but the width is still very small at 8mm. I might have to send an email to Richard Hulbert, but I am hoping that someone else has traveled this path of understanding horse teeth growth. I am going to submit and add the occlusal and root view as a reply... Jack

Archaeohippus mannulus, sp. nov. Monroecreekian/Harrisonian terrestrial claystone Arikareean, late Oligocene/early Miocene Pinellas County, Florida On permanent display at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, Fl. I discovered this particular specimen back in 95 while collecting fossils in a shallow creek. Initially thought to be a new species of Miohippus, it was sent to the Museum Of Natural History in Gainesville Fl. for further studies. In 2003 it was determined to be a new species of Archaeohippus rather than Miohippus.

Hunting between thunderstorms and deeper water. During the rest of the season, I note those places where I am finding fossils but have low water conditions...because of lower back issues, I generally refuse to hunt where I must bend over the screen. However, I do remember where such spots exist for days like today. An excellent day, some unusual, finds, a couple of megs, and then these: A odd bone, I have not previously found, but believe to be an Equus Splint bone: Another interesting fossil which I think most likely a large Sloth dermal scute. Finally, my best find of the day, a piece of jaw with a Hemiauchenia m3 molar in nice cream - brown colors.. These are really nice finds... but I was cherishing the end days of the 2017-2018 season with a friend on a day with sunshine in the morning and rain clouds later in the day. Does not get better than this... Jack

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.

Good evening, I've found this section a year ago and since then kept it in our garden. I took a second look at it tonight and thought it might be my first camel jaw piece. I found this along a creek in Travis county, thanks

Hi! I found a skull online, and think it looks great. But I'm not sure if it is a skull from a modern horse, or if it is a fossil skull. Can you see if it looks modern or very old? Cause I can't decide of my own if it is a "to good to be truth" skull.

Hey all, Any reason to believe that this horse leg might belong to anything besides Equus? It's from Ice Age Florida.

This complete metacarpal, a.k.a. cannon bone is an extremely rare find for North Carolina. Pleistocene mammals are uncommon and are mostly teeth. Being complete and undamaged it will be taking a prominent spot in my collection. The bone was found in a quarry containing mixed sediments of Pliocene Yorktown Formation, which is marine and a Pleistocene pebble lag. The odds are very very small that this would be from the Pliocene, so I am going on my gut feeling that this is from the Pleistocene. I also would like to send thanks to forum member @Fruitbat and @Harry Pristis for giving me a positive I.D. on this.

I believe this to be a horse metatarsal, most likely Equus. But am wondering since it was found in mixed Pleistocene / Pliocene sediments if it could be a Pliocene species. That is saying it is horse of course, you know Mr. Edd. It was found in a quarry in eastern NC that contains Pliocene Yorktown formation and a Pleistocene pebble lag. It was protruding from a sloped area that extended down into a shallow pit. The sediments pushed down were mixed Yorktown and the pebble lag. Mammal fossils are uncommon in North Carolina and they are usually teeth. Bones, especially complete are almost unheard of.

I found this tooth on the banks of the river Vilaine in Brittany in France. I believe it is from a horse. Can anyone identify it for me or let me know a possible age. Thanks, Jo