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I went on my first real dig yesterday at the Ernst Quarries of Bakersfield. I won't say it was easy, but it was pretty rewarding. Aside from a bunch of very small shark's teeth, I found a fossilized piece of a stingray barb grinding-plate, and this particular piece. At first I thought it was a tooth from some ancient fish that had teeth that looked like tusks. After looking at it for a second more, I realized that it was something else. Crinoid came to mind. Being a newbie, I just wanted to get verification of this pieces "crinoidness", or lack thereof. Is it a crinoid fossil, and is it common in places like Bakersfield oil country? Many thanks, learned fossil-folks, et. al. Cheers.

Had high hopes for hunting on the beach on the south side of the river. Went out Saturday, but the water was up and dirty, no real low tide, found only two small teeth in two hours. Today was better, much of the sand had washed away, leaving shells, rocks, small pieces of metal, waterlogged wood, and rare shark teeth. My eyes aren't that good, but I think I found every tooth by seeing the root first. The makos are pretty color, but their roots aren't great. My first megalodon tooth in years is ugly and barely qualifies as a tooth! Also found a small chunk with pretty serrations. Will try to get out the end of the month when tides are lower.

I have this beautiful colored Caribbean Megalodon tooth , the blade and serrations are nearly perfect, but it has bourlette, and root damage. Not sure if I should have the tooth restored, or leave it natural. I even thought about making a pendant out of it. I would love to hear some of the members opinions. Tooth is 3.75” as is.

I have been hunting a SW Florida area that is predominantly marine fossils. whale verts, earbones, teeth, dolphin earbones, small shark teeth (Lemon, Tiger, Bull, Hemipristis), ray teeth , broken barbs, occassional GW, Mako, Megs. No significant land mammal material. Actually , out of commission right now, but I'll get back to it soon. Found a lot of these. This is my largest at 3/4 inch. Could be a tilly bone , but these are consistently the same, not finding any other types and little variation in the ones I have found. Think of Eagle Ray teeth as comparative sameness. Maybe some other fossil hunter has stumbled across these. Fish skull?

Hi all! Decided to bring out the kayak on this windy Maryland day and it was another amazing hunt although and my arms are definitely suffering. Unfortunately didn't find anything too great but did find an unusual piece of something I've never seen or found before. Of course like every leaf, shell, or rock it could just be an incredibly suggestively shaped piece of nothing but I think it's some sort of mammal tooth possibly or maybe some type of fish tooth? Comparing it to the seal/peccary online it looks similar but just not enough to convince me so I thought I'd ask the experts! It's from the Calvert formation of the Chesapeake Group which is early Miocene: For size reference: Close up: From below: Thanks and I apologize for the blur I guess that's what you get with a clip on magnifier on a cell phone camera

Here is another 3D prepared Portunus monspeliensis that I'd like to trade. Size of the crab is around 9cm in a 13×13 nodule. I'm looking for: prepped/unprepped complete/incomplete crabs White River material English ammonites (Lyme Regis/ Charmouth and Somerset) USA trilobites USA dinosaur material Triassic ammonites Anything that you think is cool

This is part 2 of my Maryland fossil hunting trip on Chesapeake Bay. Be patient with me as I tell my stories. There are lots and lots of fossil pics to come, especially shark teeth from the Calvert Marine Museum. I know there is a Trip to the Museum section, but since many of the fossils I found hunting that day were on display at the museum I deemed it appropriate to combine the two in one post. I planned to drive to Matoaka Beach to hunt, but I would pass by the Calvert Marine Museum. Several people had recommended visiting it. @BobWill had even given me the name of someone who volunteered at the museum, Mike Elwoods. When I got there the turn was coned off. I had to drive 1/4 mile and circle back by another route. There was a field across from the museum filled with cars. It was just after 10:00 but there were people all over the place. It was Patuxant River Appreciation Day. A big community event with 2 live bands, free boat rides in a nice sail boat, free paddle boats and then the old fashioned row boat with ores. There was also face panting, little sailboat building tables ( the boats looked amazing for the little kids building them, with adult assistance of course). There were all kinds of venders and arts and craft booths and food and drink booths. On one end of the complex a good size stage with a rock band playing. On the other end there was a band playing jazz and big band music, think Benny Goodman, if you know who he was. I’ve been a fan of big band, Benny Goodman and Glen Miller since I was 12. My music tastes are pretty eclectic. I had to park about 1/4 mile down the street and walk past the quaint houses. I walked into the museum and up to the receptionist to buy a $9.00 ticket. She said that today everything was free. Yay!! I asked if there happened to be a Mike Elwoods there. She said yes and told me how to get to the prep lab. I followed her instructions, but came to a hands on fossil table where 2 men sat. I asked one of them if he could point me to Mike Elwoods. He said that was him. I introduced myself and told him Bob Williams said I should look him up. I told him I was a member of the DPS. Fossil tales and discussions ensued. I looked at the interactive material and took pics of a bunch of it. Here is what I did take pics of on the display table that you could touch and pick up. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of my photography. The museum was kind of a hit and run kind of thing so I was trying to get through it all quickly so I could get some good hunting in since this was my last day. A shark tooth display case on the table. This meg tooth was one of Mike’s recent finds. He let me hold it. He had a foam replica of a much larger one. The foam one was for kids to hold and look at. He said the smaller one’s like this are found around Maryland. The larger ones he said were found in more recent formations in the Carolina’s. I found a number of single bar fragments at Brownie’s Beach of at least 3 kinds I think, but I thought it was cool to see the bite surface is the smooth surface. In hind sight I wish I had gotten straight on pics of each of these little shark teeth cards. These were easier to photograph than those on display, which were in poor lighting and behind glass. I believe the loose pieces are crocodile material not dolphin. I did find one of these Only mine is a bit more translucent. These are dolphin ear bones. The one on the left is phosphatized. I took many pics at the museum. I’ll share more of those later. He wanted me to come to the prep lab to show me a bunch of echinoids he had recently found, which had fallen from the cliffs near his home on the bay. I happily obliged. The prep lab was small, but the shelves were lined with cool fossils found in the cliffs and on beaches of the area. These are the echinoids he found that he wanted to show me. There were boxes of them unprepped on the shelf. I think he said he found 60 something. Don’t quote me though. There was a work table in the middle of the small room with a plaster cast with a whale jaw in it in the process of being prepped. The skull was in a box on a cart at the end of the table. You can see the ear bone there in the middle. The whale jaw. He said they were almost done with this side, then they were going to plaster it, flip it over and prep the other side. I asked what glue they were using on it. He said B-var, but I can’t remember which. I think 72. He said the skull had been found in the cliffs on the beach nearby after a recent avalanche. When they cast it and removed it another whale skull was found behind it. That one was supposedly still in the cliff. Later in the day I found out exactly where it was found. These are other whale items on the shelves. I saw this and my jaw dropped in awe of the coolness factor and how it looked. I thought it was glued together or contrived somehow, but things are as they found them. It was found on a beach outside of St. Mary’s City. He said this is all reworked material. Nobody even recognized the material or knew of any place with this kind of matrix with this mix of fauna in it. It was found washed up on the beach. I don’t have any starfish in my echinoid collection, but I think a starfish would be in my top 5 bucket list of things to find. I recently found a site about 2 hrs from where I live where they have been found. So I’m Jones’n To take a trip there. Trilobites are in the fauna list too for the site near me. I don’t expect I’ll find either, but I gotta try. Anyway, Mike said to his knowledge starfish had The color is a little off in the pic. The matrix is a light gray without a yellow component in it as best I recall, like what is seen in the 2nd pic. This is a close up of one of the starfish with shell material in it. I see phosphatized gastropods and 2 species of turitella I think. This was on tje workbench in front of the prep room observation window. I commented on how cool it was and was in the process of taking a pic of it when Mike said “Oh, the scallop? We have lots of those.” He pulled a box of shells from the shelf with large gastropods, sea shells and scallops. He held it out and told me to “ Take what I wanted.” I chose a large complete scallop valve. I’ll post it in the next post.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/e-ofo100918.php https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/10/09/Oldest-flying-squirrel-fossil-reshapes-evolutionary-tree/1771539112306/

Hey folks! You may have seen Cris's video of our Agatized Coral hunt recently (I was a little behind on editing!). But here is my take on it, and my finds! We don't always get to head up to GA to hunt for coral, so this was a very nice change of pace. We found some really killer pieces!

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/fish-fossil-dating-back-16m-years-found-in-turkey/1273067

Hi, we were having a bit of a hunt down at Beaumaris, not sure if this is anything? but it does look like some kind of bony frament.. thoughts please?

Miocene, probably mammal bone. Hoping for some clue to the animal. Doesn't look like a piece of cetacean vertebra, but obviously has the hole for the spinal cord. HELP!!!!

So I had bought from a certain online auction site some Lee Creek mine microfossil matrix a while back... I finally got around to looking over a little bit of it this evening. Attached are what I have found so far without any magnification.

Second photo: About 50 individuals of the snail Vitta picta in different states of weathering, but most of them are still glossy and show their color patterns. The gloss is natural, no coating or something else applied, only washed. The color pattern is strongly variable between individuals. Note that also the outline is quite variable, which is typical for this species. Field of view is 40 mm, largest gastropod is about 6 mm high, so this snails are really small. This is a "multi-genus-species" and was/is assigned also to the following genera: Theodoxus, Agapilia, Clithon, Nerita, Neritina. According to Fossilworks, this species was an epifaunal omnivore-grazer and went extinct 12.7 million years ago. First photo is perhaps the largest and one of the best preserved gastropods of this lot in two views. Height is about 6 mm. It is not perfectly preserved; some parts of the outer shell layer, and hence the color pattern, is missing in the right view. Some parts of the shell along the aperture on the right side are also missing. Outline is quite typical, somewhere in the middle between nearly globular and somewhat cylindrical with a constriction in the middle. Exact locality is Höllerkogel-21 in my own documentation. This relatively large outcrop contains predominately the mud snail, Granulolabium bicinctum, and V. picta. Unfortunatelly, most of the shells are strongly weathered or even completely dissolved. Höllerkogel-21 is about 5 m stratigraphically higher then Höllerkogel-18 and located just upslope of Höllerkogel-18. The sediments in the area belong to the "Florianer Schichten", which are part of the western Styrian basin at the eastern margin of the Alps. The "Florianer Schichten" are about 15 Ma old (Langhian, or "Badenian" in Paratethys stratigraphic terms). x

Went out to find a new spot. After a few unproductive but relaxing hours (not as humid, not many mosquitoes, lots of frogs), I found a spot that yielded a bunch of small teeth, including a cowshark and three angelshark teeth. Also found pieces of at least three tiger shark teeth (rare in my old spots) Found a piece of frog(?) jaw with three flattened teeth (small but bigger than most I've found). I thought I had found another Mako ventral tooth, but it has serrations, heavy at the bottom and fine in the middle edges of the blade. People here IDed it as a hemi ventral tooth. Picked up about 20 "drum teeth" but half lacked the distinctive glossy top and hollow bottoms (and a few black shell bits discarded with the small black round rocks). Hopefully the "vein" won't die out like the last spot!

While collecting teeth I was surprised when what I thought was a ventral mako/ great white tooth had serrations (strong near the base, fine near the middle, nothing at the tip). At first I thought this was a damaged hemipristis, but the shape of the tooth was different and serrations were smaller. The tooth seems to be essentially the same as an unserrated mako/ great white, however the serrations are obvious. Is this a transitional tooth between fossil mako and modern great white? Or does this represent a totally different species?

Hey all I was able to go out to Greenville, NC for a quick hunt this fine morning. Heres the haul Everything 2 exogyra and a oyster? That exogyra is absolutley MASSIVE some non-shark teeth Huge and reaaaallly old sperm whale tooth root. First whale tooth fish tilly bone Fish tooth. Could someone ID? Mosasaur tooth. My first mosasaur tooth too Belemnites Shark teeth Some good ones Great whites My first meg that still has serrations Nice big crow shark Two nice Hastilis tiger shark teeth are very rare in that layer Whale bone Ear bone Was a very good day, this was a result of only around 3 hours

Hey folks! @Cris and myself grabbed the canoe recently and set out on yet another exciting fossil hunting voyage! We went to a slightly flooded, very remote creek in the middle of the swamp. Confidence in finding tons of fossils were not high, but to our surprise we were rewarded with literally hundreds of sharks teeth! Nothing of major size, but the sheer number of fossils was just as exciting for us. Can't wait to go back! We were also able to collect some micro matrix which is loaded with tiny shark teeth and other fossils. I'll definitely be posting stuff from that when I look through what I collected!

Back out to the same productive spot. Unfortunately it "played out" within an hour, but yielded a nice Great White/ Mako tooth, a very nice cowshark tooth, a few more angel shark teeth, and more drum teeth (some from last trip), more teeth, a scute and turtle shell pieces, and a small piece of jaw with two flat-topped teeth.

Can any of the turtle experts give me any insite into this fossil turtle being offered to me in Cuba. Thanks

Finally went back to the creek. Lots of changes from the rains. Took my first few hours to find productive spots, which I only worked the last hour. The mosquitoes were horrific; although there were leopard(?) frogs everywhere, no dent in the mosquito population (must have missed a few spots with bug spray or they liked the flavor). One big cow shark tooth with a root, some points tipped, and and a second piece, three or four angel shark teeth, which I missed at the beach trips. Lots of spikes, and little teeth. Found three small verterbrae, skate teeth, rough stinger, and scute, and several drum teeth (waiting for stuff to dry).