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Darn it, @Shellseeker, you got me started on these whale teeth! I'm starting to feel a little like Jonah -- swallowed in the mystery of these long-gone beasts. Anyway, I've found another recovery from the Peace River that doesn't seem to fit a common model. It's a small tooth with an inflated root. It doesn't seem inflated the way a river dolphin (e.g. Goniodelphis) is inflated and laterally compressed. I thought for a brief moment that this tooth might be a cheek tooth to go with the odd tooth with the off-center crown -- which I had concluded to be an apical tooth from a river dolphin. One or the other guess must be wrong. Anyone here have an idea about the ID of this tooth?

Here are two small whale petrosals that I can't identify -- can I get some help? I am not certain, but I think they are different species. What do you think? @Boesse@Shellseeker

1. Hemipristis serra: One of my first teeth of the day, found in the water. Small, but nice colors and perfect serrations. 2. Carcharias cuspidata: Flawless sand tiger. Symmetrical and super sharp, with both double cusplets intact. 3. Galeocerdo aduncus: Gorgeous tiger, almost looks like a G. cuvier because of size. Very nice root to crown contrast. 4. Odontocete tooth: Little porpoise/dolphin tooth with a long, thick root. In very good condition. 5. Ecphora sp.: A very nice small Ecphora, nearly complete, just missing the white part at the top. Rare to find more than a fragment of these at Brownies. Cast your votes! The poll will end in three days, on April 4th at 3:00 p. m. EST. Hoppe hunting!

After tallying all the votes on the Hop 5 of my trip report, the "Hoppe Tripmaker" for Bayfront Park 01/04/19 is.......... #3 Odontocete Tooth Odontocetes are toothed whales, including dolphins and porpoises. Fossilized teeth from these creatures can be found in Miocene sediments such as the Calvert Cliffs, where this particular specimen was discovered. They seem to be relatively uncommon, especially when compared with abundant fossils like shark teeth or shells. My collection only contains about 15 of these teeth in total, and this one is perhaps the prettiest and most well preserved of them all. It's a gorgeous tooth, most likely from a small dolphin, and certainly deserving of the title of Tripmaker. The best find of each trip is not always the biggest! This little tooth beat a large Mako and complete cookie (which tied for second place, by the way). Below is a picture of the Tripmaker under my brand new magnifying glass. I hope you all enjoy the new Hop 5 voting concept. Thank you to all who participated!

Hi, This tooth was found at Bayfront Park/Brownies Beach, which is Calvert Formation (~18-22 MYA). It is clearly from an odontocete, but it is unlike any other I've found from this location, or anywhere for that matter. The crown is not perfectly conical, instead having a rather wide appearance. But what really makes this tooth so odd is the root. It is flattened and bumpy, while most odontocete teeth have long, smooth roots like those of human teeth (this obviously makes sense, as they are both mammals). The fossil is about 3/4" from the tip of the crown to the bottom of the root. If you look closely (it may be difficult to see in the pictures provided), it almost looks like the tooth is encased within the root, and could be pulled out. This at first led me to consider the possibility that the strange flat part may actually just be matrix and the fossil is just a typical odontocete tooth not fully uncovered. However, after further inspection I am confident that everything is fossilized and the entire fossil is a single tooth. So now the only questions are what animal did this tooth belong to and why is it so unusual in appearance? I am certainly hoping that it may be a small Squalodon tooth because I've never found one and I think they're just awesome. Any information is appreciated, as always. Thank you!

Last Monday, June 12th, was my first trip to the Calvert Cliffs, and while my haul is hardly breathtaking I was very happy with it since it was my first tooth-hunting trip ever (first pic). I did my best to try and i.d. the finds, but I'm probably off on some of them. In fact, looking at this again, I can see that the top middle one is probably the tooth of a Lemon Shark, not a Gray as I had labeled it a week ago. I didn't spend much time each time I stopped at a beach (I was kayaking from Brownie's Point), because I didn't know how much there was to see as I traveled south. Turns out, only that first run of cliffside beaches at low tide offered anything, but I spent most of the day paddling south past the rocky shore, wooden piers and private beaches. There were thunderstorms on Monday so I went yesterday, June 20th. This time I spent the entire time on those cliffside beaches at low tide. I'm pretty happy with what I found, though I'm sure it's pretty standard fare. As I was walking past one of the several landslides that spill out into the sea from the cliffs, I saw something sticking straight up out of one. It turned out to be half of a meg tooth (on the right, below)! I clawed around in the surrounding clay to see if the other half was anywhere to be found, but that search was as useless as I expected it to be. Looking down, I found what I think is a second partial meg tooth. I ended up finding a number of teeth visible on the surface of these landslides, but I didn't have any tools aside from a small hand trowel for scooping up stuff for sifting. I found some sort of bone in one of the landslides, and I *think* it's a partial cetacean ulna? Two other notable finds were what I think is a Shortfin Mako shark tooth and an Odontocete tooth- which, btw, I almost threw away. I didn't know what it was and it looked like something from a modern plant. It passed my completely silly squeeze test (it didn't fall apart like rotted plant matter), so I kept it. Well, now I know. So, are we allowed to dig around in those landslides? I know, aside from it being dangerous, that we're prohibited from touching the cliff face, but these landslides extend out from the cliff and most reach the waterline. Some of them seem pretty new, just based on vegetation -or absence thereof- on them. Anyway, I had a great day and I hope to return soon.

Was out at one of my favorite Miocene sites back on August 2, when I spotted this protruding from the cliff: Went back the next day with some proper tools and a friend and discovered this was not an isolated jaw or skull. Have made a total of six trips to the site so far. Here are some more pics of what I have collected and partially prepped. First, a ventral view of the skull. It was upside down and I have not yet turned it over and prepped the other side. This part of the skull is 11 inches long by 8 inches wide. There are separate pieces of the rostrum that still need cleaning and attaching, including one piece with teeth in it. There are many other bones still in this block. I will continue this in the next post.

I wanted to share a few of the local Central California Coast mammal specimens I've collected in the last month. The tooth as it turns out is not easy to ID as I already had a friend check with Bobby on it (Thanks again Bobby!) This is the first time sharing the vert specimens, one to me almost looks like it has a possible bite mark (shark) on it due to linear scratches, the other is a very well worn vert. I may be wrong completely on the Odontocete ID, if so please feel free to give input. Age is Late Pliocene from deposits in northern Santa Barbara County.