A Bone (?) from the Miocene

[Ludwigia]

I found this today at my local shark tooth site in the Miocene Burdigalian. It's a rather unique find for this site if I'm correct in thinking that this is really a bone fragment. It's not all that well preserved, so if it is one, it's probably not easy to identify, but I thought I'd give it a try here anyway. It's 3cm. long. Anybody have an idea?

 

 

[caldigger]

Big fish vert broken in half?

[Ludwigia]

43 minutes ago, caldigger said:

Big fish vert broken in half?

Could be So you agree that it's a bone? Maybe it's dolphin? I've found a couple of teeth there.

[caldigger]

I don't think dolphin.  They are a cetacean their vertebrae aren't concave on the ends.

 

I could be wrong, but I think it looks more like a large fish vertebra split in half lengthwise.

[Pemphix]

Definitely bone imho. 

[Rockwood]

7 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Maybe it's dolphin?

I can see that.

[Rockwood]

4 hours ago, caldigger said:

They are a cetacean their vertebrae aren't concave on the ends.

And you're sure the end is in sight ?

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for your insights guys. Maybe @Harry Pristis or @Shellseeker have an opinion?

[Harry Pristis]

Sorry, Roger, wish I could help.   I have opinions, but not about your Miocene find.

[Ludwigia]

2 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

Sorry, Roger, wish I could help.   I have opinions, but not about your Miocene find.

Thanks anyway.

[Mark Kmiecik]

12 hours ago, Rockwood said:

And you're sure the end is in sight ?

That's a good one. I got it! 

[Rockwood]

[Shellseeker]

My initial reaction was also filefish vert... Here is a photo from @Spoons.  Note that little "hook" in top middle of 1st photo.

[Ludwigia]

8 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

My initial reaction was also filefish vert... Here is a photo from @Spoons.  Note that little "hook" in top middle of 1st photo.

Thanks for your insight. That appears to be a good match, so at least I have something to write down beside the question mark.

 

[Spoons]

I’d agree with filefish. Although 3 cm for a vertebrae seems to be quite large. The largest contemporary species of filefish the Scrawled Filefish reaches an average length of about 40cm.

 

Here are some pictures of my Filefish vertebrae from the Rio Dell formation at centerville beach, Himboldt county Ca. Pliocene in age about 2ma:

scale is in inches.