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Milk river weird Dino vert?


patrickhudson

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Milk river Judith river formation find - north central Montana.  Looks like just over half of a large vert with large processes to me - but really no clue.  Any thoughts?

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I don't know vertebrae but am curious how does one tell baring knowledge of shapes and characteristics if its a modern vertebrae or not?  (weight? color?) (throwing it out to anyone here)

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4 hours ago, pjullien said:

I don't know vertebrae but am curious how does one tell baring knowledge of shapes and characteristics if its a modern vertebrae or not?  (weight? color?) (throwing it out to anyone here)

It's pretty easy to tell if bone is fossilized or not once you've had a few examples in hand (and yes, it is intuited by weight, texture, the sound it makes on impact with another object, etc). Beyond that it comes down to provenance, where the piece was found, which geologic layer it likely originated  from, etc, and then comparing it to known animals from that time period/location.

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Well it's definitely a vertebra. The colouration is consistent with other Judith River fossils. They are often a grey-ish white with hints of orange like this.

Identification is hard with all these weird angles. It's good that you took photos of different angles. But verts have a lot of weird shapes and it can be hard to figure out what the position and orientation should be for a fragment like this. Having some photos at straight angles might help figure this out.

 

At the moment I'm thinking possibly a hadrosaur cervical vert. But again, it's hard to tell.

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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14 hours ago, pjullien said:

I don't know vertebrae but am curious how does one tell baring knowledge of shapes and characteristics if its a modern vertebrae or not?  (weight? color?) (throwing it out to anyone here)

Lick it.

 

 

just kidding, I never use the tongue test.  After youve held and compared a number of modern bones to fossilized ones you can spot the fossil quickly.  That can be a lot harder to do when looking at pictures online.

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"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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On 7/10/2020 at 1:23 AM, LordTrilobite said:

Well it's definitely a vertebra. The colouration is consistent with other Judith River fossils. They are often a grey-ish white with hints of orange like this.

Identification is hard with all these weird angles. It's good that you took photos of different angles. But verts have a lot of weird shapes and it can be hard to figure out what the position and orientation should be for a fragment like this. Having some photos at straight angles might help figure this out.

 

At the moment I'm thinking possibly a hadrosaur cervical vert. But again, it's hard to tell.

 

2892E0B5-945D-4C27-A0F2-A93B136B15C8.jpeg

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