Gopher? Go figure!

[digit]

Since moving from South Florida up to Gainesville I've finally been about to help the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) with some volunteer effort by picking through washed and dried matrix that was collected back in 2018 from the Montbrook site just a little way south of Gainesville. Tammy and I have spent several days over the last couple of years volunteering to dig our assigned 1 m x 1 m squares at the site bagging up the smaller fossils and excavating pedestals for larger specimens to be jacketed. Most of the sandy/silty matrix does not have very interesting micro-fossils but there are a couple of distinctive layers where the matrix is a more coarse fine gravel instead of sand. The understanding is that this probably represents a horizon where there was a faster water flow due to something like a tropical storm (similar to what Florida is experiencing at the moment). The Montbrook site is assumed to represent a river environment and the faster current during a flooding situation would transport and then deposit this more coarse material (possibly along with a more interesting and denser bunch of fossils).

 

Richard Hulbert has me on the lookout for specimens from several taxa that are known from the Montbrook site only by a few micro-fossils. The most interesting micros are the rarer types of animals. There are lots of shark (and ray) teeth and plenty of tiny fish teeth to keep things interesting while picking but the real prizes are things like mammal fossils or the even rarer bird bones. There are several rodent taxa that are represented in the Montbrook faunal list by a just a few teeth and bones so Richard has me keeping an eye out for any rodent material. I spotted something interesting yesterday that had that rodent look and feel but was unlike anything I'd encountered before while picking Florida micro-matrix. I've seen plenty of very distinctive Cotton Rat (Sigmodon sp.) as well as vole teeth and even a single mole tooth but I was uncertain what had just turned up so I took some photos--composited together with my photo-stacking software to allow for a decent depth of field beyond what is available from any one single image. I sent these photos to Richard and received the reply today that this specimen is tooth from a gopher (family Geomyidae) and while this taxon is already known from Montbrook it was previously only represented by 2 teeth and this new third tooth is much more complete than the previous ones and so it a scientifically important specimen for this site.

 

The volunteer that bagged the matrix from the Montbrook site back in 2018 goes in the database as the collector of record and gets credit for this really nice find (though they had no idea of what might or might not be in the matrix material while filling the sandbag with the material nearly 2 years ago). While my name won't be associated with this specimen, I did have the thrill of seeing it appear on my picking plate yesterday afternoon and the added rush of learning what it was today (and that it is something special). That's the true reward.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

         

 

    

[jcbshark]

Sure don’t see too many of those Ken  beautiful colors on that material too

[digit]

Montbrook material is in-situ and so the colors are not the standard grayscale color range that we are more familiar with in creek and river finds from the phosphorus rich Bone Valley area which leaves us mostly blacks and grays. Because the fossil material has not been reworked into gravel beds in places like the Peace River, some fairly fragile fossil material is preserved in really exceptional condition. The last thing I found in this batch of matrix I was picking was a tiny and delicate fish mandible with a number of needle-thin teeth still in place.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[FossilNerd]

I'm glad you were finally able to volunteer at the FLMNH again! That had to be a thrill to find! Sure you were not the one to bag it, but you were the finder none the less. You'd think that would give you a mention somewhere. Even if it was in the fine print. But... I agree with you that the experience of finding and learning about such a fossil is much more important than your name in the record book.  

[Monica]

Congratulations, Ken - that's a beautiful tooth!  Science thanks you 

[bthemoose]

That’s really cool, and a great way to contribute. Thanks for sharing!

[digit]

Last night a second pocket gopher tooth revealed itself on my picking plate. This makes a nice pair of these rarities.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken