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Small Miocene Horse


Shellseeker

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It has been a little while since I shared a pretty little horse tooth with the forum and this one qualifies. I would have put it on Fossil ID, but I know what it is...

So, found in Bone Valley , Florida with great Black and Tan colors, an upper molar from a Miocene Horse. No isolated protocone to give those who love these teeth like I do, some difficulty in identifying.

I'll be moving this one into my gallery of similar sized teeth after a couple of days.  God, I :wub: the hobby that gives me the opportunity to find treasures like these...   Jack

SmHorse3_Text.jpg.dfe407a0fd9142c7bb313fa503e15fd2.jpgIMG_5689e.jpg.b6473013f96a2c6006d17fb3d3c8c945.jpgIMG_5688.thumb.JPEG.5ef0c3ef46694f44584ebbdf0157ceaf.JPEG

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The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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Nice Tooth

“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

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Great find, Those colors are insane! My grandfather gave me some fossils in a jar a couple months to a year before he passed, but one of the fossils in the jar was a rooted horse tooth with bone valley colors! It’s one of my favorites in my collection!!

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Thanks for all the good words. Maybe back 15 years ago, I was a novice fossil hunter and occasionally would find a small horse tooth, before realizing what they were...  possibly because I was not actively attempting to locate Pliocene or Miocene locations to hunt.

I did find a few and I started collecting scientific papers, including those of Richard Hulbert, who specialized in Florida horses. I only found this paper a year or so back. It is free on Researchgate.

HulbertPaper.JPG.f05599c173a6ccd76dcd744b6c1e47fc.JPG

 

The paper has lots of great photos and valuable info..   It discusses Merychippus,

Quote

Merychippus is an extinct proto-horse of the family Equidae that was endemic to North America during the Miocene, 15.97–5.33 million years ago. It had three toes on each foot and is the first horse known to have grazed ..... Wikipedia

 

and ...

Quote

image.thumb.png.31704f8059f065aac147c00d97541fd1.png

 

Would you believe that my current hunting partner worked the draglines in Phosphoria Mine in the 1970s-1980s? 

 

I can not positively say this tooth is Merychippus goorisi, (see Figure 9 from the pdf below) but it is certainly Merychippus .sp. and dates earlier than almost every other tooth in my collection!!!  (I was fortunate to get a Parahippus tooth from Harry on this forum. http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/102288-early-miocene-3-toed-horse-upper-tooth-for-sale-sold/&tab=comments#comment-1136588

 

One of the things I proactively do is try to get the most interesting of my finds on the Internet, so that they can be 'discovered" by those searching for "Merychippus"....

 

image.png.8d5da634e54f585983c27997f4b42bf0.png

 

 

FloridaMerychippineHorseTeeth.JPG

  • I found this Informative 1

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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