Lance Fm mystery bone

[jpc]

Hi folks...

Over the summer...

speaking of summer, it is a chilly 12 degrees out this morning (minus 10 C)

Over the summer, I did squeeze in a few field trips.  I explored a new Lance Fm bone bed and found this bone that I cannot identify. 

 

 

 

I think the two pieces fit together but I have not completed the prep yet on the smaller piece.  

 

Here are pix of the t-shaped bone.  It is symmetrical, so it comes from the midline of some Cretaceous critter.  

 

This view (below) shows that the edge of the cross-piece of the T looks like sutures, so it was connected there to some other bone.  I have compared it to turtle shells and hadrosaur skulls...and I get nothing.

 

Can anyone help ID htthis thing?  

 

I hope to share some more pix of my summer's finds soon.  But I need to finish some prep projects first.

[Rockwood]

Wouldn't that make a good lacrimal ?

[LordTrilobite]

That looks very symmetrical. Very weird. It seems like some type of skull bone. But the symmetry places it in the mid line.

 

I'm stumped.

[Troodon]

A real odd bone, clueless but had to throw out a lifeline.  Pete said its an interclavical, most likely from a Champsosaur.  He referenced Erickson's publication where I obtained the illustration I attached 

 

[jpc]

Interclavicle!  That's it!  I knew I had seen this before... one of my volunteers just prepped an ichthoysaur and it had a t-shaped interclavicle. 

 

Thanks.  And thanks, troodon, for asking Pete.  I was going to ask him if you guys all got stumped.  

 

Champsosaur... I'll go with that.  I have very few non-vertebral champsosaur pieces.  

[jpc]

I found my copy of Erickson's paper.. yup, champsosaur interclavicle.  

Woo hoo

Thanks again, troodon (and Pete). 

 

[Troodon]

He said pretty rare find and has only seen one other

[jpc]

and it is in much better shape than the one in the paper.  I'm OK with that.  This is a multispecies bone bed.  Other things I uncovered in my one afternoon are a turtle plastron, some unidentifiable chunks, and a very nice mammal jaw.  As much as I would love to find the rest of the champsosaur, I have not much hope for it.  But other goodies will be found.  

 

[LabRatKing]

A drool-worthy find to say the least. Makes me miss my ACoE internship days when I got to play in such sites...never found anything that magnificent myself though!