Hunting Bone Valley

[Shellseeker]

The rains are increasing water depth almost daily, a hurricane is coming in, and so why not go hunting this last Friday.  There was a 60% chance of rain starting about 1 pm, but we'll deal with that when and if it comes.

As normal,  we were finding many smaller shark teeth, most broken but a few good lemons and duskies,  with an occasional Sand Tiger tossed in.  I like Sand Tigers because they are relatively rare in my hunting areas.

 

Usually, I am seeking those fossils that are not small shark teeth, and those are becoming harder and harder to find... likely due to my efforts and those of my friends.  So we endured the bugs and heat for 5 hours and just on time, the skies opened up chasing us back to the shelter of my pickup a little after 1 pm.

 

So, without further ado, here is my harvest for 5 hours of shoveling gravel into a sieve. Not much in quantity, but I was well pleased.

 

So, what in included in this set of distressed fossils: Stingray.. 4 dermal denticles and 3 single teeth, a partial earbone, an endpiece for a cannon bone from what might be a small horse, a barracuda tooth, a piece of enamel from Mastodon or Gomph,  another piece from Rhino, a Sawfish vertebra, another broken fish or shark vertebra, the tip of a juvenile dugong rib.  So far , pretty normal. Then an Equus size horse tooth, an unusual find in this Miocene/Pliocene mix, and next to it, a beat up much smaller horse tooth, likely Nannippus sp.

 

Then a couple of Megs... in decent shape ... The larger one is 2.3 inches,  has good serrations, a great root, feeding damage on the tip.

 

The smaller one has an excellent root, good serrations and would be almost perfect except for feeding damage to the tip and then once again to the serrations.

This tooth fell out during a feeding frenzy and was bitten by the shark losing the tooth or another shark very close by.... those 3 similar and equidistant bite marks tell the story.

 

One fossil left.  I think I will ask @digit to identify. Ken has seen this fossil previously when he volunteers to help the paleontologists at University of Florida. It is the one I'll remember.

 

[Fossildude19]

Nice haul, Jack. 

That last bit looks like a piece of ivory/tusk from a mammoth or mastodon. 

Very visible Schreger lines.

Thanks for sharing!  

[Shellseeker]

1 hour ago, Fossildude19 said:

Nice haul, Jack. 

That last bit looks like a piece of ivory/tusk from a mammoth or mastodon. 

Very visible Schreger lines.

Thanks for sharing!  

Yes,  It is a chunk of Ivory Tusk,  and because of the lines is not Mammoth  !!!

 

Got this from @darrow I think

 

There is another big clue on this fossil that takes it down to species. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Shellseeker

[minnbuckeye]

I am assuming, the schreger line angle is greater than 90deg, hence not Mammoth. But whenever  2 lines cross, unless it is a 90 deg angle, there will be 2 angles created, one greater and  one less than 90 deg. How do you tell which angle to judge the species from???? A mammoth at 70 deg will have a corresponding angle of 110 deg. Whereas a Elaphas with a 110 deg angle has a corresponding angle of 70 deg. Are they not the same??

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, minnbuckeye said:

I am assuming, the Schreger line angle is greater than 90deg, hence not Mammoth. But whenever  2 lines cross, unless it is a 90 deg angle, there will be 2 angles created, one greater and  one less than 90 deg. How do you tell which angle to judge the species from???? A mammoth at 70 deg will have a corresponding angle of 110 deg. Whereas a Elaphas with a 110 deg angle has a corresponding angle of 70 deg. Are they not the same??

Mike,  I think it is a 360 degree circle,  So an 80 degree angle leaves a 280 degree angle,  and a 120 degree angle leaves a 240 degree angle.  So, in this photo the space above the Red line/Blue line intersection is definitely between 90 -180 ,  I think 125-130 is good approximation.

[Al Dente]

Is that a layer of enamel on top of this piece? If so, it would be gomphothere.

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Al Dente

[digit]

Yup. That was the clue Jack was eluding to.

 

Very cool find!

 

I think the approaching tropical storm will likely cap this hunting season which has run around a month later than we are usually used to. Jack made plenty of room in the river for a fresh load of fossils to be hidden throughout the summer rainy season.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Shellseeker]

5 hours ago, Al Dente said:

Is that a layer of enamel on top of this piece? If so, it would be gomphothere.

 

Kudos  !!! to @Al Dente

It is indeed a layer of enamel,  very thin, very narrow, and that makes this fossil Gomphothere.

Quote

  Wikipedia....Rhynchotherium is an extinct genus of proboscidea endemic to North America and Central America during the Miocene through Pliocene from 13.650—3.6 Ma, living for approximately 10 million years.^[1] 

I realized that @digit has an unfair advantage.  He has volunteered to dig at Montbrook and the diggers find complete skeletons there. Just look at that enamel strip on this adult tusk from Montbrook

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-upper-tusk-of-Rhynchotherium-edensis-syntype-UCMP-24047-on-left-and_fig4_281863115

Mine is a juvenile or maybe even yearling tusk....

 

 

What can we deduce from this fragment ?.... It is a lower tusk, smaller that the one in the picture above it. The width of the enamel is 25 mm and we can detect the curve on the side of the tusk.

We could speculate on whether it is a right or left tusk based on the position of the enamel...

@minnbuckeye  Mike , I knew it was not Mammoth based on the enamel.  !!

 

As Ken indicates, the rains have washed me out of this and other favorite hunting locations,  but not without a going_away present.  May you always find those fossils you wish to find.   Jack

[Family Fun]

Very nice finds, again.  

[Searcher78]

Is the small meg a posterior tooth?

[Shellseeker]

4 hours ago, Searcher78 said:

Is the small meg a posterior tooth?

I think that it qualifies (width longer than height) with a fat root ... barely.