Mystery bones

[Pixpaleosky]

I submit 3 bones today:

 

Age: campanian

Location: south of france 

Deposit: continental / river

 

Bone 1 : 10cm wide, thickness 3 mm. I dont think it is a shell 

 

 

Bone 2: 6cm long, view from the top and from the side

 

 

Bone 3. 21 cm long.

1cm thick on one side. 1mm on the other. Convex.

 

[val horn]

Sorry i would have thought the first was shell, dont know anything else with those lines.    I don’t see bone structure in your other pieces  maybe woodPerhaps some of the European experts will have other suggestions .  

[procurator]

11 minutes ago, val horn said:

Sorry i would have thought the first was shell, dont know anything else with those lines.    I don’t see bone structure in your other pieces  maybe woodPerhaps some of the European experts will have other suggestions .  

Yes, I thik it's a scallop

[Pixpaleosky]

scallops in freshwater dont exist unfortunately.

 

Piece 2 is real bone trust me

Piece 3 im open to something else than bone but I dont see a plant either

 

@Rockwood help

Edited October 19, 2021 by Pixpaleosky

[Rockwood]

I have no problem calling it bone. Beyond that I can only take a guess that the shape could fit that of a pelvis.

I just visited a huge pile of Miocene scallops and I don't see a good match for the first one The ridges seem a bit too wavy and not quite ridged enough to me.

That said I can't offer a definite alternative however. 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Not sure what to make of pieces 2 and 3. But like the others, I would've thought that #1 is a scallop shell. It having been found in fluvial context is, of course, a bit problematic. But I've recently doing some preparation on a bunch of Callovian specimens from the Normandy coast, and don't think the ridges look too out of place for a scallop shell. The perceived thickness of the piece could be due to both valves being present, which, in my specimens too, often leads to them being something along the order of one to two millimetres - that being because my specimens are a lot smaller. In terms of bone structure, I can't really think of a tetrapod that would have a wavy bone like this. So if it does turn out to be bone, then my guess would be fish...

 

May be you could try breaking of a tiny chip off the edge to see if it breaks of like a calcitic shell would?

[Agent_Zigzag]

Greetings！

 

I believe the first piece of fossil you demonstrated could be a fish bone -- I am not a fish guy, so this is my rough guess. 

 

The second and the third one appears interesting enough to me -- since I could not examining them with my own eyes, the best I could say is that the second fossil comes from an avian animal (either early birds or pterosaurus) and coule be part of the limb. The third piece could be a piece of scapula of a small dinosaur. 

 

Again, since I could not examine them with my own eyes, that"s all I can tell about them. Hope this could be helpful to you. 

[Rockwood]

1 hour ago, Agent_Zigzag said:

comes from an avian animal (either early birds or pterosaurus)

Interesting. I was tempted to call the look an enlarged foramen from a cetacean jaw.

[Agent_Zigzag]

42 minutes ago, Rockwood said:

Interesting. I was tempted to call the look an enlarged foramen from a cetacean jaw.

Since the sediment dated back to campanian as he said, I would not say that this bone belongs to any cetaceans, for it's too early for such kind of animals to exist. It does have some sort of foramen development, but I am not sure it's an actual foramen or just a broken edge. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Agent_Zigzag

[Rockwood]

24 minutes ago, Agent_Zigzag said:

Since the sediment dated back to campanian as he said, I would not say that this bone belongs to any cetaceans, for it's too early for such kind of animals to exist. It does have some sort of foramen development, but I am not sure it's an actual foramen or just a broken edge. 

True. But if it is a cetacean the sediment dating could need to be revisited. One should always follow where the trail leads, not what the text reads.

[Agent_Zigzag]

1 hour ago, Rockwood said:

True. But if it is a cetacean the sediment dating could need to be revisited. One should always follow where the trail leads, not what the text reads.

That's true, but I would say that there is no other evidence could indicate the specimen as remains of cetaceans. On the contrary, I could see the joints which resembles similarity in reptiles (e.g. the cavity in the dorsal side of the bone). That's why I say at my best guess it could be reptiles, but I need to see them with my own eyes for more conclusive conclusion.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Agent_Zigzag

[Pixpaleosky]

@Rockwood @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon @Agent_Zigzag

 

thank you for your inputs !

 

I am adding some more pictures which could help:

 

Piece 1 on the field: the bone section on the left (now missing because it crumbled during extraction and transportation) shows it is not a shell. The bits which broke (visible at the bottom of the picture) shown a texture similar to turtle scutes found in this layer.

 

 

Piece 2 : better pictures

 

 

Piece 3 : better pictures  +adding the missing pieces on one extremity. I didnt finish the prep, it is tedious

 

[Rockwood]

These are better. Now I see that this could be a crushed thin walled bone like would indicate it's likely belonging to a pterosaur. 

I'm by no means an expert at these however.

[Rockwood]

 You don't suppose that scallop could actually be the stiffening material from a ptagium (sp?) ? The wing.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 hour ago, Rockwood said:

Now I see that this could be a crushed thin walled bone like would indicate it's likely belonging to a pterosaur.

 

Don't think so. The pterosaur bones I've seen have paper-thin walls. The walls of these bones are thicker than that...

 

1 hour ago, Rockwood said:

 You don't suppose that scallop could actually be the stiffening material from a ptagium (sp?) ? The wing.

 

Again, I don't believe so. Soft tissue preservation doesn't just require very fine-grained sediments, which this doesn't appear to be, but also either deposition in an anoxic environment or rapid sedimentary covering. The grain size of the sediment, again, indicates a depositional environment that I believe wouldn't been too active for soft tissue preservation, with the find likely having experienced at least some transportation before arriving at its final resting grounds. Lastly, soft tissues are often preserved as a film, not a 3mm thick layer...

 

As an example, here's a perfectly preserved specimen of a rhamphorhynchid pterosaur with soft tissue preservation found at one of the Solnhofen limestone quarries. Soft tissue can be observed around the wings and tip of the tail (source). Also observe the fine grain of the matrix surrounding the specimen.

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon

[Agent_Zigzag]

1 hour ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Don't think so. The pterosaur bones I've seen have paper-thin walls. The walls of these bones are thicker than that...

 

 

Again, I don't believe so. Soft tissue preservation doesn't just require very fine-grained sediments, which this doesn't appear to be, but also either deposition in an anoxic environment or rapid sedimentary covering. The grain size of the sediment, again, indicates a depositional environment that I believe wouldn't been too active for soft tissue preservation, with the find likely having experienced at least some transportation before arriving at its final resting grounds. Lastly, soft tissues are often preserved as a film, not a 3mm thick layer...

 

As an example, here's a perfectly preserved specimen of a rhamphorhynchid pterosaur with soft tissue preservation found at one of the Solnhofen limestone quarries. Soft tissue can be observed around the wings and tip of the tail (source). Also observe the fine grain of the matrix surrounding the specimen.

 

Well, I do agree with "paper-thin bone", however, the paper-thin wall on a large pterosaurus could be thick as well. I have seen some fascinating specimen preserved from Xingjing with huge wing span (~6 meters), their bones are light and thin relatively, but the absolute thickness is still really impressive. 

It's like comparing the bones of a bold eagle to a sparrow, definitely they are all thin and light, but the actual size could verify. This is my opinion. 

All my conclusion still based on the pictures. If it's not a pterosuarus, my best geuss would be either birds or small dinosaurs. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Agent_Zigzag
A minor typo. No change in opinion.

[Plax]

Huge bony fish scale? (really huge)

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 hour ago, Agent_Zigzag said:

Well, I do agree with "paper-thin bone", however, the paper-thin wall on a large pterosaurus could be thick as well. I have seen some fascinating specimen preserved from Xingjing with huge wing span (~6 meters), their bones are light and thin relatively, but the absolute thickness is still really impressive. 

It's like comparing the bones of a bold eagle to a sparrow, definitely they are all thin and light, but the actual size could verify. This is my opinion. 

All my conclusion still based on the pictures. If it's not a pterosuarus, my best geuss would be either birds or small dinosaurs. 

 

You're entirely right... Bigger pterosaur means thicker bones. And from that perspective it really is a shame I don't have any photographs from the excellent collection of pterosaur bones they have at the Staatlches Museum für Naturkunde in Karlsruhe, as the first time I visited I hadn't brought a camera, and during subsequent visits the collection had temporarily been removed from display. Since then Covid has struck and we haven't been back there. But they had an excellent display, going into the internal structure of pterosaur bones, and showing examples of them - from which it was also easy to make out the thickness of the bones of pterosaurs of different sizes. Still hope to visit them some day before moving away from France, and that the collection will be back at that point...

[Pixpaleosky]

Thank you for these interesting discussions.

 

For the bone number 1, I checked a paper about coelacanths found in the same formation but it doesnt match. Given the bone size, which one could it be in a fish skeleton ? 

 

Bone number 2 makes me think about a pterosaur cervical vertebra. I found this paper: 

 

And for bone 3 I checked pelvis bones and scapula of Rhabdodon and Titanosaur described in the formation but it doesnt match. It remains nododaur and theropods.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Pixpaleosky

[Agent_Zigzag]

15 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

You're entirely right... Bigger pterosaur means thicker bones. And from that perspective it really is a shame I don't have any photographs from the excellent collection of pterosaur bones they have at the Staatlches Museum für Naturkunde in Karlsruhe, as the first time I visited I hadn't brought a camera, and during subsequent visits the collection had temporarily been removed from display. Since then Covid has struck and we haven't been back there. But they had an excellent display, going into the internal structure of pterosaur bones, and showing examples of them - from which it was also easy to make out the thickness of the bones of pterosaurs of different sizes. Still hope to visit them some day before moving away from France, and that the collection will be back at that point...

Exactly what I said! It's really bad that the pandemic changed everything......Hope you can see those specimens, soon! 

 

10 hours ago, Pixpaleosky said:

Thank you for these interesting discussions.

 

For the bone number 1, I checked a paper about coelacanths found in the same formation but it doesnt match. Given the bone size, which one could it be in a fish skeleton ? 

 

Bone number 2 makes me think about a pterosaur cervical vertebra. I found this paper: 

 

And for bone 3 I checked pelvis bones and scapula of Rhabdodon and Titanosaur described in the formation but it doesnt match. It remains nododaur and theropods.

Great! Seems like my opinions helped you, I still hold the idea that the third piece of specimen belongs to a theropod, seems to be a left scapula of this small cool individual

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

On 10/20/2021 at 10:51 AM, Rockwood said:

 You don't suppose that scallop could actually be the stiffening material from a ptagium (sp?) ? The wing.

 

In addition to tbe Bischheim I already posted above, I just realised I have this photograph from the Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt, also from the Solnhofen limestone. As it illustrates the way pterosaur wing membranes are preserved even better than the other specimen, I couldn't withhold from sharing this with all of you:

[Rockwood]

Wow ! That's incredible.