Florida Mysteries

[ClearLake]

Here is (hopefully) one last post to help me identify some items I found while searching through the micro matrix from a Gainesville creek that Ken @digit was nice enough take us to.  Some other items have been covered in previous posts:;

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/119097-gainesville-shark-teeth-question/&tab=comments#comment-1305867

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/114209-north-florida-fun/&tab=comments#comment-1264293

 

The matrix comes from a creek in Gainesville, Florida and most of the fossils are from the Miocene aged Hawthorn Formation although there is occasional younger material.  The fossil fauna is dominated by shark and ray teeth but there are lots of other items including: bivalves, gastropods, crab claws, fish parts, etc. (i.e. marine).  What I have below are several items that I am uncertain about and hopefully someone can confirm my suspicion or give me a better idea.  Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

Item #1 is what I assume is a fish scale.  Is that correct and can it be ID'd any more specifically?

 

Item #2 is are two very tiny beautiful ray tooth.  They look different from most of the Dasyatis and Rhynchobatus that I found with a much wider root.  That had me thinking Rhinobatus but I'm not really seeing the uvula that I should expect so I could be way off.  Any thoughts?

 

Item #3 are a group of fish vertebrae.  The two bottom rows are two views of the same 6 vertebrae and I have no doubt they are fish.  It is the one on the top that I am uncertain about as it has a totally different shape.  But I'm not that familiar with all the different permutations of fish vertebrae, so it may just be a different one.  It reminds me of a mammal atlas, but maybe fish atlas bones look like that too.

 

Item #4 are some items that I really have no idea.  They look like little sacs and some are broken so that one can see sediment on the interior.  While there is variability, most of them have a distinctive teardrop shape.

  

 

 

Item #5 I am guessing may be burrow casts, but I'm not sure.  Do they look familiar to anyone?

 

Item #6 also look like casts of something, I'm just not sure what.  They are generally very straight sections of a smooth tube form.  All of the mollusk remains I have found are internal casts so no shell material is generally preserved in this deposit.

 

Item #7 are, I don't know.  My Paleozoic brain wants to call them eroded horn corals but I obviously know that is not right.  Don't have another option in mind.

 

And lastly, item #8  are probably worm tubes, just looking to see if that is right.  They also have a common shape of being U-shaped or looped.  They are not attached to a shell or anything (except maybe some matrix) like I am used to seeing with worm tubes.

 

 

So that is my collection of oddities.  I'd appreciate any thoughts folk have.  Thanks

 

Mike

[digit]

2 minutes ago, ClearLake said:

Item #2 is are two very tiny beautiful ray tooth.  They look different from most of the Dasyatis and Rhynchobatus that I found with a much wider root.  That had me thinking Rhinobatus but I'm not really seeing the uvula that I should expect so I could be way off.  Any thoughts?

 

I'm going to say rhincobatid teeth (definitely not dasyatid). The little pointed medial root tips are the giveaway to distinguish from dasyatid. As far as I know the rhinobatid teeth teeth have a much more prominent uvula--much more proboscis monkey like.  Here are some specimens from the Montbrook site (not Gainesville), the last one from @old bones:

 

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[R0b]

6. Some of them could be Echinoid spines, but not sure from this picture / fragment size.

[Al Dente]

#1 is from a diodontid tooth plate.

[abyssunder]

I'm not sure about #4, but #5 look close to coralline algae.

#8 are tube worms (maybe something close to Caulostrepsis), it depends on dimensions.

Edited November 8, 2021 by abyssunder

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

And #7 .. quite a few of these look like solitary button corals. In South Carolina they are Balanophyllia sp. 

 

[ClearLake]

3 hours ago, digit said:

I'm going to say rhincobatid teeth (definitely not dasyatid). The little pointed medial root tips are the giveaway to distinguish from dasyatid. As far as I know the rhinobatid teeth teeth have a much more prominent uvula--much more proboscis monkey like.

OK, that sounds reasonable.  I went back and looked at some more examples online of the two of them and I like your answer.  Thanks.  The smaller one of my two has a decent sized uvula but maybe more Jimmy Durante and not quite proboscis monkey (oh boy, I have really dated myself now!).

[ClearLake]

1 hour ago, R0b said:

6. Some of them could be Echinoid spines, but not sure from this picture / fragment size.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll go look at some of my echinoid spines from other places to see if I can find a similarity.  But the shiny, very smooth exterior on these still has me thinking internal cast of something.  But I'm not sure at all.

[ClearLake]

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

#1 is from a diodontid tooth plate.

Well, darn, there is a new one for me.  Thanks!  I had to look that up and now I need to go back through my vial of unknowns because I think I saw another somewhat similar item in there.   Once I know what to search for online, I start finding examples all over the place.

[ClearLake]

1 hour ago, abyssunder said:

#8 are tube worms (maybe something close to Caulostrepsis), it depends on dimensions

Thanks, that is a spitting image of what I have.  Another reference to find and read!  And I'll do some searching on coralline algae too.

 

I found the reference you used for the picture and indeed that is what I appear to have.  More reading necessary to see if I can assign an ichnospecies, but I'm pretty happy with what I have!  Even better, in the plates within the document there was a refence to sac like features and a part of the picture which looks somewhat like my item #4.  They identified it as an ichnofossil called Gastrochaenolites which I looked up briefly and it is a boring into a shell or hard substrate in a flask like shape.  Based on the descriptions, I believe my item #4 could be casts of such an item.  The openings of my flasks (#4) are about the same dimension as the tubes of #8.

Edited November 8, 2021 by ClearLake

[ClearLake]

32 minutes ago, Brett Breakin' Rocks said:

quite a few of these look like solitary button corals. In South Carolina they are Balanophyllia sp. 

Nice!  Maybe that is why these looked vaguely familiar to me, I have collected some Balanophylia here in the Eocene of Texas.  I will hunt down some more examples online and compare to what I have.  Thanks!

[digit]

4 hours ago, ClearLake said:

Item #7 are, I don't know.  My Paleozoic brain wants to call them eroded horn corals but I obviously know that is not right.  Don't have another option in mind.

Casts of colonial coral polyps as far as I know. Not sure we are getting solitary corals here (but I can check, I have connections ). We get these at Montbrook as well. Don't know if we'll be able to narrow down the taxonomy of the coral species that fit these.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[digit]

2 hours ago, abyssunder said:

#8 are tube worms (maybe something close to Caulostrepsis), it depends on dimensions.

Yup, looped tube worm tube casts. We see these frequently while picking Montbrook micro-matrix.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[digit]

1 hour ago, ClearLake said:

but maybe more Jimmy Durante and not quite proboscis monkey (oh boy, I have really dated myself now!).

If you date yourself, who picks up the check?

 

Rhynchobatus (wedgefishes) seem to be much more common than Rhinobatus (guitarfishes) at both Montbrook and here in Gainesville. Some misidentified Rhinobatus have likely slipped through masquerading as Rhynchobatus. I need to dig up a key to the Rhinopristiformes and see if there are easy to understand differences. I know a shark researcher and he might be able to direct me to something.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[digit]

3 hours ago, Brett Breakin' Rocks said:

And #7 .. quite a few of these look like solitary button corals. In South Carolina they are Balanophyllia sp. 

 

You might be getting something interesting in South Carolina but I just checked with Roger Portell and he believes the coral polyp casts we're finding in Florida are disarticulated casts from the polyps of a colonial coral and not some sort of solitary coral polyp. I'm not (entirely) doubting that Balanophyllia sp. fossils are turning up in South Carolina but based on the only coral knowledge I have (modern coral reefs), solitary cup corals like Balanophyllia are usually quite uncommon (even rare) on today's reefs. As they are ahermatypic and do not require light to support endosymbiotic algae they are tend to be found in caves or ledge overhangs in shady corners of the reef. It just seems odd to me that if we are finding coral fossils in Florida that they would be the least common type on today's reefs rather than internal casts of the much more abundant colonial corals that build reefs. Again, this is just playing the odds using today's reefs as a proxy for Miocene age reefs. Your mileage may vary.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[ClearLake]

41 minutes ago, digit said:

he believes the coral polyp casts we're finding in Florida are disarticulated casts from the polyps of a colonial coral and not some sort of solitary coral polyp

I don't doubt this is likely the case, assuming colonial corals are much more common in the Miocene of Florida.  I grabbed a couple of pictures out of the North Carolina Fossil Club publication Fossils Vol 1 just to demonstrate the point (I can't seem to log into the Florida Museum website at the moment to get a more local example, not sure what the issue is).  If you take a colonial coral like in the picture on the right and make casts of the interior of each corallite, they look like the picture on the left.  If each corallite was filled and then the original structure dissolved, it would leave you with a bunch of individual casts which would look similar to the fossils I posted initially (see below).

 

  

 

  

[ClearLake]

2 hours ago, digit said:

I need to dig up a key to the Rhinopristiformes and see if there are easy to understand differences. I know a shark researcher and he might be able to direct me to something.

I you find something or are directed to something, please let me know.  I love a good explanation of differences within groups!  Thanks

[digit]

8 minutes ago, ClearLake said:

I love a good explanation of differences within groups! 

Me too! It is a longshot that someone has made a good key to the teeth but hope springs eternal.

 

The best I know of (so far) is to go to Elasmo.com. The use of HTML frames in this old website makes URLs to specific sections troublesome. Go to the home page (link below) and then click the "BATOIDS" link on the header bar across the top. This will take you to a discussion of "Guitarfishes, Skates and Rays" with sub-pages for Rhinobatos and Rhynchobatus which will hopefully be informative.

 

http://www.elasmo.com/

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[ClearLake]

Oh yes, I have been living at elasmo.com for the last week or so as I have worked through these sharks and rays. Thanks. 

[abyssunder]

11 hours ago, ClearLake said:

Thanks, that is a spitting image of what I have.  Another reference to find and read!  And I'll do some searching on coralline algae too.

 

I found the reference you used for the picture and indeed that is what I appear to have.  More reading necessary to see if I can assign an ichnospecies, but I'm pretty happy with what I have!  Even better, in the plates within the document there was a refence to sac like features and a part of the picture which looks somewhat like my item #4.  They identified it as an ichnofossil called Gastrochaenolites which I looked up briefly and it is a boring into a shell or hard substrate in a flask like shape.  Based on the descriptions, I believe my item #4 could be casts of such an item.  The openings of my flasks (#4) are about the same dimension as the tubes of #8.

 

Yes, Gastrochaenolites may be a good ID for the club-shaped casts #4.

 

#8 - comparison

 

[digit]

From Roger Portell (invertebrate paleontology curator at the FLMNH):

 

Many (not all) of specimens on “clavate slides 1 & 2” (#4) are clearly made by a boring clam (e.g., Lamychaena) and therefore Gastrochaenolites isp. is an appropriate ID for these traces. Others are doubtful and could just be from boring sponges (e.g., Cliona) which would make them Entobia isp.

 

On 11/8/2021 at 12:45 PM, ClearLake said:

Item #4 are some items that I really have no idea.  They look like little sacs and some are broken so that one can see sediment on the interior.  While there is variability, most of them have a distinctive teardrop shape.

 

 

The “polychaete” slide (#8) appears mostly to be tube infillings and some fit the ichnotaxon Caulostrepsis. “Smooth casts” (#6) also to be mostly polychaete tube infillings.

 

On 11/8/2021 at 12:45 PM, ClearLake said:

And lastly, item #8  are probably worm tubes, just looking to see if that is right.  They also have a common shape of being U-shaped or looped.  They are not attached to a shell or anything (except maybe some matrix) like I am used to seeing with worm tubes.

 

 

On 11/8/2021 at 12:45 PM, ClearLake said:

Item #6 also look like casts of something, I'm just not sure what.  They are generally very straight sections of a smooth tube form.  All of the mollusk remains I have found are internal casts so no shell material is generally preserved in this deposit.

 

 

Remember these remains (#7) are just hardened sediment infilling between the coral septa (a mold).  As the coral dissolves away these infillings of colonial and solitary corals are all that remains. These do not appear to me to be solitary.  Remember: polyps are the soft tissue. Corallites are the hard individuals that make up the corallum (coral skeleton).

 

On 11/8/2021 at 12:45 PM, ClearLake said:

Item #7 are, I don't know.  My Paleozoic brain wants to call them eroded horn corals but I obviously know that is not right.  Don't have another option in mind.

 

 

Always a great pleasure (and privilege) to have access to a knowledgeable resource on Florida fossil material. Though I am mostly working with the vertebrate paleontology department at the FLMNH, I do get many opportunities to work with Roger on the invert side and that really helps to fill gaps in my invert paleo knowledge.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[ClearLake]

@digit  thanks Ken for getting that response from Roger Portell.  I will update my database. And, obviously thanks to Roger for taking the time to respond.