Peace River Find

[PODIGGER]

When I hunt the river I always try to do a walk around of the area where I plan on working for the day.  I have found numerous nice fossils this way that are just sitting on the riverbed waiting to be picked up.  About 4 weeks ago, as I did a morning walk around I spotted some very white looking bone material in very shallow water. Upon picking it up I believed I had two nice size pieces of modern turtle plastron.  I didn't see anything else in the immediate area and went about my search for fossils.  I decided to take the bone material home and later came to the conclusion they were turtle plastron.  On my next visit to the same location another walk around turned up numerous additional turtle pieces that looked to make up most of a carapace.

 

Photo of the carapace and some additional pieces in the sifter -

 

 

 

 

These pieces, along with the suspected plastron were fresh enough that they were too new to even bring in the garage.  I decided to bury the bones and let nature take its course in ridding them of their odor and any material that would cause problems.  This morning I retrieved the pieces from the backyard flower bed, rinsed them off and assembled them as best I could.

 

 

 

I've got most of the carapace, the lower mandible a few bones yet to ID and what I believe are pieces of the plastron.  I believe the plastron parts are the two large pieces above the carapace and the two smaller pieces at the bottom of the photo.  While I have found a number of photos and diagrams that indicate the carapace is from a fresh water turtle I have not been able to find any photos pf a similar plastron.  Anyone with an idea on a turtle plastron that would match?

 

Here are the plastron pieces with a ruler in inches and MM -

 

 

 

 

 

The walk around is a regular part of my routine on the river and has turned up everything from full Meg teeth to mammoth teeth.  I highly recommend it!

 

[Harry Pristis]

The Florida softshell turtle is Apalone ferox.  For comparison:

 

x

[PODIGGER]

Thanks Harry !