Old North Sea Mammal Collection

[Dunderdung]

I bought parts of an old collection a couple of years ago. It cotained a bunch of peices from the north sea. 

 

Some of the fossils came without tags and i would like to ask for some help identifying what type of species they might have came from.

 

First of is this vertebra.

As far as come with my own research im guessing woolly rhino? 

 

 

 

 

[jpc]

mammoth (proboscidian anyway) dorsal vert is my guess.  I say that because it looks a lot like some of the verts on our mammoth here.  But then I do not know anything about wooly rhino verts.  (Not an issue in the states). 

Edited April 28, 2022 by jpc

[Dunderdung]

Great thanks! Is there any sort of specific attribute that you look for when sorting it as proboscidian?

[sjaak]

 Looks woolly mammoth to me, as these are commonly found in the Northsea. Nice and complete specimen!

Edited May 3, 2022 by sjaak

[Dunderdung]

Thanks! 

[fossilus]

On 4/29/2022 at 1:45 PM, Dunderdung said:

Great thanks! Is there any sort of specific attribute that you look for when sorting it as proboscidian?

Probably the main thing is the size. As I look at rhino verts online the centrums tend to be less than 70mm while this looks to be over 100mm (120mm?), all the mammoth vertebrae I've found have centrums in the 90-150mm range.

[jpc]

On 4/29/2022 at 12:45 PM, Dunderdung said:

Great thanks! Is there any sort of specific attribute that you look for when sorting it as proboscidian?

it is big and it looks a lot like some of the vertebrae of the mammoth I worked on 

[Dunderdung]

On 5/4/2022 at 5:05 PM, fossilus said:

Probably the main thing is the size. As I look at rhino verts online the centrums tend to be less than 70mm while this looks to be over 100mm (120mm?), all the mammoth vertebrae I've found have centrums in the 90-150mm range.

 

23 hours ago, jpc said:

it is big and it looks a lot like some of the vertebrae of the mammoth I worked on 

 

When looking at vertebraes, is it possible to differentiate between a full grown induvidial and older one aswell as gender?

 

[jpc]

For gender in mammoths you need a complete tusk or the pelvis.  As for age...  it is common knowledge that as mammals age the ends of bones (epiphyses) fuse to the main body of the bone.  This is  true of the epiphyses in vertebrae as well.  BUT... the mammoth we collected had worn its last set of teeth down to almost nothing, so it was very old, AND smany of its vertebral epiphyses were not fused.  So I do not believe you can age a mammoth by vertebral epihyseal fusion.  This technique probably works better for leg bones.  Anyone out there want to study this for their PhD thesis?  

[Dunderdung]

On 5/5/2022 at 9:33 PM, jpc said:

For gender in mammoths you need a complete tusk or the pelvis.  As for age...  it is common knowledge that as mammals age the ends of bones (epiphyses) fuse to the main body of the bone.  This is  true of the epiphyses in vertebrae as well.  BUT... the mammoth we collected had worn its last set of teeth down to almost nothing, so it was very old, AND smany of its vertebral epiphyses were not fused.  So I do not believe you can age a mammoth by vertebral epihyseal fusion.  This technique probably works better for leg bones.  Anyone out there want to study this for their PhD thesis?  

 

That's very interesting i had no idea! Do you think it might have been some kind of genetic disorder that prohibited the epiphyses from fusing?

[Dunderdung]

Here comes some more fossils i need help identifying.

 

First up is this piece. Im guessing mammoth astragalus?

[Dunderdung]

Next im guessing mammoth toe bone? 

 

The rest i have no idea of what they might be.