Hunting for New Spots and Finding Mammals

[Meganeura]

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a trip report! Been out plenty, just never sat down to make one, and by the time I was ready, I had already sorted away the finds. Decided to keep out my best finds from my last 2 trips, so…

 

The first trip I had gone out looking for new spots. Found one, but hadn’t spent a ton of time there before I had to leave. The hour or two I did spend there resulted in a Holmesina claw, N. Aztecus p2, a partial posterior Meg, and a canid jaw, which while matching coyote, is heavily fossilized and could be any number of similarly sized canids, especially given the other finds in the same place dating the area to early Pleistocene at the latest.

 

The next trip I was planning to continue hunting the new spot and check out more spots farther upstream, but it rained heavily 2 days before, and the water hadn’t dropped enough for me to even hunt the new spot, let alone look for more. So I stopped at an old spot that had been resulting in little gravel and not producing small shark teeth and not much else… I was then very excited when I found a dire wolf p2 in my first 10min there, followed by deer teeth, a horse incisor, tortoise claw cores, a large mammal vert, and plenty more. I will definitely be returning on my next outing, though probably going to continue searching for new spots. Hopefully the water has dropped enough by then…

 

Anyway, the real reason people read these, the finds!

 

Holemsina back foot claw core and the 2 tortoise claw cores I found:

 

 

The myriad of armadillo osteoderms… Top row is Pachyarmatherium (found my 2nd and third normal Pachy osteoderms finally - I had only been finding edge ones before!) and then a single Holmesina, the rest are all Dasypus Bellus:

 

 

Gator teeth, 2 posterior partial Megs, 2 deer teeth, a partial tapir, and a complete tapir tooth:

 

The smallest tortoise spur I’ve found at 1cm on the dot:

 

 

And finally my fav finds, a horse incisor, N. aztecus p3, the canid jaw with a p4, and the dire wolf p2:

[Fin Lover]

Nice finds!  That meg on the left looks interesting.

[Meganeura]

4 minutes ago, Fin Lover said:

Nice finds!  That meg on the left looks interesting.

It’s got a very fat root. And I assume had an equally fat root on the broken side given that the tooth itself is symmetrical.

 

[Bjohn170]

I’m jealous, I can’t wait for the next time I go to Florida. I love mammal fossils!

[Meganeura]

56 minutes ago, Bjohn170 said:

I’m jealous, I can’t wait for the next time I go to Florida. I love mammal fossils!

The mammal stuff is definitely my favorite finds. I love Megs, but honestly I will take a complete mammal tooth (Deer and raccoon being the only exceptions... have way too many of those) over a Meg any day. That may also be cause I've yet to find any Megs over 2 inches out of the Peace, but we'll see I suppose. 

I'm just sad cause I'm going to have to wait to the new year to hunt again cause of how cold it's going to be next week!

[Tales From the Shale]

I love those horse teeth dude!

[Meganeura]

2 minutes ago, Tales From the Shale said:

I love those horse teeth dude!

It's my first complete rooted incisor - the other incisors I've found have been juvenille and missing the root, so I'm pretty happy about that. And the 3-toed is just really cool, even if super worn.

[Meganeura]

3 minutes ago, Coco said:

Error ! Misunderstood...

 

Coco

Well now I wanna know what the misunderstanding was! 

[Coco]

In the end, I think I understood correctly anyway. You have too many deer and raccoons, right ? Then yes, I can be of great help ! 

Coco

[Meganeura]

1 minute ago, Coco said:

In the end, I think I understood correctly anyway. You have too many deer and raccoons, right ? Then yes, I can be of great help ! 

Coco

Oh, you'd be correct! Too many deer teeth, too many raccoon teeth! Would you like some? 

[Coco]

Guess! I was kidding but I don’t have a raccoon that’s for sure, I just have a few cervids but certainly not American ones...

 

Coco

[Meganeura]

2 minutes ago, Coco said:

Guess! I was kidding but I don’t have a raccoon that’s for sure, I just have a few cervids but certainly not American ones...

 

Coco

I've got a drawer full of fossilized O. virginianus teeth! And another full of fossilized partial tapir teeth. Just the halves. Ridiculous. 

[Coco]

What a pity !

 

Coco

[Tales From the Shale]

4 hours ago, Meganeura said:

It's my first complete rooted incisor - the other incisors I've found have been juvenille and missing the root, so I'm pretty happy about that. And the 3-toed is just really cool, even if super worn.

I found a few fragments, but I love the rough chewing surfaces they have. They're so unique amongst my collection of most shark teeth.

[Meganeura]

10 minutes ago, Tales From the Shale said:

I found a few fragments, but I love the rough chewing surfaces they have. They're so unique amongst my collection of most shark teeth.

It's why I love mammal stuff so much, they're just so unique! Horses are crazy just cause you can tell so much from a slight change in pattern on the chewing surface.