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Backyard item #1 Mammal rib?


The Portal

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I’ve been hanging around this forum for a while, and now that I’ve officially joined, I’m gonna start by going through my years’ fossil accumulations, particularly the ones that came from my backyard creek (The Portal) and see if I can’t get them them all correctly IDed. Maybe I’ll call it the Backyard Project, if anyone wants to follow along. 
So here’s the first item:CA5FB5F7-464B-45DB-9B48-D057574E1494.thumb.jpeg.d28c7e162ee81a53ed8af0d90f3f398f.jpeg

A3E02F4B-808A-4AE5-BCE2-D4C100F460C1.thumb.jpeg.df9c683b74a4d4fe3dee7df105aaab97.jpeg83FC4E10-783A-4F16-9B34-9113AE51EECF.thumb.jpeg.44db626dcc5328a89223039a75d664a5.jpegD8E769B8-AFB3-4FDA-A056-361128CC9BA9.thumb.jpeg.5e51c006ff0dc7243d4192c1fbc28bb1.jpegBC324291-FFE2-428D-AE55-47F93378876D.thumb.jpeg.641998c616895fdd65829328b232b4b0.jpeg

I hope the picture quality is decent enough. It is about three cm long and one cm wide. I’m very sure it is a bone, and given the long thin shape of it I can only think rib. After a bit of searching the only close match I could find was that of a small mammal. The only thing is that that would seem like a very odd find for where we are, east Hickman, Tennessee, the edge of the Central Basin, which is almost exclusively early Paleozoic (in my fossil experience, specifically Ordovician period). A fish rib sounds more likely for our area, but I just haven’t seen any decent fish ribs yet to compare. Either way, this would be so far the only sign of a vertebrate I have ever seen in our area. According to our geological maps, the nearby waterways might bring in some Mesozoic and Cenozoic from westwards, which could make the chances of a vertebrate it a little more likely. Any information on identification and/or how to identify would be greatly appreciated, and if it is indeed a rib, mammal or fish, is it a lucky find? And how specifically can we classify it with what little we have?

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Sorry. You haven't beaten the odds and found a bone. The shape and texture may be close, but my best guess would be that this is a fragment of a bryozoan colony.

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2 hours ago, Rockwood said:

Sorry. You haven't beaten the odds and found a bone. The shape and texture may be close, but my best guess would be that this is a fragment of a bryozoan colony.

A bryozoan colony sounds accurate and very likely. The thing that threw me off though is that this is different than every specimen I can find, in my collection and anywhere else I've searched (but I am not any expert on the matter). All the bryozoan colonies I have seen were fairly abstract in shape and distinctly consistently patterned with the pimples/buds/chicken skin/pores the cells feed through, while from what I can see, this one has a smooth, compact surface and fairly uniform shape, until the knob. Maybe it's a civilized colony.

I think you are right though, but it's still a new yield from The Portal, as all it's previous specimens have been globulous and fan shaped. And hey, it wasn't my rock anyway, it was actually my brother's hopes you crushed. Any advice on identifying bryozoans and such (or bones too if you feel like it) for the future? In the end, what I really need to learn is how to remove fossils from the matrix. Also, if you look at the last picture, you might be able to see that it is split in half, right down the middle, all the way through. Is this something that may be common and I should look for, or just unique to this rock's life experience.

Alright, I've said enough.

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52 minutes ago, The Portal said:

Maybe it's a civilized colony.

Non feeding zooids often preform structural rolls in the colony. Sometimes resulting in improved feeding currents because of their strategic placement. I believe the "split in half" look is a sectioning of a bifacial (two sided) colony.

I think the most effective way to learn to identify bone texture is to study bones wherever you find them. The texture is really not that different in fossil bone than modern bone. 

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11 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I think the most effective way to learn to identify bone texture is to study bones wherever you find them. The texture is really not that different in fossil bone than modern bone. 

I have also heard from a few sources that you can lick a fossil bone, and it will stick to your tongue because it is porous, but that can't really be too accurate can it? This one stuck...:Confused02:

It still annoys me that I can't find any orifices. Maybe something will turn up once I figure out how to reveal more surface area. Also, is it worth trying to classify at all? And might being bifacial help determine that?

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34 minutes ago, The Portal said:

I have also heard from a few sources that you can lick a fossil bone, and it will stick to your tongue because it is porous, but that can't really be too accurate can it?

Well, I've always thought of bryozoans as being porous, the test as an indication of how sticky ones tongue is, and classification as being too much like work. 

But that's just me. :Confused05:

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I hunt in drainage ditches, so I definitely don't recommend the tongue test.  :shakehead:

Fin Lover

 

image.png.e69a5608098eeb4cd7d1fc5feb4dad1e.png image.png.e6c66193c1b85b1b775526eb958f72df.png

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My favorite things about fossil hunting: getting out of my own head, getting into nature and, if I’m lucky, finding some cool souvenirs.

 

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On 2/3/2023 at 2:26 PM, Fin Lover said:

I hunt in drainage ditches, so I definitely don't recommend the tongue test.  :shakehead:

Well... good ditches?

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