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What Is Your Favorite Fossil?


Guest bmorefossil

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Here is a photo of my favorite. I probably posted this story before, but here goes again.

My wife and I were hunting in W. Ks, and I found a mosasaur vert sticking out of the chalk with about 2-3 feet of chalk over it. We dug down to the bone layer, and just exposed a little bone. We worked around it, and found where the bone quit. We were out of plaster, and I was fairly certain that all we had was some paddle bones and verts. We cut down around it, and took the large chunk of rock home. About a week later, I decided to clean a little off it, and found a mosasaur tooth. Then I found another! THEN ANOTHER!!! I ran into the house (My shop is out back) and couldn't hardly contain myself, telling my wife what we had found. We spent the next 12 hours cleaning it off, to find we had an almost complete skull. I spent the next few weeks cleaning it more, and now this is where it's at right now. To us a mosasaur skull is the holy grail of fossils in Kansas, and we found one without evern knowing it!

(Sorry, but I'm an insurance adjuster, and living in a motel right now, (kind of stormy in the midwest lately) so I can't upload photos. It's in my gallery. possibly someone can grab it from there to post on here for me)

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

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Bowkill,

That is a double heart pounding story! Two moments of discovery with the same fossil! That is #1 on my wish list to find here in Texas...maybe on my river trip tomorrow. Or, I could get my canoe and gear in the water tonight!

MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK...GO FIND IT

The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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I actually have a recent story kinda like that - over winter break I discovered a fur seal skeleton (pinniped bones are typically fairly rare, period) with forelimb, hindlimb, vertebrae, ribs, and jaws. I saw two round bones sticking out of a large block, which I thought were the distal condyles of a femur.

When I started preparing it back in Bozeman three weeks ago, I nearly had a heart attack - I found that the two knobs were actually the (barely exposed) occipital condyles of a fairly well preserved braincase. The cranium is intact posterior to the orbits. The rostrum was AWOL, but it very well could still be in the cliff - the rostrum of pinnipeds detaches very early post-mortem in pinnipeds; often even before the lower jaws (contra Weigelt's 'law of the lower jaws').

Anyway, the significance is this: there are two (possibly three) recognized species of the mio-pliocene fur seal Thalassoleon: T. mexicanus from southern CA and Baja CA, and T. macnallyae from the Purisima Formation. The holotype of T. macnallyae (to which my specimen belongs) has a really, really crappy skull, and mine is far more complete.

In any event, the discovery of the disarticulated mosasaur skull 'hiding' in a plaster jacket really reminded me of my fur seal. But good job - that thing looks like a beauty. You should mold/cast the skull elements and reconstruct the skull from the disarticulated pieces.

Bobby

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Well these are my 3 favorite Megs. From Left to Right.

1. My 1st 3inch tooth. Venice FL

2. My 1st 4inch tooth. Ocean tooth from NC

3. My 1st 5inch tooth. Aurora NC

Even though the 1st tooth isn't in perfect shape, or all that big, it remains my favorite. That tooth started my obsession.

post-332-1212874268_thumb.jpg

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FAVORITE fossil.....man...that's a tough one!

There are four that stand out among the fossils I've collected over the years.

The first is not all that spectacular but has one of those stories that 'sticks' with you. It is the Cretolamna (I think) tooth pictured below. I was out looking for shark teeth at the contact between the Eagle Ford shale and the Austin Chalk and noticed a nice tooth stuck in the matrix. I sat down next to it to dig it out and as soon as my butt hit the ground I jumped right back up in pain. I hadn't noticed about half inch of the tip of another shark tooth (the Cretolamna tooth) sticking straight up out of the ground and...you guessed it...I sat right on it. I guess I have the distinction of being one of the few people alive who has been 'attacked and bitten' by a Cretaceous shark!

gallery_330_149_48637.jpg

I also have very fond memories of finding my best Mammuthus tooth in a gravel pit in Dallas County in a summer downpour. We weren't quite sure whether we were going to be able to get our vehicles out of the gravel pit but I put the Suzuki Sidekick that I owned at the time in 4WD Low and managed to wallow my way through the saturated mud and sand. The mammoth tooth was so nearly perfect that it made the mental stress worthwhile.

gallery_330_103_121366.jpg

The third doesn't have a spectacular story (other than that I found FIVE oreodont skulls that day) but it is the most perfect Miniochoerus skull I've ever found.

gallery_330_105_184105.jpg

And the last is a fossil that I don't have any more. A friend (now deceased) and I had been wandering through the Late Miocene sediments near Clarendon, Texas all day and were just about exhausted by the heat. Most fossil people know the feeling....just ONE more exposure and then I'll quit for the day! Well....I wandered onto a slope and noticed a whitish powder exposed on the surface. I dug carefully around the area and much to my happy surprise I found that I was looking at the back of a skull. More careful digging revealed the partial skull of Merychyus (formerly Ustatochoerus profectus...one of the last of the oreodonts. There were also a few post-cranial elements including a nearly complete front foreleg down to the third phalanges. I eventually donated the specimens to West Texas A&M University. I did manage to do a drawing of the skull which is posted below:

gallery_330_176_109215.jpg

-Joe

Illigitimati non carborundum

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Well, can't pick an absolute favorite but this is one of my top favorites. It is a neck vert from the elasmosaurid. It was the largest and most advanced of the long-necked plesiosaurs. I found it while living in Arkansas. It was in an old creek and to be honest, when I saw it under water, and thought it was a plug-in. That part was showing, and have so many odd things (man-made), in creeks. Was so excited when I pulled that pup up! :Dpost-13-1212876933_thumb.jpg

Welcome to the forum!

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Guest bmorefossil
Well these are my 3 favorite Megs. From Left to Right.

1. My 1st 3inch tooth. Venice FL

2. My 1st 4inch tooth. Ocean tooth from NC

3. My 1st 5inch tooth. Aurora NC

Even though the 1st tooth isn't in perfect shape, or all that big, it remains my favorite. That tooth started my obsession.

i cant blaime you, your first big tooth is always a nice find but your huge!!!!!meg from lee creek has to be close with the way you found it and all. :)

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Guest bmorefossil
FAVORITE fossil.....man...that's a tough one!

There are four that stand out among the fossils I've collected over the years.

The first is not all that spectacular but has one of those stories that 'sticks' with you. It is the Cretolamna (I think) tooth pictured below. I was out looking for shark teeth at the contact between the Eagle Ford shale and the Austin Chalk and noticed a nice tooth stuck in the matrix. I sat down next to it to dig it out and as soon as my butt hit the ground I jumped right back up in pain. I hadn't noticed about half inch of the tip of another shark tooth (the Cretolamna tooth) sticking straight up out of the ground and...you guessed it...I sat right on it. I guess I have the distinction of being one of the few people alive who has been 'attacked and bitten' by a Cretaceous shark!

gallery_330_149_48637.jpg

I also have very fond memories of finding my best Mammuthus tooth in a gravel pit in Dallas County in a summer downpour. We weren't quite sure whether we were going to be able to get our vehicles out of the gravel pit but I put the Suzuki Sidekick that I owned at the time in 4WD Low and managed to wallow my way through the saturated mud and sand. The mammoth tooth was so nearly perfect that it made the mental stress worthwhile.

gallery_330_103_121366.jpg

The third doesn't have a spectacular story (other than that I found FIVE oreodont skulls that day) but it is the most perfect Miniochoerus skull I've ever found.

gallery_330_105_184105.jpg

And the last is a fossil that I don't have any more. A friend (now deceased) and I had been wandering through the Late Miocene sediments near Clarendon, Texas all day and were just about exhausted by the heat. Most fossil people know the feeling....just ONE more exposure and then I'll quit for the day! Well....I wandered onto a slope and noticed a whitish powder exposed on the surface. I dug carefully around the area and much to my happy surprise I found that I was looking at the back of a skull. More careful digging revealed the partial skull of Merychyus (formerly Ustatochoerus profectus...one of the last of the oreodonts. There were also a few post-cranial elements including a nearly complete front foreleg down to the third phalanges. I eventually donated the specimens to West Texas A&M University. I did manage to do a drawing of the skull which is posted below:

gallery_330_176_109215.jpg

-Joe

wow that is some great stuff, your drawling is great, it must be a great fossil!!!

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Guest solius symbiosus

A couple of my favorite trilobites.

This is the rare Gravicalymene truncatus. I collected this molt under a stomotoporoid. I'm thinking the critter was hiding there after undergoing ecdysis.

It is from the Millersburg Mb of the Lexington Lm., Ordovician

post-179-1212879882_thumb.jpg

This one suffered, what I think, is a fatal bite to the head. It is an Isotelus gigas collected from a friends farm that produced a few Isotelus. Claysferry Fm., Ordovician

post-179-1212880080_thumb.jpg

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Guest bmorefossil
This one suffered, what I think, is a fatal bite to the head. It is an Isotelus gigas collected from a friends farm that produced a few Isotelus. Claysferry Fm., Ordovician

what do you think bit the trilobite?

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Guest solius symbiosus
what do you think bit the trilobite?

The only predators, in this area that I am aware of, were cephalopods. Out West, some Ostracoderms had evolved by the Mid Ord, but they have never been found around here.

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Guest bmorefossil
The only predators, in this area that I am aware of, were cephalopods. Out West, some Ostracoderms had evolved by the Mid Ord, but they have never been found around here.

have you found any cephalopods?

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Guest bmorefossil
I have some in my warehouse that were absolute monsters; 10cm in diameter.

wow!!! thats crazy and these things were eating on the poor little trilobites

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