Unknown Verts? Not Bird....

[cowgirlfossils]

New mining going on so only a couple of items. They were both barley sticking out of the newly dug up soft sand. lucky I found them yesterday...they would of been gone today. We are trying to narrow down formation. Many come together in the area...so maybe upper Saugus formation. Pleistocene..

[Xiphactinus]

The smaller one looks like a fish vert.

[cowgirlfossils]

The smaller one looks like a fish vert.

I was thinking fish on the second one..much bigger than I usually find. Any thoughts on the first? Anyone?

[RichW9090]

The first is a cervical vertebra, mammalian. Let Bobby take a look at it, see what he thinks.

[Boesse]

First one is likely some sort of a small ungulate - the neural arch forms a large continuous "plate", which I do not believe is the case in any Neogene marine mammal from the eastern North Pacific (it has a couple similarities with fur seal/sea lion cervical vertebrae, but the neural arch doesn't really match). Admittedly, I don't have photographs of every vertebra in the column, so this is a provisional statement.

The other vertebra is of course fish, and I can narrow that down to halibut, Paralichthys sp. based upon the branching, spider-web like septae on the side of the centrum.