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Large Mammal Bone Found On Mo River. Bison? Elk? Other?


mboz

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Hello everyone, I tend to spend my lunch hour roaming around the banks of the Missouri River in Cole County, Missouri. I recently stumbled across a large mammal bone that I have been uncertain of it's identity. My first reaction was that it belonged to a bison, because it seemed too large to belong to a deer. But, I had forgotten that elk and bears also used to roam these lands. Looking at images of all three skeletons, I am still unsure about which species it belongs to. I was hoping a kind soul could help me out.


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From left to right: 1)Bison? 2)Fish Vertebrae 3)Unidentified bone fragment 4)Deer Lower-leg 5)Bone sliver 6)Bison? tooth

Here are few of my other recent finds (sorry for the blurry image):

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I'm thinking the jaw belongs to either a cow or an elk. Anyway to be certain?

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Can you give a view of the distal (lower) end of the bone on the left?

The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

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Looks to me like:

1) Bison/Bos radio-ulna (they fuse in adult/older animals)

2) Yup fish vertebrae but probably recent not old. Those processes rarely survive.

3) Proximal end of a Bison/Bos rib. This one would have been closer to the front of the animal in the chest area.

4) White-Tailed Deer Metapodial (from the rear leg)

5) Sliver of bone

6) Bison/Bos tooth

In the next picture it looks like you have a modern turtle plastron, partial mammal ilium probably deer, a bison/bos calcaneus, and a few other ones I can't i.d. right now, and a nice left jaw bone of a Bison/Bos. I would clean all that algae and muck off of it before it dries out cause if you let bones from most Midwest rivers dry out and then get them wet again and then dry out again many will start to crack, flake, and fall apart.

Nice finds!

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Wow thanks! You really know your anatomy. I never thought I would find so many bison parts. I think I'm going to have to go back to that wing dike where I found the jaw and carefully dig out some other bones that were buried too deeply and frozen to pull out with my hands. Thanks for the suggestion on cleaning before it fully dries out. Is there a best practice or method for cleaning these types of bones? Will dish soap damage the finds?

I'll post some more detailed photos when I have the opportunity.

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I would just use water and a brush definitely not dish soap. A lot of material from midwest rivers are not well mineralized/preserved which makes them crack and flake. Some are mineralized enough and only need a cleaning but if you begin to notice flaking or cracking once they dry out I would treat it with vinac, butvar, or some other preserving glue. There are probably a few other helpful threads on here that explain this preserving process better than I can.

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