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Identification Help


chipatthebeach

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Peace River Miocene fossil.?This fossil was found off of Venice Fl. about 30 ft deep. It is about 2.5 inches long. Please help me identify what it is.

My guess is a Sperm Whale Tooth or a very small Dugong bone

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post-20178-0-51013400-1448838533_thumb.jpg

post-20178-0-79767900-1448838536_thumb.jpg

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Looks like a worn piece of bone to me, Whale teeth typically would have "layers" of enamel that is pretty evident :)

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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It could also be a deer tine due to the thick looking wall and lack of cancellous bone. But your pics are pretty dark, so don't quote me on that. :)

~Charlie~

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK
->Get your Mosasaur print
->How to spot a fake Trilobite
->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG

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Your fossil is very worn, IF whale, it would have horizontal lines, like these.post-2220-0-79440400-1448853697_thumb.jpg

It is heavily fossilized bone, and could be a fragment of dugong, but impossible to tell... Keep hunting, there is more out there

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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The way the tags come up on the Fossil ID page had me going for a minute there. Now that would be a unique fossil !

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It's solid so likely dugong rib bone. Looks like the tapered end of a rib (possibly from a smaller individual given its size).

A whale tooth would be a mighty fine find (and reasonably rare at that) but I think the consensus will be dugong. Given how much dugong rib fragments turn up off Venice or in the Peace River or associated creeks, you'd think that we were waist-deep in dugongs at some point in the past. In reality, I think it is just that the dugong ribs are solid through to their core without the normal cancellous/trabecular (spongy bone) of many long bones which is highly vascularized and often contains marrow. These bone fragments, due to their density, seem to be preferentially preserved in the fossil record.

Keep searching for your whale tooth--just because they are rare doesn't mean that they are impossible to find. Mostly, I've got smaller whale (dolphin size) teeth and only vertebrae from the larger whales. In the meantime, dugong rib frags make great paperweights. :) (I have several.)

Cheers.

-Ken

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I have a few whale teeth. They are difficult to find in the Peace River;post-2220-0-39057300-1448988218_thumb.jpg

Ever since I found this one in March of 2013, I have been looking for another like it.. The fossilization is "hard" like dugong.

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Got a piece of whale jaw in 2014 that "fits" this last tooth:

post-2220-0-37345200-1448988588_thumb.jpg

Keep on looking -- Rare but there are some to be found. SS

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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