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vertebrate material from Peace River, Florida


Monica

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Hello again!

 

My son is currently having his nap, my daughter is watching a movie, and I'm procrastinating from marking student assignments by going through some of the Peace River, Florida fossils that @digit was nice enough to send me along with the items I won in a recent "rolling auction."  I really have very little idea regarding what I have in my possession, but I'm going to post some pictures with my thoughts and I'd appreciate any feedback that can be given - thanks in advance!!!

 

Monica

 

Photo #1: three marine mammal bullae (middle/inner ear bones) [Note: Ken gave me a heads-up that these might be bullae - I didn't come up with that identification myself, unfortunately :blush:] - is there any way to figure out what type of marine mammal they came from?

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Photo #2: turtle scutes?  If so, is there any way to narrow down the identification further?

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Photo #3: I think these might also be turtle scutes, but perhaps from a different part of the shell?  Again, if these are indeed sctues, is there any way to narrow identification down further?

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Photo #4: definitely bone, but from what?  I have no idea.  Could it also be from a turtle's shell?

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Photo #5: this looks vertebra-like to me but, again, I really have no idea - I know almost nothing about vertebrate fossils...

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Photo #7: All of these are bones, but - surprise! - I'm not sure from what animals.  Here are some guesses:

Item on the left: glyptodon scute?

Item in the middle: alligator/crocodile scute?

Item on the right: soft shell turtle scute?

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Photo #8: two little vertebrae on the left (any ideas as to the animal(s) they came from?) AND perhaps a pufferfish mouth plate on the right?

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Photo #9: bone, bone, and more bone (and perhaps some tooth fragments?) but that's all I know - please help if you can!!!

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Photo #10: Ken said that one of the bags he sent included some proboscidean material, and I'm assuming that these were in that bag.  Could the top two be mammoth tooth fragments (they look ridged) and the bottom two be mastodon tooth fragments (they look cusped)?

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Photo #11: again, Ken said that he included a proboscidean tusk fragment - is this it?  If so, is there any way to tell which type of animal it came from?

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Photo #12: these also came from what I think was the proboscidean bag of goodies - are they more tooth fragments, or something else?

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4 hours ago, Monica said:

Photo #8: two little vertebrae on the left (any ideas as to the animal(s) they came from?) AND perhaps a pufferfish mouth plate on the right?

DSCN1380.JPG.cf80e4de473240d4be465556462343ff.JPG

 

For comparison:

fishDiodonocclusal.JPG

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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6 hours ago, Monica said:

Photo #8: two little vertebrae on the left (any ideas as to the animal(s) they came from?) AND perhaps a pufferfish mouth plate on the right?

 

 

Check out this link:  One or both of the 1st 2 fossils is likely a filefish vert.

http://www.fossilguy.com/sites/l_creek/lcrk_col_fish.htm

I have found Filefish verts in streams and rivers in the Florida Peace River Formation.  

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

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If you are interested send me a pm, if you pay shipping, I will send you a cigar box size of peace river randoms, I live in arcadia and I throw so much turtle shell and random bone back in the river.  Almost every day I dig, I throw a half gallon of turtle shell right back in!

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On 2/19/2017 at 4:35 PM, Monica said:

Photo #1: three marine mammal bullae (middle/inner ear bones) [Note: Ken gave me a heads-up that these might be bullae - I didn't come up with that identification myself, unfortunately :blush:] - is there any way to figure out what type of marine mammal they came from?

 

Those are small whale tympanic bullae--dolphin or around that size animal. @Boesse would be the final word on these but I believe that this particular bone is not very diagnostic while the periotic ear bone might allow an ID at least to family or order. When we find these in the Peace we just colloquially call them "whale ear bones". Likely, as certain as we'll every be on these.

 

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:38 PM, Monica said:

Photo #2: turtle scutes?  If so, is there any way to narrow down the identification further?

 

Yup. Pieces of turtle carapace. To someone who knows the Florida taxa of turtle species (like a few scientists I know from the Florida Museum of Natural History-FLMNH) they could likely say more (and even which position they are from. The limit of my knowledge is just turtle carapace.

 

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:38 PM, Monica said:

Photo #3: I think these might also be turtle scutes, but perhaps from a different part of the shell?  Again, if these are indeed sctues, is there any way to narrow identification down further?

 

Yup. Those are the neural plates from the midline of the carapace. You can see the ridge from the vertebral column on the underside (what's left of it anyway). Generic turtle to the limit of my knowledge--experts could say more.

 

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:42 PM, Monica said:

Photo #4: definitely bone, but from what?  I have no idea.  Could it also be from a turtle's shell?

 

If I remember correctly there was a bigger chunk of giant land tortoise shell in that collection of turtle bits (Hesperotestudo crassicutata, I believe is the proper species).

 

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:43 PM, Monica said:

Photo #5: this looks vertebra-like to me but, again, I really have no idea - I know almost nothing about vertebrate fossils...

 

I think that might be a dolphin (small whale vert) heavily river worn.

 

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:45 PM, Monica said:

Photo #6: bone, again, but from what?  And from where on that organism? 

 

I think @CBOB has this right--likely a bit of deer antler.

 

 

More tomorrow.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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The cetacean earbones are too incomplete to be identified, but are likely pieces of baleen whale tympanic bullae.

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I started a response to the last half dozen images but then I clicked the wrong area near the "Quote" popup and lost my in-progress response--funny that the new auto-saving functionality wasn't able to recover my text. It was late and I figured I'd start again after some sleep.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:53 PM, Monica said:

Photo #7: All of these are bones, but - surprise! - I'm not sure from what animals.  Here are some guesses:

Item on the left: glyptodon scute?

Item in the middle: alligator/crocodile scute?

Item on the right: soft shell turtle scute?

 

Left: soft-shell turtle--the rippled surface is diagnostic for this (Apalone sp.)

Middle: definitely crocodilian--usually, the bottom of a gator osteoderm is smooth but this has the characteristic pitted surface on both sides. Possibly this is the broken-off keel from a larger osteoderm.

Right: thin enough to likely be turtle shell but doesn't have the normal rippled surface of a soft-shell but may just be a different species.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:55 PM, Monica said:

Photo #8: two little vertebrae on the left (any ideas as to the animal(s) they came from?) AND perhaps a pufferfish mouth plate on the right?

 

As mentioned above, quite definitely a pufferfish mouthplate--saw a ballonfish (Diodon holocanthus) on one of my dives yesterday. It had a mouthpiece that would have matched closely (though I didn't check). :P The bones are definitely fish verts--possibly filefish as suggested.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 4:57 PM, Monica said:

Photo #9: bone, bone, and more bone (and perhaps some tooth fragments?) but that's all I know - please help if you can!!!

 

Yup. The upper (black) row has some bone frags in it--fun to wonder about but mostly we'll likely never know the original owner. The second from the right and possible the one to the left of it are probably tooth frags (maybe horse or camel). The second from the right on the bottom (brown) row may just be bone or could be a deer antler base. It looks like I didn't segregate out all of the proboscidean materal as some in the bottom row looks like mammoth tooth frags.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 5:00 PM, Monica said:

Photo #10: Ken said that one of the bags he sent included some proboscidean material, and I'm assuming that these were in that bag.  Could the top two be mammoth tooth fragments (they look ridged) and the bottom two be mastodon tooth fragments (they look cusped)?

 

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! The upper pieces are fragments from mammoth teeth and the lower (cusped) are frags from mastodon (or possibly gomphothere) teeth. Sadly, these teeth are rather brittle when exposed to the river and after millions of years of preservation get beat to fragments in the Peace. I find a lot of small pieces but rarely larger more-intact chunks.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 5:02 PM, Monica said:

Photo #11: again, Ken said that he included a proboscidean tusk fragment - is this it?  If so, is there any way to tell which type of animal it came from?

 

Nope. Too small in diameter to be from a tusk. This is one of the smaller rings of enamel from a larger mammoth tooth. Compare the thin enamel in this one to the other mammoth tooth frags and you'll see the resemblance. Tusk pieces (and usually they are only small chips in the Peace) tend to be layered and show an overall curvature from being a small piece of a larger diameter round. They could be mistaken for a piece of petrified wood as the shape is similar. There were probably a piece or two in the bag.

 

On 2/19/2017 at 5:04 PM, Monica said:

Photo #12: these also came from what I think was the proboscidean bag of goodies - are they more tooth fragments, or something else?

 

Mostly looks like mastodon (or gomphothere) tooth chunks. The second from the left on the upper row is a tusk fragment. You can see a couple of layers present in this piece and if you hold it on edge you'll likely see the slight curvature showing the original size of the tusk this came from.

 

7 hours ago, Boesse said:

The cetacean earbones are too incomplete to be identified, but are likely pieces of baleen whale tympanic bullae.

 

The thin edge of tympanic bullae quickly gets tumbled off in the Peace river. If you do an internet image search for "whale tympanic bulla" you'll see some nicely preserved specimens (or recent pieces) where you can see how much is missing on these. Even with lots missing, the shape that remains is very distinctive. One site I have on the Peace River has turned up 40-50 of these so I guess when they get tumbled down to this shape they stick around for some time and accumulate. Interesting to know that these are likely from "baleen" whales rather than toothed whales. From their size I'd pictured dolphin but given that they originally were larger before being "rock tumbled" to their present size I guess that makes sense.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Oh snargeit, I just realized that the scale on the ruler was in mm rather than inches! Those are odontocete bullae based on the size. You can see how little morphology remains if the scale is switched up the entire suborder changes!

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Hi all! (including @digit)

 

I'm getting around to labeling all of my goodies from the Peace River in Florida, and I just want to know the age of the specimens - is it Late Oligocene to Early Miocene?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Monica

 

PS - Next weekend I might try to tackle some of those shark teeth...:blink::wacko:  (I think I'll be needing LOTS of help with those!!!)

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I would label the marine fossils as "Pliocene" and the freshwater/land fossils as "Plio-Pleistocene."  BTW, don't label the freshwater turtle parts as "scutes" -- a scute is a transparent, keratinous covering of the bones of the turtle shell.  A scute is never preserved as a fossil.  The bones of a turtle shell can be called "carapacial element" or "plastral element" after "carapace" and "plastron."  The carapacial elements in your images 5 & 6 are called "neurals."

 

turtle_softshell_shell.jpg

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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