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Owner of this Inner Ear Bone?


TNCollector

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Who owns this Inner ear bone? I found this on Amelia Island, Florida. I also found some shark teeth and lots of bone fragments. These fossils come from the dredges that cut into Miocene? formations and probably other younger formations. I imagine it is from a cetacean or other aquatic mammal. It is in GREAT shape, with lots of detail, including the inner cochlea. It is my favorite find of the trip. 

 

Let me know what you all think! I am a noob with this younger stuff. Mammals were still a 200 million year old length of time away from my expertise.

 

@Boesse

IMG_20170716_222422.thumb.jpg.bec1bc9ab6430140faeb4a948487f2b4.jpg

IMG_20170716_222406.thumb.jpg.7d109cade1b207908d58687d4455a2ba.jpg

 

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11 minutes ago, ynot said:

Yeah, that is a cetacean ear bone.

Thanks Tony. Is it possible to narrow it down to type?

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1 minute ago, TNCollector said:

Thanks Tony. Is it possible to narrow it down to type?

I am sure that Bobby will be able to, but it is beyond My knowledge.

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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8 hours ago, TNCollector said:

Who owns this Inner ear bone? I found this

It's yours. You found it fair and square. "Finders keepers..."

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, also are remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

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    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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This is a delphinid periotic, possibly a bottlenose dolphin like Tursiops. Good bet that this is Pliocene.

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/18/2017 at 7:21 PM, Boesse said:

This is a delphinid periotic, possibly a bottlenose dolphin like Tursiops. Good bet that this is Pliocene.

I just saw this. Thanks for the ID on it! Are there any good papers on them that you know of?

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Which is freely available on the net,and is also probably in the previously mentioned Fruitbat's Library  

 

 

 

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On 7/18/2017 at 7:21 PM, Boesse said:

This is a delphinid periotic, possibly a bottlenose dolphin like Tursiops. Good bet that this is Pliocene.

I have one  - from the Peace River area of Florida,  Is it the same ?  The 2 seem very similar(certainly size wise), I guess the question... Are there many possible identification variations or just a few?

While much/most of the Peace River is Pleistocene, this was found in a location that has produced many late Miocene fossils, including Baleen & Tooth whales and pre_Equus horses. I also wondered if that "flat" area indicates some breakage.  Jack

DolphinEarPeriotic.thumb.jpg.386c3a68e38d9ddac0a43fd2c992911a.jpgDolphinEarPeriotic4.thumb.jpg.d39de5a4c4f8f9520527902d7fbc2379.jpgDolphinEarPeriotic3.thumb.jpg.a7c6508a748655f07aabe075439e4f94.jpgDolphinEarPeriotic5.thumb.jpg.8482ceb5fc73e05e9ed6f22f6fabbfb9.jpg

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

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6 minutes ago, Shellseeker said:

The 2 seem very similar(certainly size wise), I guess the question... Are there many possible identification variations or just a few?

 

Sounds like a good question for @Boesse

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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Hi all, I was away at a conference last week but am now back in the office. The first periotic is a delphinid (oceanic dolphin) but quite tiny - not a bottlenose dolphin or a 'blackfish'.

 

The second one is a platanistid, I would identify it as Pomatodelphis sp.

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4 hours ago, Boesse said:

Hi all, I was away at a conference last week but am now back in the office. The first periotic is a delphinid (oceanic dolphin) but quite tiny - not a bottlenose dolphin or a 'blackfish'.

 

The second one is a platanistid, I would identify it as Pomatodelphis sp.

Thanks !!!! I am ELATED. :megdance::megdance::megdance:

Not knowing what Pomatodelphis meant, I search the net....

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vertebrate-fossils/species/pomatodelphis-inaequalis

Pomatodelphis inaequalis is believed to be a type of river dolphin and likely had a wide salinity tolerance, living in nearshore marine and estuarine environments with the ability to travel up low salinity streams.

From the link above!!!

Pomatodelphis-inaequalis-6.jpg.9d908584e1c7755bc089a7e6edb68d3c.jpg

and the fossil I found a couple of month back and just tossed into my bag of "just another dolphin earbone".  When will I learn.... I realize that I may not be able to identify to P. inaequalis, but clearly a close relative that lived in the Peace River watershed..  Just exciting to add a new fossil to my mararrine mammal collection. 

Once again, access to some of the world's experts makes TFF the best fossil site. Slightly belated congratulations on the National Geographic article.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/prehistoric-dolphin-prey-snout-suction-feeding-spd/

@Harry Pristis

Harry,  Just recognize your interest in the topic.

Jack

Pomatodelphis-sp.thumb.jpg.d9636c690ed6e75ee53bc0cec06dc5b2.jpg

 

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

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I love a mystery!!! Here I was thinking we had figured out this Identification and , about to wrap it up into a labeled riker box, looked for a few more details.  Then I discovered this TFF thread from 2009 where @CBK found a very interesting dolphin periotic.

Then I compared what I had thought to be Pomatodelphis inaequalis to the one CBK found and they look the same....but..But P inaequalis only has been found in Florida and Alabama. CBK found his specimen in South Carolina.

EarboneMerge.thumb.jpg.f6a93492c3d3074c437d6ba662af72ba.jpg 

I must go back and carefully read what Bobby said differentiates Pamatodelphis sp. in the above referenced thread.

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

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14 minutes ago, Shellseeker said:

I compared what I had thought to be Pomatodelphis inaequalis to the one CBK found and they look the same....

They do not look the same to Me. 

Look at the position of the bulbous part in relation to the flat area on the left. And the angle of the right projection. Also the angle of the notch at the bottom.

None of these match up.

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, ynot said:

They do not look the same to Me. 

Look at the position of the bulbous part in relation to the flat area on the left. And the angle of the right projection. Also the angle of the notch at the bottom.

None of these match up.

Tony,  Exactly.

We are discussing which differences/variations are important and which are incidental. They seem similar but there are differences, and I do not know if those differences mean different species.

Here is a side by side comparing to Pomatodelphis inaequalis periotic at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History. Differences exist also.

RiverDolphinCompare.thumb.jpg.892584d5a2dd103b0bd3bd6e6926eaa1.jpg

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

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From My understanding of it - the periodic is very diagnostic of species; whereas the bulia is not diagnostic.. They are full sized upon birth, but the "bulb" will thicken with age. So the other differences of shape indicate different species.

I think there are 3 species pictured in Your last posts.

 

Maybe @Boesse can clarify this issue.

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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32 minutes ago, ynot said:

From My understanding of it - the periodic is very diagnostic of species; whereas the bulia is not diagnostic.. They are full sized upon birth, but the "bulb" will thicken with age. So the other differences of shape indicate different species.

I think there are 3 species pictured in Your last posts.

 

Maybe @Boesse can clarify this issue.

You know that I am stepping in WAY over my head....

Bobby's comments from other thread:

1) Pomatodelphis' periotic is huge - 39mm long compared to size of kentriodontid  delphinoid;

2) Pomatodelphis (and other platanistids) have a very small promontorium, which is very large in the original specimen posted above (typical delphinoid periotics have an enlarged cochlea/promontorium). . The promontorium is the roundish hump in the center.

3) the anterior process (right protrusion on these photos) is inflated in Pomatodelphis, and it is much smaller, narrower, and shorter in the kentriodontid periotic

4) The kentriodontid also has a much better defined dorsal process (which is partially an ontogenetic feature).

 

NET -- CBKs find and mine are NOT similar for reasons stated above....

 

Now I am comparing this fossil with the the Pomatodelphis inaequalis at UFMNH.  The 2 are almost exactly the same size but there seems to be many (incidental?) differences.

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

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So the UF Pomatodelphis specimen is quite similar - minor differences may be present owing to preservation and different ontogenetic age, as well as intraspecific variation; there's also two species of Pomatodelphis from Florida.

 

CBK's specimen is not Pomatodelphis and lacks several key platanistid/platanistoid features (e.g. articular rim near posterior process). Now that I am in Charleston, and have another 8 years of experience with periotics under my belt, I'm actually fairly convinced that CBK's periotic is from a type of eurhinodelphinid dolphin not yet known from a skull. This type of periotic has not yet been reported, but I have seen a single other example of it - from Edisto Beach, and likely from the lower Miocene Mark's Head Formation. So, probably not a kentriodontid, though this is a weird eurhinodelphinid to be sure. Also, in the past year, a paper has come out indicating that "kentriodontids" are probably not a natural grouping (polyphyletic).

 

So to recap: @TNCollector has a delphinid periotic. @shellseeker has a Pomatodelphis periotic. And @CBK has a strange eurhinodelphinid periotic.

 

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I have communicated with Richard Hulbert:

Quote

There are two species known from Florida, Pomatodelphis inaequalis and Pomatodelphis bobengi. The latter is larger and has a few differences in the teeth and maxilla.  But their petrosals/periotics are the same except different in size.  They both date to the middle and early late Miocene.

So, this find will stay at Pomatodelphis sp.  At mid to late Miocene, this river dolphin periotic is one of the oldest fossils I have personally found. I'll have to return to that location when the rains stop.

EDITED.  Thanks for the details Bobby. We overlapped the send key.

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

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On August 28, 2017 at 7:47 PM, doushantuo said:

Which is freely available on the net,and is also probably in the previously mentioned Fruitbat's Library  

 

 

Did the museum release it as a PDF?  I didn't see it in Fruitbat's Library under special volumes.

 

Jess

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