RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 By the title your probably skeptical about me actually finding a fossil in my backyard of course I didn't actually find a real fossil in my backyard as that would be quite fictional. I thought I would say that before beginning the fossil ID help... Because in reality I found 2 fossils in my backyard not one!!! In the lot beside my house is dense forest I live in Florida with very invertebrate rich soil in fact almost all soil in my area (suburbs near Indian river) contains hundreds of small shells Pleistocene to recent. However last year when I was looking for modern animal bones I was very surprised to see a white shard sticking up from the ground I tried the porous test with my finger but it was not positive so I concluded it was most likely not bone as most Pleistocene epoch fossils are much more reactive to the test than older fossils and since in my area there are only Pleistocene to recent fossils I assumed it was an invertebrate so I started to excavate the area. To my surprise I found a very large conch-like shell I actually had to cut the roots of a nearby tree as the roots were going through the shell. I later came back and found yet another specimen. It's quite the story to find literal fossils in your backyard but anyways here are the two specimens i'm curious to see your opinion on them please feel free to ask for different pictures and or questions. Thanks in advance, -RJD Yellow>First Specimen Orange>Second Specimen Blue>Modern Invertebrate IF YOU ARE TRYING TO ANSWER ID USE COLOR CODES PLEASE AND THANK YOU, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
izak_ Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 @doushantuo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 ? why the profile link are you suggesting he would be a helpful person to contact on the discovering of the ID that this specimen has? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeargleSchmeargl Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 5 minutes ago, Ryan Dye said: ? why the profile link are you suggesting he would be a helpful person to contact on the discovering of the ID that this specimen has? Yep. Every single fossil you see is a miracle set in stone, and should be treated as such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 1 minute ago, MeargleSchmeargl said: Yep. I'm fairly new how should I contact him for something like this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewelonly Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 He has already been tagged and will receive a notification for this post. If you use @ with screen name, their name will pop up and you select it so that it is highlighted. Then, that individual is tagged for the topic,@Ryan Dye. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 Just now, jewelonly said: He has already been tagged and will receive a notification for this post. If you use @ with screen name, their name will pop up and you select it so that it is highlighted. Then, that individual is tagged for the topic,@Ryan Dye. Ah, thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewelonly Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 You are welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doushantuo Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 I think something's amiss here,because I've spoken repeatedly about not wanting to descend into the murky depths of gastropod taxonomy. I can spell "prosobranch",I know who Petuch,Squires and Vokes are,but I have collected far too few gastropods(and certainly not in Florida)to be of any conceivable use here. Taxonomically most useful(morphology-based taxonomy!) is the protoconch,BTW. I am genuinely surprised a bonafide experienced hands-on Florida/USA gastropod collector wasn't tagged,BTW(MikeR,for instance) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 The first two (yellow and orange) might be Pleuroploca gigantea (horse conch). The third one (blue) appears to be Busycon (whelk) The little one on the far right might be Strombus alatus (or possibly Strombus costatus, depending on its size), but it's hard to tell from the photo. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doushantuo Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 I don't know my cancellariids from my hydrobiids. Peat, I simply trust you(vide supra) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
izak_ Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 11 minutes ago, doushantuo said: I think something's amiss here,because I've spoken repeatedly about not wanting to descend into the murky depths of gastropod taxonomy. I can spell "prosobranch",I know who Petuch,Squires and Vokes are,but I have collected far too few gastropods(and certainly not in Florida)to be of any conceivable use here. Taxonomically most useful(morphology-based taxonomy!) is the protoconch,BTW. I am genuinely surprised a bonafide experienced hands-on Florida/USA gastropod collector wasn't tagged,BTW(MikeR,for instance) Sorry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 3 minutes ago, doushantuo said: I don't know my cancellariids from my hydrobiids. Peat, I simply trust you(vide supra) Ha! Somehow I have a feeling you are just being modest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 49 minutes ago, Peat Burns said: The third one (blue) appears to be Busycon (whelk) Thank you for answering my questions the blue specimen however was not a fossil this is quite the old picture I simply got a random shell already purchased to make them go from smallest to largest ha ha sorry my bad I should of removed that one from the image. Anyways I have two more questions how common is it to find these sort of fossils in empty suburbs? My second question is about the Busycon sp. is there a reliable source where I can discover the species of Busycon? Thanks in advance sorry about the late response I was busy registering a Oligocene mammal into the TFF collection. -R.J.D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 3 minutes ago, Ryan Dye said: Thank you for answering my questions the blue specimen however was not a fossil this is quite the old picture I simply got a random shell already purchased to make them go from smallest to largest ha ha sorry my bad I should of removed that one from the image. Anyways I have two more questions how common is it to find these sort of fossils in empty suburbs? My second question is about the Busycon sp. is there a reliable source where I can discover the species of Busycon? Thanks in advance sorry about the late response I was busy registering a Oligocene mammal into the TFF collection. -R.J.D Glad to help. I'm not very familiar with the Indian River area, but I know that central Florida and all the way down to the Lake Okeechobee area is rich in marine deposits full of shells. These deposits are often quarried and used for driveways and golf cart paths and other uses. So sometimes you can be dealing with an in situ deposit while at other locations you may be dealing with fill that has been brought in. For gastropod identification, it is helpful to have a photo of the shell with the aperture (opening) facing the camera. If you can take another photo of your whelk with the aperture showing (and a ruler in the photo for scale), we (me or one of the Florida shell experts such as @MikeR) should be able to help you get the species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 1 minute ago, Peat Burns said: Glad to help. I'm not very familiar with the Indian River area, but I know that central Florida and all the way down to the Lake Okeechobee area is rich in marine deposits full of shells. These deposits are often quarried and used for driveways and golf cart paths and other uses. So sometimes you can be dealing with an in situ deposit while at other locations you may be dealing with fill that has been brought in. For gastropod identification, it is helpful to have a photo of the shell with the aperture (opening) facing the camera. If you can take another photo of your whelk with the aperture showing (and a ruler in the photo for scale), we (me or one of the Florida shell experts such as @MikeR) should be able to help you get the species. For sure sorry for the lack of images I just joined today so I've been straining a bit to get stuff done on here and I was told from others as well that the fossils could be from fill and not originally put there as I said in the blog roots of trees were inside the shell so it's a very real possibility. I need to get both specimens out of storage in a moment i'll get some more pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 @Peat Burns Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 @MikeR 1 Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 From the first picture, the two on the left are Horse conchs. They have been known under various names Fasciolaria/Pleuroploca /Triplofusus gigantea/giganteus however current classification by WoRMS is Triplofusus papillosus (G. B. Sowerby I, 1825). LINK 5 "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted July 18, 2017 Share Posted July 18, 2017 6 hours ago, Ryan Dye said: @Peat Burns Perfect. As I suspected, and as mikeR has confirmed, these are indeed horse conchs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanDye Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 44 minutes ago, MikeR said: From the first picture, the two on the left are Horse conchs. They have been known under various names Fasciolaria/Pleuroploca /Triplofusus gigantea/giganteus however current classification by WoRMS is Triplofusus papillosus (G. B. Sowerby I, 1825). LINK I noticed that when I put the previous names into google thanks for the citation 3 minutes ago, Peat Burns said: Perfect. As I suspected, and as mikeR has confirmed, these are indeed horse conchs. Thank you for your help now you can say you figured out "backyard fossils" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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