Procoelous vertebra, Cape Fear river dredge spoils

[patmo141]

I haven't been into fossils since I was a child, and I haven't had a good vertebrate zoology class since college.  When I found this on a dredge spoil island while on an afternoon boat cruise I knew it was a vertebra, but that's about it. It's heavy like rock.  I did a bunch of googling for all the most common things I could think of (Horse, Cow, Whale, Dolphin, Turtle) then I actually started to think it might be a fossil, particularly because the shape of the vert body didn't look like any of the things I was looking at.  After a bunch of searching about the concavity/convexity of the articulating surfaces I think it's the vertebral body of a large reptile but with all the interesting processes broken off.  So I looked for images of alligator, crocodile etc and I couldn't find anything with such a pronounced concavity/convexity relative to the width/height.  Could this be a legit cool dinosaur fossil? Any Ideas?

 

Location:  North Carolina, Cape Fear river

https://goo.gl/maps/EvB3g9456b82

 

Here is an animated gif from a bunch of angles, it's big (about 13mb)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fbablfmz9h82rbn/vertebra_all_angles.gif

[patmo141]

To get the gif to work, you have to download it then open the file with your web browser...pain.  Here are some more angles

[FossilDAWG]

I don't think this is a vertebra.  I believe it is a single chamber of a nautiloid cephalopod, Aturia.  This genus occurs in some of the Eocene limestone formations in North Carolina and so is not unlikely to end up in dredge material.  It's a fairly rare find.

 

Don C

[FossilDAWG]

Here is a link to a photo of a more complete (and very beautiful) specimen from North Carolina.  You can clearly see the chambers, and you will see that your specimen consists of one of those chambers.

 

Don C

[sixgill pete]

 

27 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

I don't think this is a vertebra.  I believe it is a single chamber of a nautiloid cephalopod, Aturia.  This genus occurs in some of the Eocene limestone formations in North Carolina and so is not unlikely to end up in dredge material.  It's a fairly rare find.

 

Don C

 

20 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Here is a link to a photo of a more complete (and very beautiful) specimen from North Carolina.  You can clearly see the chambers, and you will see that your specimen consists of one of those chambers.

 

Don C

 

You are absolutely correct Don, and this would have been a rather large specimen. Larger than the one pictured in your link I believe. While complete specimens are rare, I would call finding a chamber as an occasional find.Still a great find on a dredge spoil island.

[patmo141]

Thanks y'all.  Very cool.  I can't believe how wrong I was!  I was so certain it was a vertebra but that's why you ask the experts. I will definitely be going back to that area to look around for more treasures.

 

-P

[sixgill pete]

Some people refer to these individual chambers as "batman heads"