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Peace River fossils for ID


Brian Magnier

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Long time reader, first time poster. Just hit Peace River for the first time, and I found a bunch of awesome stuff. Would love it if anyone could weigh in on IDs. (Let me know if I'm not posting this correctly)  All fossils were found near Wauchula, FL.

 

My thoughts for each specimen:

#1  Equus upper cheek tooth

#2  Alligator / crocodile teeth

#3  Vertebra of some sort. Very curious on this one.

#4  Mammal tooth. Again, very curious.

#5  Softshell turtle fragments

#6  Hemipristis tooth. Largest tooth of the day (not very big, but it was my first time out there and I'm happy)

#7  Dugong ribs

#8  Burrfish tooth plate

#9  Bone. Not sure if this will be IDable

#10  ?? Piece of tooth or maybe something manmade

#11  Mammoth enamel?

#12  Mammoth enamel?

#13  Mammoth enamel pieces?

 

Thanks!

-Brian

Equus.png

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Extremely sorry if I messed up these posts - the files were too large to upload together, hopefully someone out there can help instruct me how to properly submit future posts. :)

 

Thank you all!

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1horse, 2 gator teeth, top piece in 5 may be partial gator osteoderm,6,7 and 8 I believe you have right, 10 looks like ray articulated pavement teeth  and 11 is mammoth tooth fragment:)

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

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Awesome, thanks so much! Would definitely welcome more input, but pretty stoked about the potential mammoth enamel piece!

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4 maybe wolf? if im wrong correct me, not that into predator teeth. or it is a very worn tooth from something else

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For vertebra identification, look at the marine mammals. 

Talking about unidentified tooth, I would say it is stag moose premolar (Megaloceros?):)

 

Regards

Domas

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1 hour ago, Brian Magnier said:

My thoughts for each specimen:

#1  Equus upper cheek tooth Correct

#2  Alligator / crocodile teeth Correct

#3  Vertebra of some sort. Very curious on this one. This is a mammal or gator vertebrae and a very small one.  Need help Maybe @Harry Pristis

#4  Mammal tooth. Again, very curious. Deer premolar

#5  Softshell turtle fragments Correct

#6  Hemipristis tooth. Largest tooth of the day (not very big, but it was my first time out there and I'm happy) Correct

#7  Dugong ribs Correct on 1st 2, 3rd is unidentifiable bone

#8  Burrfish tooth plate Correct I call them pufferfish

#9  Bone. Not sure if this will be IDable Correct

#10  ?? Piece of tooth or maybe something manmade. Mud concretion on a seashell, with the shell material eventually eliminated by acidic water.

#11  Mammoth enamel? Correct

#12  Mammoth enamel? Might be Mastodon, one or the other Correct

#13  Mammoth enamel pieces? Correct

 

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

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Thanks for all the help! :) Definitely hoping to get back to the river soon

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First, welcome to TFF!

 

I see you've been doing your homework as your tentative IDs show some research (either here or through guidebooks on the fossils of the area).

 

Agree with all on #1 & #2 and I'm wondering if #3 (the vert) feels particularly light. In my experience most verts with all of the processes still attached tend to either be exceptionally preserved specimens (just out of the bank with the minimum of river tumbling) or they are modern. Modern bones can take on a brown patina in a remarkably short amount of time. Still, it is possible that @Harry Pristis may be able to identify the type of animal that once owned this vert.

 

I really like your #4 and @Harry Pristis can speak with much more authority on this but it gives me a peccary premolar feel.

 

I think both pieces in #5 are soft-shell turtle. I can see why Jeff is considering gator for the upper piece but it is actually quite a good match for a larger chunk of soft-shell carapace that I'm looking at sitting right under my monitor (from my most recent outing).

 

Nice upper Hemi in #6. Assuming you found a bunch of smaller shark teeth that you just didn't bother photographing.

 

If you get more chances to hunt for fossils in the Peace River, you'll soon tire of dugong bones. They are solid (no cancellous bone marrow space in the center) and fossilize very well and so are very common in many areas of the river. I know one spot where you could easily fill 2-3 five gallon buckets in a day's digging. They make great fossil paperweights but you soon run out of friends to which you can gift these. ;)

 

Nice specimen of a lower Diodontidae (porcupinefish/pufferfish/balloonfish/burrfish) mouthplate. These are very distinctive pieces and can be identified even when they are very worn down.

 

I think you are right on #9 that it is probably not a distinctive enough bone fragment to assign it to a species or even location within the skeleton. Gives me a bit of a rib vibe but that is pure speculation. Were this to be from an area known for dinosaur bones it would be worthy of the name "chunk-o-saurus" but in the Peace I just call these "bone bits" and they usually are returned to the river after a bit of inspection.

 

I agree with Jeff on #10. I found my first example of a piece that looks very much like your find just a few weeks ago. The corrugated surface interested me and so it came home instead of being tossed back into the river. Closer inspection under magnification showed the distinctive pattern of roots of a Myliobatid (eagle ray) tooth plate. Here is a good example of a more complete specimen:

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/gallery/image/38583-eagle-ray-toothplate/

 

Definitely #11 and likely #13 look to me to be characteristic fragments of the (much larger) Columbian Mammoth teeth that are commonly found in the Peace. That is to say that small weathered chips of these brittle teeth are commonly found but larger sections or complete teeth are significantly more rare. However, #12 has what appears to be the thicker enamel layer (if I have the scale correct) of a chunk of mastodon tooth. The thicker enamel cross-section of these (also fragile) teeth are pretty distinctive and can be identified from even well-worn river-tumbled specimens.

 

 

All in all, you got a really nice variety of what the Peace River has to offer. The area around Wauchula gets hit heavily as it has good access (and parking) for walk-in hunting and so you were either really lucky or put in a lot of shoveling effort (or both) to come up with such a nice diversity of finds. Also, compliments on well photographed (well lit and well focused) specimens and with a reference to scale--makes identification much easier than guessing at blurry dark images. Now you need to make a deal with @aerogrower to get one of his custom made photo cubes for future finds. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

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Welcome to TFF and some really nice finds for your first time out!!  Keep the pictures coming.

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Thanks Ken for the great information and input! I have definitely spent a lot of time poking through this site and others before finally getting to actually do some sifting myself.

 

The vertebra is pretty light, and definitely could be modern. I was amazed at how well-preserved it was. The color and texture don't look really modern, but I don't have much experience with how long it would take for a bone in a stream to change.

 

And yeah, I found dozens of tiny little shark teeth that ranged from dime size down to grains of rice! :) 

 

Cheers,

Brian

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