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clay

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I found  these ear plates near my home in North Myrtle Beach.  They are each about a 1/2" long.  What they are from?   Dolphin or Porpoise?  Please help!  Thanks!  Also how do you make fossils stay in place in these little display boxes?

fosssil ear plates.jpg

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58 minutes ago, clay said:

I found  these ear plates near my home in North Myrtle Beach.  They are each about a 1/2" long.  What they are from?   Dolphin or Porpoise?  Please help!  Thanks!  Also how do you make fossils stay in place in these little display boxes?

fosssil ear plates.jpg

 

 

Yes, at least six of those are petrosals, which are also called periotics in the older literature.  One looks like a piece of a bulla which is also an ear element.  I don't know dolphins well but they appear to be from Pliocene-Pleistocene forms and maybe three different genera.  @Boesse would be the member to take a look and provide ID's as he's a marine mammal researcher with growing experience in east coast fossil whales.

 

As for keeping them in place, you can try replacing that foam with a similar-thickness but denser type of foam which you can find in various-sized sheets at a UPS store.  You can trim it to size and custom cut it so each specimen fits in a form -fitting depression against the glass.  I've done this with displays and with shipping large teeth before (megalodon inside one foam piece with another on top).

 

 

 

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I utilize a sheet of small bubble wrap under the poly matting to give stronger pressure against the glass, while offering plyable cushion for the items.

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Thanks to both of you!  The filling in my display box is a fibrous like insolation.  I'll try the bubble wrap or change it to foam.  I can't hang any of them vertically up.  

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Welcome to the Forum from sunny Florida! These are pretty interesting finds. The bottom lower left one looks like a Gar Fish Scale. The others could be Dolphin Periotic Ear Bones, but wait for some expert IDs.

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Porpoise and Dolphin have 2 connected earbones: One is a periotic and the other tympanic bulla.DolphinPorpoiseEarbones.JPG.c0a912952952cbeda3e2fe7bf64d6f42.JPG

 

In your photo , the periotics are outside the red circle.

These are destinctive and can be accurately identified to a specific mammal by experts.

Here is one of mine:RiverDolphinCompare.jpg.a7592e9ddce4a0cbcf43ac1964b341cd.jpg

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

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Or you can add more of the fibre material, it’s crazt cheap. It’s called wadding or batting and is used by people who make embroidered quilts. I pay £1 per metre. The auction site is your friend :) 

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Hi! I am currently researching Plio-Pleistocene marine mammals from the South Carolina coast. Would you be willing to donate the more complete periotic bones for study? They mostly appear to be oceanic dolphins (Delphinidae). In our museum we have a handful of specimens from Myrtle Beach including Sei whale, right whale, an extinct sperm whale, and several delphinids.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Donate meaning to give away for ever?  Or just study and give back?  Where is the museum?  I would love to find a place to see  ocean fossils like the ones I pick up.

 

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8 minutes ago, clay said:

Donate meaning to give away for ever?  Or just study and give back?  Where is the museum?  I would love to find a place to see  ocean fossils like the ones I pick up.

 

Usually donation means placing the specimen in an institution forever. In some cases, a cast can be made for the donee. The specimen's scientific significance depends on it being in an official repository for future scientists to access, and not in a private collection. What you lose in your collection is sometimes to the broader benefit of scientific gain. 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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5 minutes ago, clay said:

Donate meaning to give away for ever?  Or just study and give back?  Where is the museum?  I would love to find a place to see  ocean fossils like the ones I pick up.

 

@Boesse is located in Charleston SC. I believe at the college of Charleston.

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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Quick question about the brown material on the specimens above-  are they coated by you or is that in some way “natural”?  I spend as much time as possible “beach combing”, usually on  DelMarVa ocean beaches , and I have a ton of rocks, as well as fossils (I believe they are fossils!) in what appears to be a similar material.

 

Also, have you seen any items like this before?  Thank you! 

B65BE248-CB92-4FD8-876C-D73E6DBD6868.jpeg

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Some smoother, some like this.  No one here responded that they had seen anything like this before.  I believe one is fossilized oyster shell and another may be bone or bamboo (many more pics available)

 

Thank you!

 

Karen

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  • 2 weeks later...

Typically donating means in perpetuity - which is critical because no scientific research can be conducted on specimens in a private collection.

 

You should visit sometime!

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