Petrified mushroom?

[Andrez]

Found this on a dirt field https://vsco.co/zerdna/images/1

 

 

   

 

 

[Rockwood]

Looks like the ball shape (process) on the proximal end of a femur bone to me. 

[SailingAlongToo]

+1 for terminus of long bone

[RJB]

+3

 

RB

[digit]

Can we get some idea of the size of this item? Please take another photo with a ruler in it for an idea of scale. That will help us get an idea of its size (difficult from photos). I'm still not entirely convinced that it is bone as it might also just be a very suggestive rock. I'm sure you've seen the spongy (cancellous) inside space of a bone before (usually inside of some cooked piece of meat) where the bone marrow would have been. You have this item in hand so you can most easily look at it closely (possibly under magnification). Can you see evidence of this spongy texture on the broken parts that might confirm bone?

 

For the record, soft things without bones or shells very rarely fossilize and mushrooms rank very high on the "soft things" scale.  The resemblance of your find to a mushroom is simply coincidence helped by a phenomenon called pareidolia. We've been hard-wired for countless generations to help us spot camouflaged prey in deep cover or spot a friendly face in a crowd. Our brains take incomplete information and fill in the missing bits till we can pattern match part of a thing to the whole. This is the same phenomenon that allows us to see bunny rabbits in clouds or elephants in rock formations. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

 

Geologic concretions form spherical objects which when found signal "egg" as a common point of reference. We see many backyard "dinosaur eggs" here on the forum and many are disappointed (or even reject or identification) when they find out they don't have a valuable dinosaur fossil but merely a cool-looking geological artifact.

 

It's possible that your find may just be a geological item that had an interesting and suggestive enough shape to make you pick it up and take it home. It could also (as has been suggested) be the end of a long bone. If it is bone (and depending on the size) it might be from a recent animal or it could indeed be part of a fossil bone. The first step toward its true identity would be to move past the mushroom resemblance (fossilized fungus are exceedingly rare and don't look like what you'd expect--you can do an internet search for "fossilized mushroom" and see that this is true). The second step would be to decide if it might be bone or is simply a bone-shaped rock. That would be done by looking more closely at the texture. If found to have the texture of bone, then the third step would be to consider the geology of the area in which it was found. Some areas don't have exposures of fossil-bearing rocks or the fossil exposures are wrong for this type of fossil. In the Midwest for example many of the fossil exposures are 300-400 million years old and contain mainly marine organisms or plants (too old for bones of land animals).

 

Identifying prospective fossils is a process which requires testing various hypotheses and a bit of knowledge on what is possible. We've got a lot of combined knowledge here on the forum (having seen and found countless fossils--and non-fossils ). This forum is a great way to learn about fossils so you've come to the right place--welcome!

 

Let us know more about the size and what you find by looking more closely at the texture. It can be difficult to get good close-up photos but if you can manage that send along any images that might indicate a bone-like texture.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken