My adventures in bison prep

[KimTexan]

1 hour ago, jpc said:

We all hit the Fossil Forum with our personal biases and filters as well.  I skipped this one for too long cause I saw it was a but bison....But hey, there has been some great discussions in here.  

 

Kim, a good way to dissolve plastic beads of whatever type is to hang them in a little cheesecloth baggie tied with a string and then hang the string over the edge of the jar with acetone in it,  such that it gets pinched between the jar and the lid.  If it is hanging oyu get acetone flowing from all dorections and you can hudge it along wth a little shaking occasionally.  But best is the magnetic stirrer.    

Thank you.

I have seen that method for dissolving it in the American Museum of Natural History paleo protocols.

The Paraloid B72 I purchased had the method for dissolving like that inserted inside the package with it.

[KimTexan]

5 hours ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

We all hit the field with our personal filters and biases in place.  I happen to have a strong bias against loading my house and barn with cow bones.  Bison of any age is welcome; cow is not, so I approach all bovids with heightened skepticism (same with horse and turtle), since they are both common and easily confused unless preservation provides unequivocal basis for “age discrimination”.  Often there is no smoking gun, and that’s where my bias steps in.  I hope to mistakenly leave more Bison bones in the field than cow bones misidentified and mistakenly retained.  And I prefer my Titanus walleri eggs scrambled.

So you’ve mentioned the Titanus walleri a couple times. Have you ever found any of their remains/fossils? If so that would be an impressive find.

 

Not that they are fossils, but when I was in New Zealand I visit the Auckland Museum, which had a splendid collection. I remember coming around a corner and almost walking past a display. I’d been seeing Maori sticks and such and thought it was another. I was looking at the bottom near the floor. I began moving my eyes upward. When I realized what it was I was in shock. It was a skeleton of a 12 foot tall Moa. I had no clue any bird was ever that tall. Those would have been some big eggs. It made quite an impression upon me. I’m still kind of blown away by how enormous that bird was. 

 

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Nope.

 

[KimTexan]

8 minutes ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

Nope.

 

I had to ask.

[KimTexan]

Last night I got the itch to unwrap the other part of the skull. I had hadto love it for some reason and was shocked by how very heavy it was. That told me the dirt was still holding moisture. That was encouraging to me. I had imagined that it had completely dried out and now I’d have a huge ugly task on my hands of removing hard heavy dirt. But it wasn’t hard and dry like I’d anticipated. So I unwrapped the foil and peaked inside.

As I unwrapped it I saw the ends of 2 of the thoracic vertebrae. I knew they were in there. It was reassuring to see them.

 

I picked one of the thoracic spinous processes up and noted an incisors tooth fixed to it by the dirt.

 

You can see the imprint of the spinous processes here.

 

Here is what it looked like. It it inverted. The bottom edge of the left mandible is along the top of the picture. The teeth you see are from the upper jaw. The nose is to the right and the back side is on the left.

 

This side was facing downwards, in the dirt.

Unfortunately the premaxila of the left mandible was broken off. Two good things though, the premaxila was present and a fe of the  incisor teeth were present in the area. The incisors seem to have no root to speak of like the molars do, so there is less to hold them in the jaw. Plus the socks on the premaxila are relatively shallow. Both factors would seem to contribute to the easy loss of the incisors as compared to the molars.

Also, I am not seeing the zygomatic arch or the supraorbital process. Those are the bones around the eye socket. Maybe it’s under the dirt.

 

Oops, I’m so tired that my mental sharpness is slipping . I’ve had an exhausting week. The zygomatic arch and the supraorbital process would be on the other part of the skull.

[KimTexan]

I got a lot of dirt removed. I’m saving the dirt in a gallon ziplock in case there are bone fragments I missed or there are microscopic components which may be helpful for more accurate dating and to help provide a better grasp of the fauna existent in the ecosystem at the time of the bison’s death.

I keep finding a variety of very small gastropods in the dirt directly associated with the skull. This is one of them. It isn’t the best picture, but you get the general idea that it isn’t a flat gastropod.

 

Top down view. The snails head would have come out this end. The whole thing is probably less than 5 mm long. I found numerous other gastropods, but only one of these.

 

Side view.

 

I got more dirt removed than this, but I forgot to take a pic. You can see the premaxila is broken off. Also of note, the first premolar tooth is missing. The loss seemed pathological rather than lost over time.

[Notidanodon]

any updates