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Florida Cave Bear or Bison Toe Bone?


Bronzviking

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Good evening fossil folks, I found a small bone on a Tampa Bay beach on the west coast of Florida. After doing some research I saw similarities to a cave bear toe bone and/or bison. It's approximately 1" x 3/4" and very worn with a baseline crack. I have 7 photos of different angles.

Can you ID? Thanks all!

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I'm not so good on bones, but it looks like the medial phalange of a modern bovid to me, probably cow. 

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Just my personal observation but isn't Florida relatively flat to have much in the way of caves?

I would lean more toward the Bovid side of the question.

 

 

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I have been told that cave bears lived in eurasia not america.

Did You mean sloth?

Either way, it does look modern, so I'll go with bovid.

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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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1 hour ago, caldigger said:

Just my personal observation but isn't Florida relatively flat to have much in the way of caves?

I would lean more toward the Bovid side of the question.

There are many caverns in Florida today. The splendid mineral silhouettes inside the Florida Caverns did not form over a matter of years, decades, or even centuries. Rather, they are the result of 38 million years of falling sea-levels, which left previously submerged shells, coral, and sediment in the open air to harden into limestone.

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1 hour ago, ynot said:

I have been told that cave bears lived in eurasia not america.

Did You mean sloth?

Either way, it does look modern, so I'll go with bovid.

I was referring to bear not sloth. Yes Ursus entered North America from Eurasia in the Pliocene and survive to the present.

The Tremarctos floridanus, occasionally called the Florida spectacled bear, Florida cave bear, or rarely Florida short-faced bear, is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. T. floridanus was endemic to North America from the Pliocene to the end of the Pleistocene epoch (4.9 million–12,000 years ago), existing for approximately 4.9 million years.

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Here are some pics I found for comparison. I like the sloth comment @ynot made and found similar images. Which one do you think resembles mine? Can the Florida bone guys shed some light please?  @Harry Pristis @PrehistoricFlorida

  1. Cave bear phalange
  2. Sloth vs Bison (Harry Pristis photo library)
  3. Sloth Claw with knuckle

Fossil-Cave-Bear-phalange-foot-hand-bone-European.jpg

bison.sloth_phalanges.JPG

Sloth Claw with Knuckles  Paramylodon harlani Pleistocene north FL.jpg

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23 minutes ago, Harry Pristis said:

 

My best guess is an extremely worn medial phalanx from a young cow.

 

 

 

 

bovidtoebones.JPG

Thanks Harry! So since cattle are not native to Florida and were brought over by the Spaniards in the 1500's, I guess it's safe to say this is a modern bone.

Edited by Bronzviking
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Case solved; but you must admit the Cave bear theory was exciting though, Lol. Thanks everyone!

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