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I found this a few days ago along the Virginia side of the Potomac River along a miocene cliff. It's mostly if not all Choptank formation. Any ideas about a genus? Grid is in inches. Looks like maybe mature dolphin tailbone, but it's so small???

 

IMG_1296.jpg.f6e69171138effdf5a0d164a3c9fad90.jpgIMG_1297.jpg.7001877c425d63bbb4d48983ea3f066f.jpg

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I refuse to give up my childish wonder at the world.

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6 minutes ago, caldigger said:

Dolphins aren't born adult sized!

Could be a juvenile.

 

At first I did think juvenile, but the ends look like the epiphysis has separated from the vert, which I though indicated an adult.

I refuse to give up my childish wonder at the world.

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Just a question out of curiosity. 
I always wanted to collect dolphin / whale vertebrates but it is illegal in most

of the USA to collect anything with Vertebrates and punishable heavily (like thousands of dollars and jail time)
How did you do it? Did you get special permission for scientific purposes? 

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16 minutes ago, Zenmaster6 said:

Just a question out of curiosity. 
I always wanted to collect dolphin / whale vertebrates but it is illegal in most

of the USA to collect anything with Vertebrates and punishable heavily (like thousands of dollars and jail time)
How did you do it? Did you get special permission for scientific purposes? 

 

You want cetacean bones? Come east! Or, I'm happy to trade some of my bits and pieces for something cool from the west coast. Not only is it not illegal to collect vertebrates from the Calvert group in Maryland and Virginia, it doesn't even require a permit. In fact, cetacean, dugong, and shark bones are so common, at least in pieces, that the local museums really aren't interested unless you find evidence of the rest of the skeleton somewhere so they can collect the whole animal. They are here one day and washed out into the bay the next -- quite literally -- and the cliffs are so unstable that they have landslides almost weekly under the right weather conditions. So, there is no way to leave them insitu for the rest of the world to see like locales inland. The bones fall out of the cliffs and are washed ashore from further up all along the banks of Calvert County, Maryland and Westmoreland County, VA. They are usually in broken, unidentifiable pieces, except for the shark vertebrae. I am lucky enough to have found maybe half a dozen identifiable cetacean vertebrae, dozens of shark vertebrae and myriad other bones over the years. Heck, I even have a peccary bone that  was identified for me by the Calvert Marine Museum and I kept it with their blessing. I've gone out that way on average twice a year for the last dozen years. This time it was actually with guides from a museum supervising. They congratulated me and went back to their supervising on the beach.

 

 

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I refuse to give up my childish wonder at the world.

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1 hour ago, I_gotta_rock said:

I found this a few days ago along the Virginia side of the Potomac River along a miocene cliff. It's mostly if not all Choptank formation. Any ideas about a genus? Grid is in inches. Looks like maybe mature dolphin tailbone, but it's so small???

 

Hey @I_gotta_rock

 

I'm the 1 who gave the safety briefing Sat. morning.

 

The stratigraphy of the cliffs is Calvert, Choptank, St. Mary's, and Eastover with some Bacon's Castle (Pleistocene) at the top.

 

My understanding is the epiphysis fuses to the bones as the animal gets older. (From Google Dictionary: 1the end part of a long bone, initially growing separately from the shaft.)

 

Cheers,

Jack

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Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about science books.........

Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World

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8 minutes ago, SailingAlongToo said:

 

Hey @I_gotta_rock

 

I'm the 1 who gave the safety briefing Sat. morning.

 

The stratigraphy of the cliffs is Calvert, Choptank, St. Mary's, and Eastover with some Bacon's Castle (Pleistocene) at the top.

 

My understanding is the epiphysis fuses to the bones as the animal gets older. (From Google Dictionary: 1the end part of a long bone, initially growing separately from the shaft.)

 

Cheers,

Jack

 

Thanks, Jack! I wondered about that at the time. It seemed kind of backwards. Also makes more sense why the whale vertebra I found that day that looks arthritic also has a smooth end surface. So, yeah, probably a little baby dolphin, then.

 

Cheers,

Heather

I refuse to give up my childish wonder at the world.

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3 hours ago, I_gotta_rock said:

 

You want cetacean bones? Come east! Or, I'm happy to trade some of my bits and pieces for something cool from the west coast. Not only is it not illegal to collect vertebrates from the Calvert group in Maryland and Virginia, it doesn't even require a permit. In fact, cetacean, dugong, and shark bones are so common, at least in pieces, that the local museums really aren't interested unless you find evidence of the rest of the skeleton somewhere so they can collect the whole animal. They are here one day and washed out into the bay the next -- quite literally -- and the cliffs are so unstable that they have landslides almost weekly under the right weather conditions. So, there is no way to leave them insitu for the rest of the world to see like locales inland. The bones fall out of the cliffs and are washed ashore from further up all along the banks of Calvert County, Maryland and Westmoreland County, VA. They are usually in broken, unidentifiable pieces, except for the shark vertebrae. I am lucky enough to have found maybe half a dozen identifiable cetacean vertebrae, dozens of shark vertebrae and myriad other bones over the years. Heck, I even have a peccary bone that  was identified for me by the Calvert Marine Museum and I kept it with their blessing. I've gone out that way on average twice a year for the last dozen years. This time it was actually with guides from a museum supervising. They congratulated me and went back to their supervising on the beach.

 

 

that sounds amazing. I wish my state was more lenient. Id be interested in seeing your selection

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21 hours ago, Zenmaster6 said:

that sounds amazing. I wish my state was more lenient. Id be interested in seeing your selection

Send me a PM. I don't have much at the moment because we had a big fossil bone sherd giveaway at school for National Fossil day, but I have the cetacean version of chunosarus and some shark verts.

I refuse to give up my childish wonder at the world.

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