A toothy day on the Peace River

[digit]

Since the weather is (finally) behaving and the Peace River water level has now stabilized at a depth where South Florida fossil hunters can get in and get their hunt on, Tammy and I found a free day in our busy schedule and planned a day trip to Arcadia to try our luck on the Peace River again. If we do not drive over and spend the night in a local hotel, hunting on the Peace River involves an early morning wake-up call at the painfully early hour of 3:00 AM. We're all packed up and leaving the house at just around 4:00 AM with a long quiet drive through mostly empty highways--up the Florida Turnpike to the aptly named Beeline Hwy which makes a beeline straight northwest for the town of Okeechobee at the northern tip of Lake Okeechobee (the large lake that looks like it was hole punched out of the map of Florida). A stop for something approximating breakfast at the 24-hour Micky D's in Okeechobee (bring a jacket if you go because the AC is set for 60F ) and then it's a straight show west on State Road 70 into Arcadia. When we arrive we make a quick stop for a bag of ice for our cooler and a few snacks for the day. Then we roll into Canoe Outpost to fill out our paperwork and wait for the bus to take us to the put-in location.

 

As we had a free day to make this trip on a Tuesday, Canoe Outpost is far from busy--in fact we are the only ones there save two employees who had to come in early to tend to our canoe rental needs. Today's hunting area of choice is on the lower half of the normal full-day rental. Usually, we put in at Brownville Park some 8.5 miles upstream of the Canoe Outpost dock and we stop at various locations along the way. We wanted to focus on some spots downstream from their half-day put-in location at the primitive campground area that is owned by Canoe Outpost (called Oak Hill). We've wanted to get dropped off here on some weekends when we only wanted to hunt along the lower 4 miles of the river above Arcadia but usually they have others going to Brownville on the 8:00 AM run and we just end up getting put-in there. We spend the first hour paddling the 4.5 miles down to the half-day put-in. This time we were lucky--nobody else was signed-up to go out at 8:00 AM so they were accommodating enough to put us in at the halfway point and save us an hour of paddling. We enjoy the peaceful paddling down the river looking for birds and spotting gators along the banks but the thought of saving an hour of paddle time was too good to pass up--more time for sifting.

 

We made it down to the spot where we had found some nice armadillo bits two weeks before--a tooth and an astragalus from Holmesina septentrionalis a two meter beastie clocking in at around 250 kg. According to Dr. Hulbert specimens from this species are pretty rare in South Florida and the astragalus that we found last trip is earmarked for the FLMNH next time we are in Gainesville as the museum does not have any specimens of this bone from this species in its collection. We were hoping to possibly find some additional Holmesina bits though that was a long shot at best. We poked around the site chasing down areas with nice chunky gravel hoping to find some nice items and though we struck out extending our Holmesina finds we did come across a few nice items.

 

On only the first handful of screens, a familiar triangular shape appeared in the sifting screen. Though the root was a bit dinged, this meg tooth that topped out at just about 3 inches is just shy of the 3.25 inch size that most teeth seem to max out at in the Peace River. A little while later a beautifully shaped smaller meg (just under 2 inches) turned up in the sifting screen. Here are some in situ (well, in sifter anyway) images of those teeth at the moment they revealed themselves.

 

    

 

 

    

 

    

 

A little while later (after many smaller shark teeth and broken megs--fraglodons) we turned up one of the larger Carcharhinus teeth I've seen come from the Peace River. It was a nice surprise to see such a large example of a requiem shark tooth.

 

    

 

No more interesting shark teeth turned up though we did find quite a number of the normal nickel and dime (size) teeth which will end up in an ever growing jar of teeth on display in the family room. Two other novelties helped to make the day a successful hunt in the record books. I turned up a tiny unerupted tooth that I believe to be tapir peccary though I've never seen one with six cusps (two small ones off one side). EDIT: Fixed ID, see below. As with many of these teeth the hollow nature of the tooth and fragile roots mean that usually only the enamel crown are recovered--at least this pretty little thing is solidly in one piece. The other tooth is a bit of a mystery. I'm sure @Harry Pristis will likely recognize this as it looks reasonably distinctive. The tooth looks like it has a complete crown (no parts missing) but it only has a trace of the roots left. Looking at the photos I can see that there are cracks forming on this tooth and it looks like it is ready to disarticulate into a puzzle of pieces. I think I'll be attempting to consolidate this item a bit with some B72.

 

    

 

    

 

There is less than a month to go before the official start of rainy/hurricane season in June. Hoping to find some time in my schedule to make it back out to the river a few more times. It's been an extremely shortened season this year but the few finds we have been able to make have been enjoyable.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Darktooth]

Great report Ken! The smaller meg is really nice. Good to see that you and Tammy were able to get out and have some fun.

[Heteromorph]

Lovely finds! Your reports are always a good read with some eye candy in between. Never been to Florida myself but would definitely make a visit to the Peace if I could.

[Harry Pristis]

 

It's bison, Ken.

 

 

[digit]

7 minutes ago, Heteromorph said:

our reports are always a good read with some eye candy in between.

That's pretty much what I shoot for.

 

8 minutes ago, Heteromorph said:

Never been to Florida myself but would definitely make a visit to the Peace if I could.

Our fossil hunting season is much the same as the outback of Texas--winter through spring. In Texas is it so you don't spontaneously combust in the arid heat--in Florida it is because our rivers are only accessible in the "dry season" (that is when our weather is normal enough to have an actual dry season). If your plans find yourself in the South FLorida area during the cooler drier months, I hope you'll let your plans be known here so the South Florida TFF members can organize a fossil hunting trip for you. We enjoy sharing our fossil bounty.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[digit]

2 minutes ago, Harry Pristis said:

It's bison, Ken.

 

Wow! You could knock me down with a feather! I might have suspected something like a camelid premolar or some other tooth position of a smaller mammal--bison was not even on my radar screen. Very cool--I'd never have guessed. Thanks--that made my day.

 

I'm assuming the little 6-cusped molar is just a small unerupted molar with a few bonus cusps I'm not used to seeing.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[HisNHersDig]

Great job bud very very nice megs. Don't think ill ever find one complete lol.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice finds and a very enjoyable report. 

Thank you. 

[Gizmo]

Very nice, congrats! 

[Nimravis]

Great trip report and finds.

[digit]

1 hour ago, HisNHersDig said:

Don't think ill ever find one complete lol.

Enjoy your hunt for your first complete meg. It won't be long (with adequate hunting effort) before you pull a beauty of a complete one out of your sifting screen. Once you are in the "meg club" your attentions will drift on to other items you have not yet found. The megs were a nice addition to the day's find and the little one has a really beautiful curve to it. Still, my trip maker for that day was the bison premolar as it is a novelty.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Monica]

Beautiful meg teeth, Ken - WOW!!!

[Plantguy]

Pretty nice finds Ken! 

Congrats. 

Regards, Chris 

[digit]

Just looked through the rest of the take for the day. We had a good day for gator teeth with 7 of all different sizes and shapes. Several horse tooth shards but only one in decent shape. I've got a few other mystery bones as well that I'm hoping Dr. Hulbert will comment on soon.

 

The weather (and water temp) were both gloriously warm and it was not like some past times cold and numb in January/February--even in chest waders. Hunted one spot for a while where there was a 7 foot gator hanging at the surface but it kept to the opposite bank of the river and didn't seem to pay me much mind. I was a lot happier when it came back up to the surface after submerging for a spell--it was good to know it was staying put.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[jcbshark]

Great finds guys, that smaller meg is sweeeet  

[digit]

Heard back from Dr. Hulbert on a few other of my unknowns. One turned out to be a partial scapula of a juvenile tortoise which makes sense it retrospect. The other was a rather globular item that likely would have been tossed back into the river except for the three facets on one side where it connected to other bones. I was assuming this might be another of those odd bones in one of the limb joints but I was way off (not entirely surprising). Turns out that piece is a partial whale bulla. This spot has given up close to a hundred cetacean tympanic bullae combined over previous visits. Mostly they have that distinctive rounded appearance that is somewhat reminiscent of the shape of a human outer ear (makes them easy to remember what they are).

 

The little molar cap with the 6 cusps (including the 2 little ones) looked odd to me. I assumed it was tapir as these are not highly uncommon and mostly come as rootless crowns (the teeth being usually hollow when fossilized). I can now see why this "square" tooth was not fitting into my "round" hole of a concept of tapir teeth--because it isn't! I like fossil finds that come with a little learning lesson attached. It turns out my odd little tooth is something novel for me (always a good thing)--it has been identified as a lower third molar of the peccary Platygonus. I should have taken the time to page through my The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida book:

 

Two genera of peccaries are recognized in the late Pliocene and Pleistocene of Florida: Platygonus and, continuing from the early Pliocene, Mylohyus.

They are readily distinguished by the structure of their cheek teeth (figs. 13.10, 13.11). The molars of Platygonus are bilophodont, whereas those of

Mylohyus are bunodont (with four main cusps and several accessory cuspules). Both upper and lower molars show these differences. The lower

premolars of Platygonus have long, narrow proportions and "stair-stepped" cusps (the front cusp being higher than the back).
In Mylohyus, the lower premolars are nearly square and have low, flat crowns.

 

    

 

It is quite obvious looking at better photos of the occlusal surface of this tooth that it is very pig-like. Perhaps, if I had put on my reading glasses when looking at this tooth--or taken better photos earlier, I'd have noticed this resemblance earlier and been thinking peccary instead of tapir. I've got quite a few tapir crowns (and a few with partial roots) but I believe this is probably my first peccary! Nothing better than finding a type of fossil that is new to you and getting a bonus lesson along the way.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Harry Pristis]

 

Here is Mylohyus for comparison:

 

 

[digit]

Ah, yes--quite different even with the significant wear. Thanks for posting.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken