Spikes or Scutes

[LBI]

Found several, 25-30 of these yesterday. Seem more like spikes to me. Can anyone confirm if they are from an Ankylosaur?

[LBI]

[LBI]

[Troodon]

Sorry but they look to be geologic in orgin

[LBI]

Hmmm. That’s odd, because I found them along with about 30 or so JUST like them. 

[JarrodB]

Sorry I'm not seeing any fossils.

[JohnJ]

Agree that these are local stone fragments.  I am assuming you found these in the Bandera, TX area.  Look closely at all sides of the rock using magnification.  It's likely that you will see shell fragments in various states of cross section.

[digit]

1 hour ago, LBI said:

That’s odd, because I found them along with about 30 or so JUST like them. 

Nothing quite odd about that. It is often the case that similar size chunks of the same kind of rock can be found buried together in a relatively close association. Some time back we had a new member post hundreds of rounded rocks he had found while digging in an area. He was convinced that their similar form indicated they were an odd clustering of fossils. The truth was that these were clearly rocks that had been river-tumbled into smoothed rounded shapes. There was a modern day river not far from the location where he had found his hoard of stones. You could see from satellite imagery that the river's bank had shifted around quite a bit over the years with old tracks and oxbow lakes showing the older river course. The more reasonable opinion was that where he dug was the former bank of this winding river and the stones were all deposited in association by the hydrological forces of the river's flow. I suspect there is a geological reason (can't make any guesses without knowing more about the local geology) that would explain why you are finding a large number of these in a limited area.

 

Armored plates from an Ankylosaurus would have a distinctive bony texture to them which your items to not show. Most (but no all) dinosaur bones tend to be found in a much harder stony matrix that indicates an area of mineralization that was necessary for the bones to become mineralized. You see this often where specimens are plaster jacketed and slowly uncovered by tedious preparation in removing the hardened matrix. If you dug your stones from a softer sandy soil that is likely another indication to indicate that this is not an association of dinosaur bones. John is correct that you may find shell bits in these rocks if you look closely and that would be a clear indication that they may contain fossils but are not fossilized dinosaur bone.

 

Texas has a great deal of fossils and you can learn a lot about them from this forum. If you are interested in fossils, keep searching (and reading) and you'll soon find some real fossils.

 

Here's what Ankylosaurus armor plates actually look like:

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Armor-plates-of-Ankylosaurus-magniventris-associated-with-the-holotype-of-Dynamosaurus_fig15_237169223

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken