Oligocene insectivore

[ParkerPaleo]

The garage was a bit chilly to work in today so I decide to work in the office at my scope a bit instead.

 

I'd like to be able to identify this piece (Peratherium, Centetodon?) but I'm struggling with all the post cranial elements covering the teeth.  Any suggestions from the perpetrator community for how to proceed?

 

 

[ParkerPaleo]

Here is a close up of the issue after a bit more work.

[Nimravis]

Nice work. BTW, is this Gil?

[ParkerPaleo]

54 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

Nice work. BTW, is this Gil?

It's Tim, I don't know if dad is aware of this site yet.

[Nimravis]

56 minutes ago, ParkerPaleo said:

It's Tim, I don't know if dad is aware of this site yet.

Ok- I know your dad from several trips to the MAPS Show and I believe I met you several years ago when it was held in Macomb, Illinois. I use to buy micro stuff and other Oligocene stuff. Good to see you on the Forum, you will enjoy it here.

[ParkerPaleo]

1 minute ago, Nimravis said:

Ok- I know your dad from several trips to the MAPS Show and I believe I met you several years ago when it was held in Macomb, Illinois. I use to buy micro stuff and other Oligocene stuff. Good to see you on the Forum, you will enjoy it here.

Kids and a career interrupted my MAPS attendance the last several years.  We probably met in Macomb, used to go every year.  I'm hoping to begin showing up here and there going forward.  Micro is definitely the way I like to collect, who wants to be stuck in a quarry for a few months digging a single skeleton when you can walk out of the badlands with a pocket full of skulls.

[jpc]

1 hour ago, ParkerPaleo said:

It's Tim, I don't know if dad is aware of this site yet.

Dang... I totally failed to put Paleo and Parker and KS together.  Hi Tim. 

I would take this to the hospital there and have them CT scan it.  They will love it.  If there are no bones on the other side of the skull, prep it around the top of the skull to the other side of the toothy grin and you will end up with a nicely prepped piece that stands up on a small rock with the skull on top and some post-cranials in the base.  

I personally have never Ided one to the genus.  I am generally satisfied with 'marsupial, but I am lazy.

[ParkerPaleo]

2 minutes ago, jpc said:

Dang... I totally failed to put Paleo and Parker and KS together.  Hi Tim. 

I would take this to the hospital there and have them CT scan it.  They will love it.  If there are no bones on the other side of the skull, prep it around the top of the skull to the other side of the toothy grin and you will end up with a nicely prepped piece that stands up on a small rock with the skull on top and some post-cranials in the base.  

I personally have never Ided one to the genus.  I am generally satisfied with 'marsupial, but I am lazy.

As far as I am aware, there are only two marsupials.  Peratherium and Nanodelphys.  There is a derth of insectivores though (Centetodon, Ankylodon, Trimylus, Domnina, Proscalops, Leptictis, etc.)  I haven't seen enough complete skulls to know the difference in any of there other than Leptictis and Ankylodon, it just looks unique.  I still need to look at teeth to know what is what.  I'll see if I can befriend someone at the hospital.  Thanks for the advice, just getting back into preparing regularly.

 

Do you know if anyone ever finished the revision of Leptictis?  Larry Martin had a really interesting collection of them before he passed away but I'm fairly certain he never published them.  Suspicion was it was far more diverse than previously described.

[Ptychodus04]

13 hours ago, ParkerPaleo said:

the perpetrator community

Never a more fitting autocorrect!  Welcome.

[RJB]

  Cool little skull.   what about using an air abraider with a soft media and very low pressure?   Good luck, I like JP's idea too.

 

RB

[ParkerPaleo]

23 minutes ago, RJB said:

  Cool little skull.   what about using an air abraider with a soft media and very low pressure?   Good luck, I like JP's idea too.

 

RB

Certainly an option.  I am still setting up my abrasive system though, need to assemble my dust collector still.  I was hoping for some nice calm pin and needle work and chose the wrong specimen.  

 

Has anyone tried a cyclone dust separator?  The videos I have seen work great for saw dust but before I invest, I’d like to be sure it will handle the small particulates from an abrasive unit. 

[Ptychodus04]

Have you thought about scribing the matrix as close as possible and removing the interfering post-cranial material? Do you have a pneumatic scribe small enough?

 

I’ve not used a cyclone collector but I have tried a shop vac with a water trap. The shop vac was very noisy (around 90dB) and was always trying to suck the water out of the trap. I switched to a small woodworking dust collector with a 2 micron bag. I still run it through the trap but I leave the trap dry (read too lazy to keep filling it) to catch larger debris and the bag catches the fines.

[ParkerPaleo]

I spoke to an engineer at Oneida Air Systems yesterday.  He claims using a two cyclones staged one after the other will remove ~99% of the dust.  I'm going to buy one and see what it gets me, if the dust is still too much going to the bag, then I'll get another.  I am using a 4" system so a bit larger than a shop vac.  I'm also considering piping the output external to the garage.  I'd have some dust still, but it wouldn't be in the working area.  Neighbors may begin to hate me too.   

 

It may just be the way I was trained, but I didn't want to remove anything until I knew it wasn't described/known.  The problem with the White River micro fauna is almost all of it is described by teeth only or just a skull.  Very little skeletal material is described.  I know that has been changing over the past decade or two but its an area that needs study still.

[Ptychodus04]

On 11/2/2019 at 9:52 AM, ParkerPaleo said:

 

It may just be the way I was trained, but I didn't want to remove anything until I knew it wasn't described/known.  The problem with the White River micro fauna is almost all of it is described by teeth only or just a skull.  Very little skeletal material is described. 

I wasn’t implying that you would destroy the post cranial material, only remove it from on top of the skull if possible.

[ParkerPaleo]

Ah gotcha. I think I’m going to come from the backside.  Even without a CT scan. If there are bones on other side of skull, I’ll look at removing some from the block.