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Possible ear bone maybe ? Very light weight

Found in Desoto County FL, in the Peace River. Just started fossiling and I'm high-key worried I may have just found a cool rock and not a fossil, haha. Help would be appreciated. Took the photos next to a pen for size and tried to get as crisp and well lit a photo as I could. Thanks in advance!

Anyone know what this is from? Found in the peace river in arcadia fl.

Found this last weekend while hunting in Horse Creek. Looks like a claw from? Have not seen anything like it before. Not anything recent, definitely fossil. Thanks

Florida, Peace River. Arcadia LINK

Recently found, very small, roughly 1.5 inches. Any ideas? Doesn't look like feline or canine. Thanks

Found a large chunk of bone while fossil hunting in Florida earlier this month. Found in a tributary to the Peace River near Arcadia. Not sure there is enough left to get a useful identification, but figured I would post and see how it goes. The chunk is roughly 5 x 4 x 2.5 inches, the grid underneath is quarter inch squares.

Finally managed to get out for a few hours when I visited Florida earlier this month. Walked in to a Peace river tributary where I got to spend a few hours shifting gravel while keeping an eye on the local wildlife. Was interesting how different the finds were when compared to the previous site which was about 25 miles further north. Nothing overly special, but was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Found a lot of bone fragments this trip, but no dugong which surprised me after my first experience. There were also fewer shark teeth this time around. Not sure what the big bone chunk in the upper left is from as there is very little of the surface left, but the fragment is 4 x 5 x 2.5 inches

Hello I am setting a 4 day trip to Florida with my son to find Shark Teeth and bone mid March. He is a teenager and experienced; we did a Summer trip to Summerville, SC. We hear rains have Florida rivers and streams fairly high right now? We have never hunted for fossils in Florida; but are looking to areas along the Peace River and researched Arcadia may be a good central location? We are thinking of doing: * Day 1 - Excursion with a guide (allows us to familiarize us with the area; dos and don'ts) * Day 2 - Hit Peace River (I have some general ideas of locations, but could use help) * Day 3 - Try some adjacent Rivers (I have some general ideas of locations, but could use help) * Day 4 - Either repeat above if we have success, or try Casperson beach in Venice Any insights/guidance would be fantastic. Thank you! Ken

Is this possibly a Sloth tooth? I believe I read somewhere, they don't have enamel ? IIRC? This seems to have enamel and I pretty sure it is a tooth, any input is appreciated, thanks!

I live in Arcadia Fl and have much time to dig in the peace river. I have a pretty extensive collection of great fossils. My favorites are mammal teeth and large verts. Still after that giant meg. As a Fl resident (and native) I find it hard to get excited about marine fossils, every roadbed is loaded with them, literally made of them. I suppose if I lived in Nebraska, I would feel differently. Any other FL members, feel this way? I am sure I am selling myself short and missing some fascinating paleontology, cant help it, the peace river is 8 blocks away.

Hope these pics came out OK. I think this may be the inner ear bone (bulea?) of a whale? Found in the peace river, I don't think the dime made it in the pic. It is very dense and fills the palm of the hand, I bet it weighs, 3 ounces.

I was rearranging some fossils and came across a couple boxes of Florida fossil shells that I collected about 10 years ago from a shell pit near Arcadia, Florida. These shells I believe came out of the Caloosahatchee Formation. I was recently told that the owner of this pit had passed away and that access to this pit is no longer available. At the time of my visit, it was with a "paid guide" that got me and about 10 other people in. While they waded to a small island that was in the pit looking for meg teeth, I went for the guaranteed find- shells. I will have to work on ID's at a later point, but wanted to show the size and diversity of the larger, interesting shells that I found.

A week or so back I posted a few shells I had found in a shell pile above Arcadia Florida. In the intervening time, Hurricane Irma chased me from Sanibel to Ormond on the Atlantic Ocean. I drove back today, constantly looking for gas and coming down Route 17 which was hard hit by the hurricane (washed out roads, trees, power lines, telephone lines down). I paused at one of my favorite Peace River launch sites: Heard Bridge. For anyone who has been there , these two photos are almost unbelievable. It is normally 30 feet between the bottom of the bridge to the river; The parking area normally handles 15 cars, is completely inundated. Because I am an addicted fossil hound, I stopped at the shell pile in Arcadia. These last few photos.. Is this the seashell or an endocast? In either case, please help ID the shell.

Found in the Peace River, Arcadia, FL! Who did I belong too?

Found in Arcadia FL area. Suspect carnivor incisor very "beefy" root. Possible canine/ feline ?

Question, I have been digging ALOT in the peace river in Arcadia this year, not one dugong rib. Yet I can head north 7 miles or so to Brownville and find at least 5 a day. Why do yall think this is? Thanks.

Just a few pics of my peace river finds.

I live in arcadia fl. I have been noticing a good size group digging south of HWY 70 bridge on the peace river. I went and talked to em several days about finds. Today I talked to a nice fella, conversation turned to a book I own "fossiling in Fl. A guide for diggers and divers" He asked me how I liked it? I said it was a good book! He goes in his truck and produces a book, he shows me a picture and asks if it looks familiar? I sais that is you! Yep, Mark Renz in the flesh! A small world! He gave me 2 books of his, Giants in the storm and Desert sharks. His wife Marissa is a true artist! She painted the cover of Giants in the storm and did 99% of the illustrations in the same book! I have talked to him several times and had no idea! He is a very generous, and humble man! I feel honored to have met him! If you need a guide on the peace, I highly recommend Mr. Renz!

Can someone help me identify this "claw looking" fossil I found yesterday at Peace River in Arcadia, Florida. Many thanks!

Hello forum, new member who lives in Arcadia Fl. Went out today for a while on the peace, a very nice hemi, colorful. Two nice small (medicine?)bottles. Two, half, nice glyptodons. A decent mako, lots of odds n ends. Was getting ready to leave, the "one more scoop" bug, hit me. Glad it did, (I use a home, welded, 1/4 inch, steel, triangle rake/basket. I shake the scoop, up pops a vert of very good size. Weight of about 4 or 5 ounces, big around as a mountain bike tire, at least two inches tall. On a good note, the recent storm, at this point, only bought the river up about 3 or 4 inches, here, according to a marker under 70 bridge. Will be out again tomorrow. Treasure awaits ! Happy Hunting, yall !

Hello forum, I have lived in Arcadia for 6 years. I just started collecting fossils a few months ago. I shoulda been doing it all along. For a nOOb, I have a pretty large collection already, I have had some time off work recently and have been digging pretty much everyday for months, it takes me twenty minutes to reach the river. Glad to be a part of this forum. I have been lurking here for a while and learned the identity of a lot of my pieces. Hopefully, I will figure out how to photo my collection with my phone and upload them.

Hi. I am new to fossil hunting and barely even have a beginner's knowledge at this point. I found this when I was sifting in some gravel on the shore of the Peace River in Arcadia, FL. I have been looking online for two days trying to figure it out but to no avail. I can't even find anything similar. I believe it is a claw attached to the limb of whatever creature this came from. My only other thought is tooth attached to a very large root....like I said I don't have enough knowledge at this point to be able to properly deduce, but the part at the end definitely looks to be a claw or tooth in my extremely limited opinion. I imagine, since I couldn't find anything similar in all my searches of Peace River teeth and claws, that it is probably just a modern find. I figured it was worth a shot. It's definitely interesting looking to a beginner like myself. :-) Thank you in advance for your help!

With one last check of the river gauges to verify water level, we set the alarm clock for 3:30am and were rolling down my driveway before 4:00am with the truck packed with gear for our first trip out to the Peace River this season. When we left Boca Raton the thermometer in the car registered a balmy 73F (23C) which isn't too bad for the overnight low in the middle of the night. I chose the route up the Florida Turnpike to the aptly named Beeline Hwy which is a laser straight route through Indiantown and into Okeechobee sitting at the northern tip of Lake Okeechobee which it borders. The Mickey D's there is open 24 hours and so makes a good stop for a quick breakfast and caffeine bump at the halfway point of the trip at around 5:30am. This allows us to pull into the parking lot at Canoe Outpost in Arcadia a little before 7:30am in order to fill out paperwork and pay for our canoe rental so we can be on the 8am bus with all our gear headed for the put in at the boat ramp in Brownville Park some 8.5 miles up the river. I had been watching the thermometer in the car drop as I left the relative warmth of the southeast coast of Florida and headed inland. I suspect both the moderating warmth of the Gulf Stream waters just off shore and the denser population with more thermal mass of concrete and asphalt was likely responsible for those balmy temps at the start of the trip as I watched the temperature slowly rachet down as it dropped into the 60's and then bottomed out at 54F (12C) on Route 70 between Okeechobee and Arcadia. The forecast in Arcadia that afternoon was for 79F (26F) so I knew it would turn out to be a pleasant day if I could only survive the morning. There was some confusion rounding up another group going to Brownville that morning and we didn't arrive at the boat ramp till nearly 8:45am--and while I normally would have been anxious to get there as soon as possible to maximize sifting time--I was glad for a little extra time before setting foot in the cool cool river. I chose not to visit the more extensive well-known (and hard-hit) gravel bed just downstream from the boat ramp and instead Tammy and I paddled for a while and enjoyed the wildlife on the river. We were the first canoe off (helps to be organized and experienced) so we had the river to ourselves and didn't see another canoe for about 3 hours. We had quite a variety and abundance of bird life as we paddled down river with only the sound of our paddling and some bird calls breaking the silence of the morning. There were quite the number of Great Blue Herons along the shore, some White Ibis, Tricolor Herons, Little Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Anhingas rounding out the wading birds. We saw quite a number of Belted Kingfishers flying from tree to tree with the swooping flight path that is characteristic. We also had a large number of Osprey that we'd spook from a treetop as we neared and which would fly to a perch further downstream before we caught up to them again forcing them to take to the wing again. We got to see one do some plunge fishing though it came up empty-handed (empty-taloned?) shaking the water from its feathers. The real treat of the morning though were a small flock of Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) which we'd never spotted on the Peace River before. The first time we'd seen this stunning species was while we were diving and fossil hunting in Rainbow Springs last year with Daniel (@calhounensis). As we approached a section of the river that has a number of good size Bald Cypress near the water's edge, you could clearly see the tannin stain indicating the high-water mark from last summer. It's this annual surge of water that causes the erosion and slight changes to the river's course each year as it carves into one bank and deposits sand on the opposite side--all part of recharging the fossil beds each year like an aquatic Easter Bunny hiding treats for us to find. Note that Tammy is the smart one in the family. who brought waders and is wearing a sweatshirt. I wanted to get back to the spot on the river where over the last couple of years I've managed to pull out half a dozen or so large chunks of Mammoth molar (though not a whole tooth from this location--yet). When we got to our spot we broke out the shovel and sifter and I stepped out of the canoe into the cold water of the Peace. I learned later from one of the staff working at Canoe Outpost that the river is currently running around 62F (17C) and it felt it! The area that I'd been lucky enough to harvest all the mammoth molar chunks is relatively close to the edge of the river. Unfortunately, with the sun rising low on the horizon this time of the year, it hardly breaks out of the treeline and that side of the river was in shade throughout the morning. Shortly after we started probing for gravel and shoveling and sifting, a little breeze came up and sent ripples down the river's surface and simultaneously shivers down my spine. This would have been a welcome refreshing breeze on a warmer day but it was too much evaporative cooling for me on that morning. Within an hour my pruny fingers were somewhere between numb and tingling. We hadn't stumbled upon any Mammoth dentition by this point (not even the thin fragmented layers that are distinctive enough discern even from tiny pieces). I decided to move out closer to the center of the river where I could at least get some sun on my back and warm myself a bit more. We like this spot as it has very coarse gravel--in fact, some of the bottom is cobbled with fairly large chunks of matrix from orange to softball to bowling ball size. It sometimes makes it a bit difficult to get a shovel down into and often results in me bringing huge chunks of the bottom up in my shovel which are tossed off to the side creating small depth charge splashes as they sploosh into the chilly water (often returning an unwanted cold shower). Large gravel (or in this case matrix pieces) usually equates to larger finds so I chose to use my sifting screen with the 1/2" mesh rather than the one fitted with the finer 1/4" mesh. This means I can usually toss in several scoops without overloading the sifting screen as the vast majority slips down through the screen. Virtually all of the smaller shark teeth (and other fossils) pass right through the screen and back onto the bottom. We only waylaid three smaller shark teeth that were just too big to fit between the mesh--a nice large Lemon Shark and two good size Carcharhinus sp. teeth. We did find quite a number of makos and smaller megs (the maximum somewhere between 2.5-3 inches). Most were either fraglodons with the tips busted off or were river worn to the point where they didn't need to be added to the small bowl of "keepers" I have from the Peace. We saved these teeth and several other finds to distribute to kids in the canoes than continued to pass us throughout the day. This area is also rich with dugong rib bones. They are abundant enough that I'm sure it would take me little time to completely fill a 5-gallon bucket (possibly two). One day I just may bring buckets to test out this challenge. Nicer specimens were also saved and passed out with the explanations of what they were (most had never heard of dugongs). Hopefully, some may be motivated to do an internet search and maybe spark an interest in fossils. I probably gave away 90% of our fossils but I hope it possibly makes a difference in one of these kid's lives and allows them to realize there is a world beyond the edges of their devices. The most unusual thing we dug up all day was probably the recent mandible with teeth. It would have been a trip-maker if it were fossilized but was only a novelty due to its modernity. From the look of the molars I believe this is a probably porcine (likely Wild Boar). I believe I've seen pig teeth come up on this forum before and to me the recently erupted ones with little wear on their occlusal surface remind me of the lumpy shape of popped popcorn. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--wouldn't be the first (or last) time. There was a group of two families with lots of kiddies just a short walk down the river so I took this jaw bone to them figuring that they'd enjoy such an oddity--I was right (they also got a few megs).

I've been put in charge by my parents to plan a day trip to the west coast of Florida with the intent of finding fossils (mostly 1/2'+ shark teeth) after searching through the internet i decided to try my luck at the peace river. i'm currently planning to dig in the vicinity of Morgan park (just west of town) and I'm Wondering the following 1. is this a good a good location any fossils easily?if not, what other locations on the peace river do you recommend? 2. how deep is the water there in early april? 3. are there any aligators to watch out for? 4. what is the likelyhod of a novice fossil hunter with alot of patience to find teeth of C. Megalodon, C. Carcharias, and Hemipristis serra?