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Hello, welcome to my report of this last week fossil hunting in Morocco. I have been this last week in Morocco going to different localities looking for fossils. As I have never done fossil hunting before in morocco, I contacted with Mohand Ihmadi from Ihmadi Trilobites Centre, a local geologist that does fossil hunting tours. I talked to him about all the localities that I would like to visit and we planned a route together. If you ever want to do some fossil hunting in Morocco, I have to recommend getting in touch with Mohand, if you search for him or the center in google, the contact information will appear. I will try to divide this fossil hunting in the main 4 areas that we hunted: KEM KEM BEDS This location is near the dunes, and going there you will have beautiful views. Once you arrive there, you will start seeing the typical Kem Kem colors. First you can try to find microfossils filtering the sand. We also found some workers there, and they let us visit the caves they make to arrive to the layer where they find the fossils. Here is me and my dad in front of the cave entrance. And here more photos inside the cave: In Kem Kem it's very difficult to find the stuff you see online so the normal thing is to find some micro fossils or chunks. This is what we found in and hour or so: Probably if you search harder and during more time, you can find more stuff, but we were more casual about this. And obviously, you can also try to buy the stuff the workers have found. ORDOVICIAN LOCALITY FOR CALYMENE Another locality we visited, was a trilobite locality. A ordovician Locality. Here, with heavy machinery, they extract the first useless layer, and then you can start to manually search for the trilobites. Here, we found several as it's pretty easy. One of them is this next photo: DEVONIAN TRILOBITE LOCATION The other trilobite location was a devonian one. There you can find phacops sp. pretty easily and if you are lucky some other species. Here is the typical limestone where you have to break them, find the trilobite, glued back and prepared it. After this, we went to Mohand workshop and he teached me how to prepare them: We were lucky and found a Paralejurus spatuliformis that he is preparing for me and will send to me. OUED ZEM FORMATION The last stop was the Oued Zem formation. It's the formation where we found most fossils, and it's easy to work with the hammer and find it. It's near the phosphates exploitation ground. And here some of what we found: We visited some more places, but this were the main ones. In conclusion it was an amazing experience and Mohand was the best guide we could have asked for. If you are planning a similar trip to Morocco and have some doubts or questions don't hesitate to ask. And just as an extra. As we all know, all the Moroccan material has a reputation of being restored, composited and altered. And while that is sometimes true, after visiting this places and talking to the diggers there, I bought some pieces from them, without the intermediaries, and they were really honest about what reparations or things they did to the piece. So my conclusion is that a lot of times the international dealers are the ones buying pieces without caring about the state of this ones because a composited/restored piece will be cheaper and they think it will sell at the same price and will make more profit.

Found a poorly fossilized complete skull in Pierre shale in western SD. Looks like mosasaur or alligator shaped. Can anyone help me ID the species type? The teeth are from the front of mouth. EDIT: The skull is 2ft long. Teeth are 1in long. The skull was in a jacket that I mostly removed along with most of the shale. What you see is the fossil. Since it is poorly fossilized I don't think there is any ID features from the skull other than teeth.

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Just got another lot of Moroccan fossils and these three have me stumped. I know I've seen the first one somewhere before but I can't find anything on it. The shark tooth is similar to one I asked about previously but doesn't have the same ridges as the last one. And the final tooth looks like a mosasaur tooth but has a strange flat section on one side of the tooth. Any assistance in identifying these would be wonderful. Thanks for your help in advance.

I have a couple of these, this is the best specimen. I think they are from a mosasaur but only because they were found on the NSR. There are two indentions/holes that don't show up that well in the picture. The first picture shows the indention the best, there is a corresponding one on the other side. I apologize the lighting didn't make that more clear. If it helps in identification, I can retake pics.

At the same location as I found a tiny Mosasaur tooth (probably Russelosaurus in Austin Chalk Formation) I just found this little tooth. It seems to have the basic qualifications - curved with ridge on the outside curve but it doesn't have the enamel striations I associate with mosasaur. It really looks more like a crab claw to me, but it doesn't have any other crabby characteristics except for shape and that ridge gives me pause. Are there any fish teeth that look like this? Any thoughts, y'all? 1/4 inch

I recently came across this mosasaur tooth from the Ozan Formation for sale, and wondered if it would be possible to identify to a genus or species level. It measures around 1.5cm from the tip of the tooth to its base. It is my understanding that @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon is something of an expert on marine reptiles. What do you make of the tooth? Thanks in advance for any proposals Othniel

Long overdue to post about some of my NC finds from earlier this year! First up was a very exciting trip to the NC Triassic to look for a variety of plant fossils, which were my first Mesozoic plants. Beautiful white coloring on some of them as well, the matrix is extremely soft (you can easily scrape it with your finger nails) so I've done some experimenting with how to best consolidate them without damaging the visual effect. Not a ton of variety at the site, but they are abundant and sometimes surprisingly well preserved. I have found Otozamites hespera and Otozamites powelli, as well as a few other kinds of plants. I also disturbed a "hibernating" lizard, initially I was concerned that my digging had injured him, but after a some time in the sun he scampered off seemingly no worse for the experience.

I found a Mosasaur jaw in a shop and wanted to know if it appeared legitimate. I have seen others that seem much more fake, but as they are one of the more commonly faked fossils , I thought it would be best to get a second opinion. Sadly I only have one photo.

So I found a few things at Myrtle Beach and I'm looking for some help in ID'ing them. I love looking for fossils but am not sure on things and I love the help I've gotten on this site so far. And any help with these is appreciated. The ruler is in inches. . . . 1: I thought this looked similar to a whale ear bone? Admittedly it could just be a rock but I wanted to post here and get some opinions. Getting photos of something black and shiny can be difficult but I could take more if needed, and maybe find better lighting. 2. At first I though alligator tooth but then I learned that mosasaur teeth have been found in this area also, so now I'm not so sure. Either way I love it. 3. I was thinking dolphin tooth but obviously it's broken so I'm not entirely sure. 4. And I thought I'd throw this one here too. When I saw it in the water I thought I was going to be picking up a cucullaea steinkern, but this is what it was. I thought I remembered seeing something like this online somewhere but I really have no idea, unless it's just a piece of some bone. So there they are. Any information about any of these would be much appreciated. And I could post more photos of any of these.

Howdy all, Just bought this mosasaur tooth from the Pee Dee Formation of North Carolina. Seller has IDed it as Prognathodon and I'm wondering if that is valid or if it could be something like Tylosaurus (I looked at tylosaurus teeth from that area and the patterns in the enamel seem to match). Either way I'm overjoyed to finally have a mosasaur tooth from that region of Appalachia's ancient coast.

Hello everyone, I've been offered this these "mosasaurus beaugei" tooth. teeth. Is it Are they really from this species? Or did the seller made a mistake identifying it them?

I have decided to cash in my IRA and put the money into this rare, baby Mosasaur, I feel in the long run, with appreciation of the rare piece, I can beat the 16.78% return I had last year in the stock market. I am impressed at how robust infant mosasaurs were. They were obviously strong swimmers from birth! In the off chance, that there may be a small amount of repair; I am posting it here for opinions.

Hey all, I bought this tooth years ago before I really got into fossil hunting myself but never actually got it to an ID. The label says it came from Oued Zem and the matrix seems to fit. There seem to be some repaired fractures. I have no experience with mosasaur teeth and researching a bit has only got me more confused regarding the ID. My (rather uneducated) attempt: there seems to be a curvature towards on mesiodistal plane pointing towards Mosasaurs. It has no serrations, but there are facets on it. Mosasaurus beaugei? Looking forward to your thoughts! Oh length of the crown is 5cm.

Hello everyone, I was wondering which parts of this rooted mosasaur tooth are real. There is a second tooth in it which looks like a replacement tooth and next to it there is also a shark tooth. Can you tell if the bones of the jaw are real? I thought the bigger tooth could be glued on the root, like it's often the case with mosasaur teeth from morocco. And why is there a shark tooth in the bone? Any insight is appreciated.

I believe I have made quite well with collecting Moroccan mosasaurs, so I wish to set my eyes for new goals. And first US mosasaur material is already heading its way. I have been hoping to learn more about American mosasaurs in general and also basic tooth characteristic of more common species. Only one Im relatively familiar with is Tylosaurus proriger. With Platecarpus tympaniticus only by few articles. I managed to find information about most formations where material seem to come from, but not Ozan fm. What species were present besides Tylosaurus proriger? Thanks for replies.

Hi. I bought this Mosasaur tooth about 8 years ago, and never tried to find out what it is. (I was too young) I was thinking probably Beaugei but I am unsure. The one thing that makes me sceptical is the fact that it appears quite small. Could it potentially be a juvenile?(Sorry for using the carpet as a backdrop, if that doesn’t work.)