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hello and i thank you for your opinions and i welcome your admiration of this beautiful find. can you identify it? do you see the "chop" marks in the green crust? they appear all the way around the bone. the first picture, it is wet on a sunny day - the others are dry on a cloudy day. it weighs 8 pounds. it is 8 inches wide and about 6 inches tall and 6 inches deep. i found it digging in denton - i landscape - most likely fence posts or plants - i dont remember - what i do remember is i had it for years before i recognized that it was a bone...when i grabbed it i thought i grabbed a green rock, which was fine with me. years later i found it again in a pile of stuff, so i washed it off and low and behold....its a bone. some time later i picked it up again and noticed it had chop marks or looks like chop marks and i also noticed that the chop marks are all the way around. am i wrong ? oh yeah, i dont know what animal this bone comes from - any ideas ?

Hello, I find a lot of what I believe to be marine fossils from the Cretaceous period on my land up in Grayson County, North Texas, but I am not certain what kind of fossils they are. Here are pictures of what I think are coprolites? Thank you in advance for your help in identification.

A few weeks ago my mother, Stella (dog), and I went to a old-reliable heteromorph site in the Atco. After I dragged all my equipment to the part of the site that I was going to work, she went walking with Stella to look at some of the check-dams full of brought in Edwards limestone, chicken wire bags full of the brought in matrix put in the ditches for sediment control. In 2017 while we were at the same Atco site she was looking at a dumped pile of the Edwards and found a rare cidarid (see thread here) that compares well with Temnocidaris (Stereocidaris) hudspethensis. The sight of seeing that bizarre looking fossil just laying on the ground was quite a shock for both of us and motivation to hunt the dams more, and since then she has been casually looking over every check-dam hoping for another one. But because this Atco site is also rich in heteromorphs, I tend to focus all my attention on the chalk and neglect the Edwards dams, in these cases to my slight ire but also amazement at what she found with Stella. She did it again on the 9th, and found another cidarid that appears to be the same species as the last one from 2017, though from a different dam. I was at my Atco pile when she came over and showed it to me, completely blowing away all my finds in a very welcome way. The brought in Edwards is early upper Albian in age (about 107.6 mybp) and is a very fossiliferous crystalline limestone jammed packed with rudists and Chondrodonta sp. as well as the occasional gastropod. It makes for quite the sensory overload when trying to look for other things amongst the fossiliferous morass. The limestone is also interspersed with somewhat softer red sandstone that infills crevices in the much harder limestone and is more quickly weathered away in older exposures. I have tried so-far unsuccessfully to isolate the quarry from which the matrix originated to ask them permission to get a chance at the fossils before they are dumped in bags and hauled tens of miles to sites, damaging them. The problem is that there are multiple quarries in the nearest counties that expose the Edwards, namely Hood and Johnson counties. I have seen this matrix at sites all over North Texas, but I don't know if all that matrix is from the same quarry as the matrix from my Atco site since the Edwards is heavily quarried for fill all over the state. For now we are left to dig though the jumbled, knocked around bagged matrix, but even so the limestone is extremely hard so the fossils are not usually completely destroyed. And the site is big with lots of busted open bags. This latest cidarid is in about the same condition as the first, that being not so great but not so bad. Both specimens are missing most of their adoral sides and their apical plates are gone, leaving their circular apical scars. But they are still quite nice and intricately detailed, and also preserve some of their big mamelon tubercles, with the first specimen preserving 2 and the latest preserving 5, though there could be more under the globs of matrix stuck to them. This latest is also bigger. The first had a diameter of 52 mm at the ambitus and a preserved height of 37 mm, while the latest is 59 mm at the ambitus and 45 mm in height, though keep in mind that since they are both missing most of their adoral sides they would have had more height in life. The apical scar on the first specimen is 19 mm in diameter and on the second is 21 mm, with the crushed calcite fragments of the apical plates seen in the cavities left behind on both. I really didn't expect her to find another specimen of this rarity again, but apparently this matrix is a honey hole brought in by the truck load, making this site two honey holes in two epochs. Then on Wednesday I went by the same check dam from which this latest cidarid came and found what really appears to be a belemnite, but that is for another topic in the ID forum. Hopefully I can post that find soon. Since new Atco exposure at the site has temporarily slowed down I have an excuse to take a good hard look at the Edwards dams tomorrow afternoon. If we find anymore from the dams I will post it to this thread, so hope to see more In the mean time, here are the pictures of the echinoids, the check dam from which this latest specimen came, and a nifty Chondrodonta sp. she found in said dam. I welcome any other finds that anyone has found in the Edwards or its equivalents and any tips on how to prep limestone as hard as crystalized concrete. Also, sorry for the picture quality. My Nikon decided to die a few months ago for some reason and I have yet to get it fixed, so if anyone knows a camera repair shop that fixes Nikons in the DFW area, I am all ears. *Pictures incoming, computer acting up*

Hello, I recently collected these fossils in the Minerals Wells area in North Texas, and I am not having any luck identifying the fossils. I know that I found the fossils in Pennsylvanian age sediment, and that’s about it. I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to help me.

I found this Phlycticrioceras trinodosum heteromorph specimen in June of 2018 whilst hunting the middle/upper Coniacian Atco formation. It is the largest fragment of this species that I am aware of, having a whorl height of 51 mm as opposed to 47 mm of the largest fragment I've seen published. This genus is a bigger, rarer, and (mostly) younger cousin of Allocrioceras. I sent pictures of it to Keith Minor and he pointed out that there was also an echinoid sticking out of the specimen, something which I had totally missed! With much of the echinoid still stuck in the living chamber it is hard to get a definitive ID. But because it has such a shallow anterior ambulacra, which gives the anterior end a more smooth rather than definitive heart shape, he ruled out both Mecaster texanus and batensis. He suggested Micraster since the site has a strong European component in both the bivalve and ammonite faunas, and because the periproct side has the right shape. From finding other, although not as well preserved specimens that show similar morphology he appears to be right. I have yet to confirm this ID with Andrew Smith, but either way I think the piece is worth showing. And reading this thread got me thinking about how this could have happened and what effect it could have had on the echinoid's preservation. My thought is that because irregular echinoids lived and today still live most of their lives burrowing in the sediment it is unlikely that it would have crawled into the living chamber, but instead that it was blown into it post-mortem via currents that had dredged it out of the sediment. I already know that this site was a high energy environment from my other finds here so this seems the most likely possibility to me. But because of the fact there is still at least one spine still attached to the specimen it could not have been swept up from the sediment too long after death or all of its hairlike spines would have blown away. I do, however, find it interesting that it is positioned anterior first with its posterior towards the aperture, the position I would expect to see it in if it had indeed crawled into the shell. The specimen is also the best preserved echinoid from this site so far. Despite the ammonites being generally well preserved and not too crushed, most of the echinoids that I have from the site are terribly crushed, flakey, and often infested with rotting pyrite. I think being encapsulated in the chamber very much reduced those effects. Even though the ammonite and the echinoid are a bit crushed, the echinoid would have probably been worse off otherwise. The heteromorph fragment length is 70 mm and the whorl breadth, being a bit crushed, is 13 mm. I would think that this specimen, with its open planispiral coiling, would would have been at least over a foot in diameter when complete. It is the robust (female) morph of the species with a rib index of 5½. For comparison in Fig. 1 I pictured it with my most complete P. trinodosum specimen. From the part of the echinoid that is exposed I can measure 25 mm in length, 25 in width, and a thickness of 8 mm. I have also found abundant yet scattered fish remains at the site, so perhaps one day an ammonite-fish will come my way. But until then, anyone else got ammonite-echinoids to show? Fig. 1. Fig. 2.

I found this today while I was out seeing if I could find more pieces of my bison. It was at the same level as the bison, but about 30 feet down the creek. It is turtle or tortoise, but I’m not sure what kind or if it is modern or Pleistocene. I looked through a Texas turtle database and did not find a match with any listed there. So it leaves me wondering if it could be an extinct variety. The shell patterns are so distinctive I’d think it could be ID pretty close to what it is. Here are pics. Any thoughts or or comments would be appreciated.

My girlfriend recently found this vertebra at the Duck Creek Formation in North Texas. Was a bit of a surprise, didn't expect to find a vert at this locality, which is known more for ammonites, echinoids, and bivalves. One side of the vert has been prepped. Any help with an ID would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! And for those that have kindly enhanced the brightness on my previous pics, no worries! I did it myself this time.

Need help identifying this claw. Found in Dallas. There is clearly a hollowed out indention on one side that does not go through (lighter area due to cleaning to see if hole went through) and a notch-like indention on the other. The top edge of the claw appears to have been chiseled, as there are distinct chisel marks that go around the entire top of the claw Could this claw have been made into ancient jewelry or tool artifact?

Hello everyone hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! My father got to work yesterday and found this during their construction job. He said it was 9ft underground and says that the black sphere is heavy like metal and popped right out of the rock. Is this a fossil? Thanks for any tips!

My father just found this today in North Texas at his job site, is this also an ammonite? It's pretty big. It was dug up 9ft under ground.

Hello all, I have been a long time lurker and decided to finally have a voice. I am a long time rock lover, and unfortunately am in the beginning stages of trying to learn everything I forgot as a child, ie. I am happy to take constructive criticism. I have been traipsing through muddy creeks and cut roads looking for rocks that are interesting. I happened across the embedded rock a week ago and I don't know where to begin in the identification process. The picture attracted is on a slope that leads to a creek in Richland Hills, TX, just east of Fort Worth. I assume the city cemented rocks together to prevent erosion and they did a really great job. This fossil(?) is about 8 inches by 10 inches and appears to be a rib cage. Would anyone be able to help me in determining the proper steps to take to identify what type of animal this was?

Dug up from the sand about 30 feet below ground close to the red river

Hi everyone, I'm new here, so I want to apologize up front if my posts aren't as descriptive because I am very new to this. My father is currently working on a "construction" job, in north Texas that requires him to dig 9ft underground. He has found various things and he wants to know if they are fossils. Here is something he found yesterday: Thanks in advance!

A few weeks ago I was working an exposure of the middle Turonian Kamp Ranch member of the Arcadia Park Formation in North Texas, using a chisel and the natural bedding planes to pull up slabs. I had been there less than 15 minutes and had only found one small, broken tooth amongst shell hash when I found this almost perfect medium sized Cretodus crassidens. I also found some smaller shark teeth including Ptychodus sp., miscellaneous vertebrate material, and ammonites of possibly multiple species. So far this specimen is my largest from the site The first thing I noticed about it was the white color of most of the enamel and strange patterns covering the exposed tooth. It looked like it had been recently exposed and weathered, but since it was only exposed by me pulling up slabs that is not possible. All the other teeth I found there didn’t have this type of preservation but had the normal brown enamel. I have searched for pictures of any other teeth with patterns like this, but so far nothing. I prepared it out of the rock and can see that the patterns occur on both the front and back of the blade and root. It is 35 mm diagonal and 25 mm root width. It was resting just a few millimeters above a large inoceramid shell. The tooth is perfect except that the tip of the left cusp broke off before fossilization. There are certain areas where the blade isn’t white and there are no patterns, but for the most part the pattern covers the tooth. I was also able to rub off a bit of the white with my finger, but it seems that the patterns are embedded in the tooth itself since it is also on the root. Here are some pictures. I am hoping the origin of these patterns can be explained and any links and/or pictures of other teeth like this can be provided. The first three are before prep and the rest are after. Thanks in advance! FIG 1. FIG 2.

Good afternoon everybody! What in the name of Sam Heck is this. I wish I had taken a picture of how I found it.... I was following a large embankment downhill one morning, taking a hike through some thick woods that take up the west side of my apartment complex in Lewisville, Texas. Right where the buildings stop and the woods start there is a small, (maybe 3/4 of an acre) pond I've fished for years, and the embankment on the west side leads out to about 80 or 90 acres of very interesting land, which is some of the last undeveloped land here in north Texas. Only about 10 miles from 27,000 acre lake Lewisville, and the hundreds of miles of CORP of engineers land that surrounds the lake. Anyways, as I was following the small spillway creek downhill that flows into a smaller pond in the woods, I came across this thing sitting right smack in the middle of the small creek channel, carved out gradually as water ran from the (what I assume to be) man-made pond. Probably over the course of the past 15-20 years would be my guess. Very thick woods, I can confidently vouch I've been the only one that has been out in those woods in the past year at least, that particular area who knows. I'm 22 and I've grown up fascinated by nature and the pursuit of anything outdoors, always enjoyed finding arrowheads on my ranch, and other fossils throughout my expeditions (which I am super excited to post about in the future, this website is bad to the bone man!) But never anything like this. Any help with identification would be greatly appreciated y'all!

Hi Everyone, I'm a new member on The Fossil Forum and looking forward to using this site a new resource for learning about paleontology and responsible fossil collection & identification.

Hi all. Firstly I would like to thank everyone for this amazing resource. I just joined the forum today and am excited to start sharing. My wife and I recently moved to north texas from upstate new york. We did a lot of hunting up there and have continued our passion since our move. We had a great haul last weekend, but there are a few specimens that I have never seen before and I was wondering if anyone could help identify. Please accept my apologies up front if these are common as we are definitely still learning and we are not familiar with the deposits here in texas. I believe the deposit is cretaceous. We found many more than this but as I said these are some of the more unique finds. If you need closeups let me know! Thanks again!

Hi all! I just joined this forum and want to thank everyone upfront for such a great resource and community. My wife and I recently relocated to north texas from upstate new york. We fossil hunted up there and since we moved to texas have found some great specimens. It has been amazing having the opportunity to hunt new deposits! Last weekend we went to mineral wells and post oak creek...both places we found from reading this forum! I think a lot of what we found is quite common but definitely very different from what we are used to in New York. We found shark teeth, shells, corals and some stuff we cannot identify...We even found what looks like a piece of native american pottery (reddish square on right side. Thanks again for looking and let me know if you see anything interesting. We are eager to learn!

I have found several of these at the Pennsylvanian Sub-period site in Jacksboro Texas. I've always had a good idea of what they were and never thought others might have different views until I brought up the question. If you know or have ideas post a reply and lets get a consensus of opinions before I say what I think. I didn't post this in “fossil ID” because I think I already know and I also want to discuss why they appear the way they do so give your opinion of that too. I recently found some that suggest an answer to that too. They may have already been discussed or even written about so if you know of a paper or old topic on them please post a link. I couldn't think of a good term to use for a search. Scale is mm.

Found this bone like fossil while exploring the creeks in far north Dallas. This area I believe is part of the Austin chalk formation. whats odd is the two small cuts and what looks like worms fossilized on the underside. It’s hard like rock.

At a site where I have been finding heteromorphs, I have recently come across some vertebrate material. So far I have only found three vertebrate specimens; one bone fragment and two fish scales. I am hoping to get some information on their affinities. I am most interested in the fish scales, since it seems they would be the most easily identified. The site is in North Texas, the Austin Chalk group, Atco formation, upper Coniacian stage. For biostratigraphic reference, at this same site I have also found the ammonites Protexanites planatus, Phlycticrioceras trinodosum, Tridenticeras peramplum, Scaphites semicostatus, and Glyptoxoceras sp., among others. The bone (Figs 1-17) was found on Saturday the 14th of July. It is a small fragment from a more marly layer than the fish scales and most of the rare ammonites that I am finding are from, but still from the same site. The main part of it has 39 mm exposed length wise as shown in Figs 11-12 (some of it is still buried in the rock), and has a branch coming from the main part that is 22 mm long that forms a depressed canal structure in the rock (Fig. 14). The maximum thickness of the specimen that I can see is about 2 ½ mm. The branch begins to curve around when it meets the main part of the bone. The other end of the rock and the underside don't show much exposure of the bone except for a few bits poking through (Figs 16-17). I don’t know if the specimen came from a fish or some other vertebrate, but I would guess fish. If anyone can give more information on what kind of animal this came from and where this might have been located in the animal’s skeleton, that would be much appreciated. But I also know that due to its very fragmentary nature, a more definite identification may not be possible. The two fish scales (Figs 18-20) were both found on Friday the 27th of July over 100 yards from where the bone was found. These specimens are from a more chalky matrix than the bone, the same matrix that the rare ammonites are in. The first specimen (Figs 18-19) was found breaking open a large chunk of chalk. It is basically flawless and in excellent condition, and only has a little bit of obscuring matrix on the right side that could be prepped off. In the same chunk of rock that I cracked open to find this I also found a T. peramplum specimen. The fish scale is 5 ½ mm long by 5 ½ mm wide. The second fish scale I found (Fig. 20) was found within a few feet of the first one, possibly from the same fish specimen. It is a bit beat up and less complete than the first scale, but is larger from what I can see. It is 7 mm wide including the flatended area upon which the scale once was before it flaked away during excavation. The front part of it is still buried in the rock but could hopefully be prepped out. It is also in a chalky chunk of rock, not marly. I have noticed that these are less shiny than scales preserved in shales, though they still do glimmer a bit in direct light. They are also differently colored than most fish scales preserved in shales, with mine being on the red/brown spectrum while those in shale are usually black or dark gray. I am hoping that the distinctive symmetrical 7 way splitting shown on the first fish scale could narrow down the identification. I know that getting to the species or genus level could be very difficult, but could a family or order be at least possible? I have heard that identifying fish scales is challenging, but this paper indicates that it is not impossible. @oilshale, you’re a fishy guy (in a good way of course). Any ideas? Fig. 1.

I recently went hunting for my first time in the Turonian Arcadia Park Formation, an Eagle Ford group shale formation in North Texas. I found some great fossils, but many of them are fragile. I found a Worthoceras sp. specimen in matrix that seems to be on the verge of falling apart, and a very small Metoicoceras sp. specimen in a similar situation. They both have the nacreous shell preserved. Many of the other ammonites that I found tend to flake bits of the white shell while I am handling them. What can I use to consolidate the specimens so that they don’t fall apart and so that the shell doesn’t flake off? Will the consolidants dampen the beautiful iridescence of the shells? Here the two most fragile specimens, the Worthoceras sp. and the small Metoicoceras sp.: FIG 1: Worthoceras sp. FIG 2: Metoicoceras sp.

There are two samples here that may be petrified wood. The first one I have several pictures of and I am not sure about. The second one I only have one or two photos but I am fairly confident, just need validation.

I found this on a knoll overlooking a lake. It looks a little like a fossilized tooth to me. Any thoughts?

Found this in the waters of a local North Texas stream. I'm assuming it is a old cow bone. But if you see something different, let me know! I'll go search for the rest of it!