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Out hunting yesterday and just declined an invitation for Tomorrow because my son is visiting and we are likely to hunt both Wednesday and Friday. I just can not take the wear and tear as often anymore. This was a prospecting trip for new locations. Basically we go to a place we have not been and then "walk" the river until we find gravel and then probe the gravel for depth and fossils. Many times the gravel is only on the surface or too small or does not contain fossils. Then we move on again and again until we find a place that does... or we just have a nice walk in the River in the Sunshine.. I did not find lots of fossils but did enjoy the ones I found... At the 2nd spot we had 4 inches of mud, gravel and mussels in equal proportions. 1st sieve had a nice Nuchal osteoderm. Dug for 5-6 sieves, found a deer tine but nothing else... moved on... We stopped at 2 places with lots of gravel but almost nothing in them.. just a few very small shark teeth , some broken... This was not what I would call super_successful but we were 3 hours into a 5 hour hunt... So we moved downstream.. We always go downstream... it is easier than fighting the current on a long day... We got to an area that had tightly packed gravel and not the normal darkness of Peace River gravel. Light brown and cream colored gravel on a bed of clay. MIOCENE !!! We are about to find small shark teeth with colored blades and tan or cream roots... In the 1st sieve , there it was.... Be nice if the tip was complete , but definitely what I am looking for... Feels fantastic. Not only did we find a spot to come back to (Steve found more that I did, especially small colorful teeth), the prospecting trip was successful AND we had 2 hours to dig like maniacs and figure out what this spot could produce. Today I spent most of the day cleaning off the table on my side porch that contained the finds of 4-5 previous trips , and processing the finds from yesterday. Top Layer.. Silicified shells, sponges, Middle layer, Bone heavily fossilized and sometimes silicified, Bottom layer Shark teeth, best finds. I usually bring out 2-3 times as much but it gets processed out quickly. For example broken shark teeth go to my hunting partner, good shark teeth donated to schools and clubs, best shark teeth go to my daughter... She makes jewelry and collages. Note the Blue Blades ,, Miocene... just like we get out of the Phosphate Mines.. So the notables... From the Pleistocene a turtle Nuchal and a Llama upper molar.. plus a Juvenile Equus Incisor Seems I recall that an Equus Incisor with a shorter length of enamel are deciduous .. maybe /maybe not.. What about that , Jp ? Botryoidal "grapes" with little sprinkles of Druzy growing inside a silicified oyster... Then the prizes and why I think spots like this are more "Miocene" that other sections in the River.. These are quite rare for me... Then a very small Dolphin Tooth !!! Obviously requires some level of salt water. Never identified in Florida with this rugosity of enamel... I would be happy if someone would identify any dolphin of this size with rugose enamel anywhere in the world... I have no examples. Finally , I did not recognize this laying in the sieve... It also changed color as it dried... I have never found an Eagle Ray tooth of this size or this perfection Enjoy...

Trachemys sp. fossil nuchal bone North Florida, USA Dorsal (L) and ventral (R) views Size: 48.7mm (1.92") across long axis Age: Late Miocene—Late Pleistocene This image is a composite with each view consisting of a 4-photo stack.

Recently acquired this rare 185mm nuchal bone from Dunkleosteus Terrelli, just thought to share it since there are very few Dunkleosteus material on the commercial market! Attached pictures below just to see the size of this since on most fish it's the size of your thumbnail! Devonian Cleveland Shale Cleveland, Ohio USA 185mm (7.2 inches) nuchal bone