Search the Community

A quick post to show a few nice lower eagle ford (Tarrant formation) ammonites from a 2-hour hunt this morning at a spot I visit every few months (or after it rains). I love how I can go back to the same spot and the “store shelves” are replenished repeatedly with new conlinoceras tarrantense. I’ve learned what the sandy yellowish-colored substrate looks like where these ammonites can be found, and it’s always exciting to see these rare gems starting to poke out. The biggest one (7.5” daimeter) is in the worst condition, but I will try to give it a total makeover. I really like the ones that have septarian veins still attached. I also included a few of my legless friends,a nonvenomous baby diamondback watersnake and a western ribbonsnake trying to eat a frog that looked too big to swallow (even for a snake). Dallas County, Texas.

It took awhile, but I can finally say that I have discovered some Texas dinosaur material! Nothing really museum worthy, but the idea that these teeth came from a walking, breathing land animal 96 million years ago is simply insane. It seems that Protohadros byrdi is the go to identification for Woodbine hadrosaurs, but I would like some confirmation or at least second opinions from the experts on here. Both dino teeth are pretty worn because they had to travel some distance out to sea. Tooth 1 is the most obvious tooth fragment. It has the cross-shaped pattern normally seen on the occlusal of hadrosaur teeth. It is pretty worn from reworking and parts of the cementum region are missing/filled with sand. This is obviously hadrosaur, but is it a Protohadros? Normally, the Protohadros teeth I see online have serrations/crenulations? (perhaps wrong terminology) along the cutting edges. The cutting edges also usually reach to the apex of the crown. My specimen is different in that I don't see the serrations/crenulations and my crown has an occlusal table instead of an apex. Could this tooth just be from a different tooth family or maybe its a bit older in the dental battery and got weathered down? Also, I read on a random site that hadrosaurs don't have spit teeth because they stay in the dental batteries for the entire lifespan... is this true? Tooth 2 is almost unrecognizable, but the presence of enamel, symmetry, and those serrations/crenulations I mentioned above have personally convinced me. Though, the exact shape of the tooth is a bit confusing to wrap my head around. It is more like a sliver of tooth, so I don't expect anyone to really make much out of it. The presence of the single middle ridge makes me think this is Protohadros and not some nodosaur which are also known to occur in the Woodbine. @Brad84 @ThePhysicist @Ptychodus04I would ping Troodon, but it seems he has left the forum sadly. Please ping anyone else you think knows a thing or two about Texas dinos! Tooth 1: Tooth 2: Next on the menu is a fragment of plesiosaur tooth also from the Woodbine that has some really neat ornamentation. On the lingual side, the ridges branch out and anastomose. This tooth is much larger and ornamented differently than my previous plesiosaur of the same geological group. The cross section is tear-drop shaped with a single edge. In looking around on the web for a similar tooth in hopes of an ID, I found one really good match. Go figure it came also from the Cenomanian, but interestingly it was found all the way in Russia. Here's a link to that thread: So what do the experts think here? @Anomotodon @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon @Praefectus. And finally we have the tooth plate. When I first picked it up, I thought it was a broken piece of plastic. Its toughness surprised me and, when turning it over, I noticed that the trabecular pattern of spongey bone blanketed the underside. I think it is a tooth plate from Paralbula or Albula, but I know very little on fish plates. Would appreciate any guidance here. Had some other fun finds, but I think one day I will create a trip report covering all the bases for the site. It's been a real journey, trying to find my first dino. I'm appreciative of all the wrong turns I took along the way and the fun little avenues they took me down. I also can't help but be thankful to have had the opportunity to live in such a fortunate time and place. It's crazy to think that random people like me can just walk outside and find such neat little tidbits of our ancient past. Of course, I am not entirely finished. There are still some other kinds of dinos I would like to find (Hadrosaur material wouldn't hurt too). Hopefully I won't have to wait as long, but I am prepared to stick it out for the long haul if need be. Until then, I hope you all have enjoyed reading through this log of my travels and continue to do so as I follow the scent of fossils wherever it takes me.

Here are the teeth I’ve extracted so far from small slabs I found in southern Johnson County near Grandview, Texas last week in the woodbine group. Any ideas on identification for these? Sorry that my photos may be somewhat lacking. I don’t yet have the scientific species memorized, so I welcome scientific names but also common names so I can better picture what it looked like. I have more to remove from matrix when I have time. I used the dremel 290 and I didn’t break any teeth, though you see at least one or two were already broken when I found them. Thank you!

With the newborn that just entered my house, my fossil hunting will be semi-permanently reduced and perhaps scarce short term, but I did have an unplanned 2 hours of freedom to go to a local woodbine spot I’ve only visited once. My focus at the moment (when exploring new areas) is seeking out lower Eagle Ford spots along the edge of the woodbine, but this spot was a bit deeper into the woodbine than I’d normally seek out. To my surprise, I found several small slabs that reminded me of Kamp Ranch, full of fish vert material, teeth, and even what I think is part of a crustacean or crab (input welcome on the last part, since it’s more of a side note for me). I’ve removed a few teeth successfully but there is a lot more when I have time. I’m using a combo of a dental pick and a new (used) dremel 290..something to do between diaper changes (not mine, the babies). This is the first time I’ve found more than petrified wood and a few oysters in the woodbine near Grandview, Texas.

A tooth I recently pulled from my Woodbine honey hole keeps getting better the more I look at it. I originally thought it was just a really big crocodile tooth of the species Woodbinesuchus byersmauricei, a common find for the site. After cleaning it today, I noticed it was pretty different and am now 90% sure it's a plesiosaur tooth, perhaps from the family Leptocleididae (as opposed to Polycotylidae or Elasmosauridae) and maybe with some real scientific significance! Stay with me here... Crocodile teeth are pretty common for the site. So why do I think this isn't one? Besides being quite large for a croc, the 12 enamel ridges on this specimen vary in shape and are spaced out whereas my crocs typically exhibit tightly spaced, uniform ridges numbering in the many dozens. The ridges on the "plesiosaur" are restricted to the lingual side. My crocs typically have ridges spanning the entire circumference of the crown, though they sometimes peter out on the labial side as well. Another significant difference is in the sigmoidally curved crown which is normal in plesiosaurs and generally not seen in crocs. "Plesiosaur" (L) and Croc (R); Note the significantly different enamel ridge characteristics. "Plesiosaur" and my complete crocs. Quite large relatively speaking. It's crown is about 20 mm long and 6 mm in diameter. Sigmoidal curvature in the crown. I am less sure of the familial identification and beyond. A quick google search for Cenomanian Plesiosaurs revealed an interesting article on freshwater Kem Kem Group Plesiosaurs (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105310) from more or less the same time (Woodbine = mid Cenomanian vs. Kem Kem Group = ?Albian-Cenomanian). What initially caught my eye was Fig. 5 where a handful of similar teeth are shown: Fig. 5 from the article. Leptocleididae indet. shed teeth. These are thought to be indeterminate Leptocleididae shed teeth for features shared with my specimen. The authors rule out Polycotylidae on the basis that those teeth are usually more robust. They acknowledge that longer teeth of Polycotylidae do occur, but the striations are finer than Leptocleididae. The authors contrast their teeth (and mine) from Elasmosauridae and Cryptoclididae by stating that those families have straighter teeth with more labio-lingually compressed crowns that create a strong oval cross section. My tooth and those shown above are sub-circular/slightly oval-shaped. Another point to make is that Leptocleididae plesiosaurs are UNKNOWN from deep water environments and are instead suggested to be nearshore specialists (Woodbine is famously nearshore with its crocs, Cretodus semiplicatus, and other nearshore fauna). On the other hand, Polycotylidae, the sister taxon, is a deeper water family. Hard to show a good cross-section because a chunk of root juts out of the bottom making it look more labiolingually compressed than it really is! Implications and Significance: One extremely interesting aspect of plesiosaur ecology that is highlighted by the article is their strong presence in prehistoric freshwater ecosystems. Plesiosaur teeth of the family Leptocleididae are commonly found in the Kem Kem river systems which isn't crazy given they are thought to be nearshore specialists. The authors note that contemporaneous marine deposits have yet to yield Leptocleididae material, which makes one wonder: were they freshwater specialists unable to live in the ocean? I would've been inclined to assume they could survive both fresh and salt given my preconceived notions on plesiosaurs, but there is a lack of hard proof... Until now? If this is what I think it is... this may be the first evidence of Leptocleididae found in a marine deposit contemporaneous with the Kem Kem Group! Just the missing puzzle piece emphasized in the article. Reeling it back in- Keep in mind, a few hours ago I thought this was just a big croc tooth! Also, I don't know much of anything about plesiosaurs since I had never found such material previously. My head is spinning with all these new names. Hopefully you all can provide some clarity on this matter. @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon @Jared C @PaleoPastels. Feel free to tag anyone else you know who might have some knowledge on the subject! Pics: ~Thanks for reading~

Piggybacking off of the fantastic trip report @Jared C wrote about our Eocene excursion, I thought I'd go ahead and publish an account of the solo expedition I embarked on several days prior. Some of you who are familiar with my past endeavors in the fossil rich creeks and constructions of North Texas may know that dinosaur material has been a huge goal of mine for a while now. The Woodbine offers a shot at fulfilling such a dream, though dinosaurs are still very difficult to come by. Luckily, the uniqueness of its environment means that a day without a dino is by no means an unsuccessful one as a plethora of other strange and wonderful things can be found in their stead. After an early start, I set out with a sizeable list of new sites in the Upper Woodbine. There were some mild successes to start, but to keep things concise I will only speak of the final and most productive spot. By now it was midafternoon and the winds were howling at full force. After floating about, examining various chunks of oyster hash, I at last reached a stopping point. Before me was a massive boulder, the size of a car, with a fantastically complex arrangement of debris cemented to one face. From afar it was just a greyish mess, but up close I could pick apart the various oyster shells, driftwood, Thalassanoides, etc. This mixture of debris and later considerations led me to believe that I was gazing upon an ancient storm deposit. Oyster shell hash Up until this point, I had been unsuccessful in finding any sign of vertebrates. I laid myself upon the slanted body of the boulder and got my face as close as possible to its heavily ornamented surface. Like a visual puzzle of sorts, it was very inviting to look at. Intuition told me that there had to have been something of worth hidden within the noise. Phosphate and carbonized wood It took a bit of time, but sure enough I eventually found a tiny pebble of phosphate lost in between the fissure to some branching burrow. The familiar sheen immediately reminded me of the jet black teeth I had once pulled out of the basal Atco conglomerate. With a little more wind in my sails, I continued perusing until I was met with something much more substantial. First phosphatic Cretodus semiplicatus of the day I had found a beautiful Cretodus semiplicatus. To those whom the Woodbine is foreign, such a find may seem pretty lucky as Cretodus is usually a rarity in most places. However, the marginal marine deposition of the group means that coastal predators are represented in very high numbers, so much so that C. semiplicatus is often the most common taxon of large shark to be found. Contrast this with the deeper waters of the slightly younger Bouldin Flags Fm in Central TX, where the same species occurs in much smaller numbers (though admittedly the individual sizes of the teeth are often considerably bigger). Anyways, I got to busting it out which proved difficult. The high density of durable oyster shells halted my progress greatly. Somehow I managed to extract the tooth as a clean chip without it poofing away into a million fine particles. From there, I began finding a large quantity of phosphatic bone material. Most were reptilian in nature and either obviously belonged to turtle or likely belonged to a croc. Sadly, the resilient nature of the matrix and fragility of the bones made a clean extraction more or less impossible... for me at least. Croc vert likely Terminonaris cf. robusta T Turtle elements Random ammonite fragment As my walking continued I began finding some occurrences of sandier depositions that were much easier to dig through and even richer with phosphate. What surprised me most, however, was their appearance. C. semiplicatus in situ In my eyes, those pictures above look as though they could have been taken along the shores of any sandy beach saturated with seashells. The soft sand was so loosely packed, the slightest pressure could disturb the granules and send them drifting away. As I scanned, I couldn't help but imagine the tropical storm or hurricane that must have taken place here 96 million years ago in order to create this flash-frozen formation. The wind suddenly felt of an ocean breeze, and the cloudy backdrop like a Mesozoic sky in recovery from absolute chaos; Alone, I wandered the shore. A couple of croc teeth. Likely Terminonaris cf. robusta To round off the day, I found some beautiful, though damaged, croc teeth. Like the critters asleep in this dune, it seemed I had lost track of time, so I made my way home. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have a bit of micro matrix to go through, but as of now, these are the species of vertebrates found: Cretodus semiplicatus Cenocarcharias tenuiplicatus Meristodonoides rajkovichi Pseudohypolophus mcnultyi Some nice pycnodont teeth were found Mostly Haimirichia amonensis, but I will take a closer look later Terminonaris cf. robusta I really thought I saw a dino tooth sticking out of the sand when I first spotted this. Actually it is an inarticulate brachiopod ( @Tidgy's Dad enjoy!) called Lingula subspatula. Thanks for reading!

I finally got back some of my prepped woodbine/eagleford ammonites, conlinoceras tarrantense, and I’m really happy with how they look! I collected all of these, and my friend Mercer prepped them for me. I need to get a reminder on what he used to coat them. One of them has a lot of sandstone but most have nice calcite. First 3 pics are the same one, admittedly the last 2 pics might have 1 that is different, they came back looking different enough that I can’t tell easily 🤣. Ignore the three circled ammonites, the one that isn’t circled is pictured.More to come..

Could someone help identifying what this is? Its a bit bigger than a shoebox and weighs about 30 pounds. Thanks in advance. This is from the woodbine btw as well as the ammonites ive included.

I was thrilled to find 9 woodbine ammonites today in eastern Tarrant county, TX, but what made it even better is that more than half were found at a locale that I found on my own. I found 2 very small ones some months ago, but it took this latest heavy rain and flooding to wash the rest out onto a large gravel area where I found them. One looks like it came out of a concretion. My only sadness is knowing that I can’t go back every week and find the same haul! All were either underwater or laying in the open except for one that was partially exposed in loose gravel.

I have had great luck finding fossils in creeks and wild places, but this afternoon was my first construction site success (other than Grayson nautiloids and a few shoe clams), and the first success I’ve had in northern Johnson county at a Mansfield construction site. I barely lifted this into my trunk and the car immediately lowered by a few inches. lol! I like creeks because erosion isn’t only visible for a few days until a big slab covers the entire ground, but it sure is easier to find ammonites by the curb..when they’re right there! If only I could have a cell phone alert for active tractors in the Tarrant Formation..

I had my best hunt of the year Saturday, it was incredible. I guess you could say I was…petrified. Sadly, my phone died after getting stuck in a reboot loop (thanks iPhone 10) so it’s now extinct. Oh and I finally found a dinosaur! It’s on top of an ammonite. 🤣 25 complete ammonites a few partials! I also found a 21-inch long chunk of pet wood and a colorful smaller chunk. I then found 11 ammonites today to start the new year right. My back is still sore and feet tingling after treading through creeks where shallower areas were actually frozen..lol! Tarrant and Dallas County locations. 2 were in partially exposed concretions. One of those is placenticeras or engonoceras? sorry about the blurry pic, I’m using another old phone I have that has a camera that only works when it’s on 2x, so I’m having to adjust to taking pics with it.

The apartments I live in are doing plumbing excavation and this was dug up, couple things caught my eye so drug it home. It's a very pretty variety of rocks to be mixed in cement if that's the case, couple strange things one in first pics, (not the rock) then there is the stone with unusual dendrites I'm assuming, what is the thing they are growing around in center? Whats with all the tubular shapes? Sorry for picture quality my lens getting scuffed up. Except for first three pics all the rest are same stone, I became slightly obsessed with it

I found this sticking out of a tall creek bank at water level, it doesn’t flake or leave residue like burned wood. Edge of woodbine and eagleford in far eastern Tarrant county. I’m guessing it’s petrified or at least very old? I appreciate in advance the confident explanations.

I’m searching for more Tarrant formation exposures between the woodbine and eagleford in Tarrant/Johnson counties and came across a few normal items (no ammonites this time). One of the more colorful small pieces of pet wood I have. Also, thanks to Lone Hunters ID assistance I have my first piece of coalified wood. I was in a hurry, and it was getting dark, but there’s more at the spot, I’m sure.

I don’t usually find these and I can’t say I know what genus/species they are, but I have come to appreciate the fine detail on a lot of fossils in the eagleford and woodbine compared to what I find in the limestone rich Fort Worth/Grayson/duck creek formations. Any help is appreciated! Mostly Tarrant but a little Dallas County TX too.

I have 3-4 spots (duck creek, Grayson, Fort Worth formations) I haven’t yet revisited since it rained that are really close to my house. I’ve been to the same conlinoceras spot 3x and this was my last visit until we get heavy rain/erosion again. It didn’t disappoint! Funny how I can walk by the same spot 3x and find things I missed. Haha! I’ve seen ammonites missing chambers before, but this little one seems to have indentations that might have been there originally, like from bite marks or something. What do you think? Just my child-like imagination? the nice looking white calcite specimen missing part of itself is from another larger creek that my primary spot feeds into more upstream. Tarrant County TX.

I found this in a creek in Tarrant county along the woodbine/eagleford border. Lots of sandstone present in the area, and some concretions. Thanks in advance for the ID assistance!

My best woodbine hunt ever (since I started this year, lol), 11 woodbines and one of them is over 7 inches across! The overall condition is better than my 2 prior excursions as well. I’m super thrilled about these. I also found some great pet wood pieces with the appearance of having been underwater for awhile “back in the day.” Any insight into the smaller “critters” is appreciated. I am not positive if one piece is sandstone or pet wood, but I do have 3-4 pet wood pieces (some not shown). The small ammonite in front is a different species than the conlinoceras tarrantense. Woodbine/eagleford border, Tarrant county Texas. My toes went numb walking the creek. I know another hunter who found 7 woodbines at this spot 2 weeks ago (after our biggest rain since Spring) but I guess my eyes were more desperate to spot what he missed

Most of my personal collection of fossils is still not fully prepped (or prepped at all in many cases), but I’ll try to share pics by groupings as I pull them out over the next few days/weeks. The easiest will be my echinoids and my eopachydiscus ammonites. My mortoniceras ammonites need a lot of prep work but I have some interesting ones. Here are my woodbine ammonites. I won’t likely keep all of these, and I may slice those that are really worn down on the outside, but for now, they’re all mine. I bought the top right specimen from the recent fossilmania show from the guy who preps my fossils..I hope to find one that size one day! These are all eastern Tarrant county TX. I’m scoping out johnson county for possible spots near Alvarado. The biggest ones you see in my photo are 5-7 inches in diameter.

Howdy all, This is supposedly a hadrosaur tooth from the Woodbine formation of Dallas Texas that I'm very interested in. (If you know you know) Do y'all think the ID is accurate?