Horse River Finds in Midwest

[dbrake40]

For those of you that hunt rivers and creeks in the Midwest how often do you find horse remains? These three humeri were all found within a 2-mile stretch of a river within about a two year period - along with many other random tarsals, a femur, multiple tibia, and several teeth...

[Thomas.Dodson]

I assume we're talking modern remains as well? I don't come across them in North Dakota streams and rivers that often but in Illinois I'd find horse remains while doing research pretty often. Brought back a skull from this past summer.

[dbrake40]

Yes. ~modern. Although we have found Pleistocene fauna fossils in the are including horse. 

 

 

[LabRatKing]

Yep all relatively modern.

[dbrake40]

13 minutes ago, LabRatKing said:

Yep all relatively modern.

If you hunt rivers and streams in the Midwest how often do you find horse remains? 

[LabRatKing]

2 minutes ago, dbrake40 said:

If you hunt rivers and stream in the Midwest how often do you find horse remains? 

In my neck of the woods, various ice age era horse parts are as common as gravel. Modern horse and cow are so common as to be annoying.

 

Try what is known as a burn test on these- if the results smell like burned meat/old socks/rancid roadkill, they ain’t fossils

 

just hold a lighter to one edge for about 1 minute and sniff. No worries, if they are fossils, it won’t harm them.