Please help ID this partial bone

[d-marbles]

This was found, with other bone fragments and a partial shark's (?) tooth  in the ditch by a roadcut  on North River Rd., just East of the little town or Artic WA.  It's 10cm long.

I hope the photos show the knobby, crooked form, it's shaped like a crooked finger, could it be a broken and healed rib bone? Please see arrow ---> on "top" pic.. I'm interested in what you all think! Thanks.

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by d-marbles
updated photo

[val horn]

i think it is neat piece of bone.  Not sure that it will be identified.  I am not familar with what is found in your location.   I would also want to check whether it was fully follized by trying a burn test, as one end certainly looks neatly cut or broken

[d-marbles]

Thanks for replying, it's definitely stone. It's such an intriguing piece, I wonder if it was broken and healed. 

[d-marbles]

I can't find the "edit" option, I want to clarify that this is a FOSSILIZED bone .

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

I can confirm that it is fossilised bone. But without knowing the location, its geological time and its palaeoenvironment, I'm not sure whether I can contribute in any more insightful way. What first popped into my mind, however, is that this could possibly be a piece of jaw...? Could you tell us a bit more on the geological context at the find location, may be?

 

Also, you'll not have the "edit" option yet. This will only become available after the first couple of posts... I had the same issue when I first started out

[d-marbles]

Thank you for the confirmation. I did reveal the location, and according to my big geologic wall map of the SW quadrant of Washington state, the area is Miocene (mm1), marine sedimentary rock. 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Sorry, may be I should've been clearer when I said I didn't know the location, as what I meant is that I'm not familiar with it. Marine does sound about right, though, as the bone looks pachyostic (especially when seen from the left), a trait characteristic of marine organisms, as it helps them achieve neural buoyancy.

 

I'm not sure I'd be able to help you post that, though, as Miocene is not really my epoch. As such, for all I know the bone could either be cetacean or from a sirenian (an order that includes the manatee, dugong and Stellar's sea cow). However, in case of the latter (wouldn't know about the former), the idea of a jaw-sectiion is definitely off the table, as can be seen from the below photograph taken in the Senckenberg Museum for Natural History in Frankfurt. Yet, at the same time, the widening visible in the front and back views of the specimen, as well as the overall thickness of the pieceand lack of curvature, make me doubt an interpretation as a rib... It's mor of a feature I know from (reptile) jaws...

 

 

May be @Shellseeker would be able to help here, though, as I think this material would be closer to his expertise in both time and type...

[d-marbles]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post Patchy-pleural-whatnot-adon, I appreciate it. Just for clarification on what you wrote, do you believe jawbone is off the table, or did you reconsider later in your post?

Should I message @Shellseeker or will he be notified to this post with his name in it? What's the etiquette around here? 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

3 minutes ago, d-marbles said:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post Patchy-pleural-whatnot-adon, I appreciate it. Just for clarification on what you wrote, do you believe jawbone is off the table, or did you reconsider later in your post?

Should I message @Shellseeker or will he be notified to this post with his name in it? What's the etiquette around here? 

Well, what I meant is that the bone can definitely not be a sirenian jaw-bone. The photograph I attached shows various specimens, and as you can see their morphology doesn't match your find: the figures jaws are much taller and robust than your bone and are down-turned towards their distal end, which is another feature not present in your specimen. So, in that sense, jaw-bone is off the table. However, if the bone is from another type of animal, I don't think jaw can be ruled out yet...

 

As for name-tagging: the person in question will automatically be notified, and thus will respond if they've got time and think they may be able to make a worthwhile contribution to the discussion. No need to send them a PM. I'm not sure what social policies are concerning the latter, but I maintain not to PM anybody I don't know without explicit prior invitation.

[Shellseeker]

My first impression was/is whale jaw bone, due to that groove running down the side, I expected to find tooth sockets or a baleen ridge running down your last photo. I am certainly not positive but can point to TFF threads where I found whale jaw.

Marine Miocene matches whale jaw,

Baleen and toothed whales have similar jaw lines with/without teeth

Keep your eye on the jaw sections closest to the skull.

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/63327-finally-1st-since-jan-6th/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/102218-florida-fossil-marine-jaw-bone-id-help/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/89699-a-peace-river-bone/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/91523-florida-whale-jaw/

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 hour ago, Shellseeker said:

My first impression was/is whale jaw bone, due to that groove running down the side, I expected to find tooth sockets or a baleen ridge running down your last photo. I am certainly not positive but can point to TFF threads where I found whale jaw.

Marine Miocene matches whale jaw,

Baleen and toothed whales have similar jaw lines with/without teeth

Keep your eye on the jaw sections closest to the skull.

Thanks for chipping in, @Shellseeker! That was what I thought as well, cetacean jaw bone. Just didn't want to propose it outright as I don't have any experience with this kind of material. But, yeah, towards the skull sounds about right... I'd have said back of the jaw, based on where the jaw thickens in reptiles.

[d-marbles]

2 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

My first impression was/is whale jaw bone, due to that groove running down the side, I expected to find tooth sockets or a baleen ridge running down your last photo. I am certainly not positive but can point to TFF threads where I found whale jaw.

Marine Miocene matches whale jaw,

Baleen and toothed whales have similar jaw lines with/without teeth

Keep your eye on the jaw sections closest to the skull.

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/63327-finally-1st-since-jan-6th/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/102218-florida-fossil-marine-jaw-bone-id-help/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/89699-a-peace-river-bone/

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/91523-florida-whale-jaw/

 

Thank you both for helping with my little mystery chunklet. It's as an exciting an outcome as anything I imagined! I might be hooked now.

[darrow]

This piece seems very pachyostic osteosclerotic. Much more dense than any jaw bone material I've handled.  I'm thinking of cetacean or sirenian rib fragment from.  A fragment more proximal to the vertebra from 0ne of the more more anterior ribs.  Some have a bend or crook near that end where they transition from a round cross section to a more flattened oval cross section.  

 

https://boneclones.com/product/manatee-rib-KO-146-R

https://paleoenterprises.com/shop/manatee-fossils/manatee2-17/

 

[Oregon1955]

hey d-marbles,

 

nice find, great photos, and good location data for a first post. definitely a forum trifecta. congratulations and a warm welcome to the forum. The only thing I know about Artic Wa. are the great burgers at the drive in, but l am fairly familiar with the marine sediment formations to the south in Oregon. however I'm only a amateur so I can't identify your bone. but you have offered a wealth of information and I believe your fragmentary find is identifiable by the experts on the site.

 

here are my fragmentary thoughts.

 

there are a couple of formations close to your locality. the Oligocene Lincoln creek formation and the overlying Miocene Astoria? formation. Each has its own cast of possible vertebrate candidates. if you can identify the formation, the closer you'll be to narrowing the list of possible animals.

 

if you post pics of the other material found at this ditch it might help.

 

of the many possible vertebrates found in the Lincoln creek and Astoria formations the bone looks most like marine mammal to my eyes. based on size of the specimen alone I'd start looking at as many dolphin and pinniped skeletons I can find firstly. but be prepared to be surprised by the weird and wonderful world of Oligocene and Miocene marine vertebrates. maybe @Boesse will drop by and tell it what it is.

 

Mike

 

[val horn]

I wouldnt have ventured  what bone it was  (shellseeker has alot more knowledge than me),  but rib was less likely because of all the curves in and out on what I would expect to be smoother surface in a rib.  Jaw bones  tend to be dense bone and  would be relatively flat, but not have the almost uniform external curve that i expect in ribs that this bone lacked..  

[Shellseeker]

On 1/3/2021 at 6:05 PM, d-marbles said:

Thank you both for helping with my little mystery chunklet. It's as an exciting an outcome as anything I imagined! I might be hooked now.

 

21 hours ago, 10313horn said:

I wouldn't have ventured  what bone it was  (shellseeker has a lot more knowledge than me),

 

d-marbles,

We have some experts and scientists on TFF, like Bobby Boessenecker, who is an expert on whales and to their credit, like many scientists will not give you a guess if they do not know what it is..

I am not a scientist or even expert on marine mammals.  I am an amateur fossil hunter who has seen tens of thousands of bones, many of them marine mammal  and whenever I find one, I guess based on my experience on what it might be. Some times I know for sure, the rest of the time it is my best approximation.

I think you are very fortunate,  I believe it might be a chunk of whale jaw,  Darrow provides persuasive statements that your bone is more likely rib.  There are likely other options, but you get to decide which option makes most sense to you.  Very fortunate...

[darrow]

After just reading the attached paper I think osteosclerosatic (not pachyostic) is a more correct term for what I think I see in this bone.

 

Shellseeker makes an excellent point in that we've only provided leads you may follow in your quest to identify this bone.  I just found the attached paper I believe may help with the identification.

A. Houssaye et al..pdf

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

9 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

[T]o their credit, like many scientists will not give you a guess if they do not know what it is..

I don't know whether it's a disciplinary thing, or something personal. But at least in my field of science - archaeology, which is (also?) highly interpretive - guesses and speculation are considered okay, and are some of the ways in which scientific insight progresses. That's why scientific principle proceeds based on hypothesis-testing, and different paradigms exist. Now, of course that's quite different from making a wager at the identification of a fragmentary piece of evidence (still, who doesn't like a good bout of speculation ), but general pointers in a specific direction as we've been giving and a simple "I don't know" are answers too. I've seen experts on this forum admit as much, and there's no shame in that. In fact, admitting you don't know or have been wrong - while some of the most difficult things to do as a scientist or expert - are also the most courages things to do and work most towards the furthering of the field. Most importantly, however, mention should be made whenever an idea is based on a(n educated) guess or speculation, as this allows the receiving party to estimate the value of your statement - another aspect of scientific inquiry That having been said, only Santa Claus can be everywhere at the same time and never skips a child, meaning it doesn't always pay to chip in on a discussion if there's nothing new to add... But that just my thoughts on the matter

 

9 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

I think you are very fortunate,  I believe it might be a chunk of whale jaw,  Darrow provides persuasive statements that your bone is more likely rib.  There are likely other options, but you get to decide which option makes most sense to you.  Very fortunate...

Though these were indeed the two options I originally set out - i.e., jaw and rib - and didn't necessarily want to respond before because this is really not the material I'm used to dealing with, I do find myself leaning more towards the jaw camp. This is because, while sirenian costae are a lot more massive than I imagined from having them seen assembled in a skeleton, they would still have a curvature that 10313horn mentions is lacking. Also, the fossil's internal bone structure is about as dense as I'm used to from Mesozoic marine reptiles. And just to illustrate that the jaw bone frequently gets thicker towards the distal part of the jaw (that part closest to the cranium), here's a couple of images of both mammal and reptile (crocodilian) jaws. Also note the depression on the inside of the jaw bone of the pinniped example, as I believe we're seeing exactly this type of thinning in OP's specimen as well (though I wouldn't venture as to whether this makes it pinniped, cetacean or anything else, as this condition is not limited to pinnipeds):

 

Jaws from (top to bottom): Cretaceous crocodilians Kaprosuchus, Simosuchus, Mariliasuchus, and Jurassic to Cretaceous crocodilians Dakosaurus and Cricosaurus (by: Carol Abraczinskas, American Museum of Natural History, Jeremías Taborda). "Oh snap! Jaws helped crocs outlast the dinos", NBC News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Californian sea lion mandibles, male and female. Source: "Gender ID - Pinnipeds", The Marine Mammal Anatomy & Pathology Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

4 hours ago, darrow said:

After just reading the attached paper I think osteosclerosatic (not pachyostic) is a more correct term for what I think I see in this bone.
 

[...] I just found the attached paper I believe may help with the identification.

A. Houssaye et al..pdf

I think both are present, but, yeah, what is most properly described as osteosclerosis would be the most notable difference. I typically just stick with the description of pachyostosis, following the University of Alberta's course on Mesozoic marine reptiles (which I can highly recommend for those interested), but I can imagine they did not want to confuse those enrolled in the course with an overdose of terminology. As Wikipedia further mainly describes osteosclerosis as the pathology it is in humans and other terrestrial animals, I've never taken serious consideration of making the distinction. However, Houssaye et al. (p. 1350), in the article you linked, makes the distinction wonderfully clear:

 

Quote

Bone mass increase is achieved either by pachyostosis, that is, an increase in periosteal bone deposits, affecting the bone outer shape, or osteosclerosis, that is, an increase in inner bone compactness, or both (pachyosteosclerosis; Houssaye 2009).

In other words, if the bone cortex is thicker than usual, it's called "pachyostosis"; if the cancellous (i.e., spongy) bone is more dense, it's called "osteosclorosis"; if both conditions are present, it's referred to as "pachyosteosclerosis". The latter is what we're seeing here.

 

As to the merits of the article itself: having only glanced it over and read the conclusion, I would initially be sceptical as to the utility of using bone microanatomy (i.e., both the thickness of the bone cortex and pattern of vascularization of cancellous bone) towards taxonomic determinations. For, although there are certainly observable differences in bone microanatomy between the bones of different marine species (or, rather, genera), there are numerous complicating factors, one of which would be the type of bone (short, long and flat) and bone shape. In addition, the authors already themselves indicate they did not take individual interspecific variation into account, nor performed comparisons across different three dimensional planes, which leaves us without knowledge as to the possible overlap that may exists in intraspecific bone microanatomy. Similarly, various histological studies (see here for one on nothosaurids from the Lower Muschelkalk) have remarked upon ontogenetical bone remodelling that may affect the degrees of respective pachyostosis and osteosclerosis (I myself have both a nothosaur and plesiosaur humerus in my collection, which internal structures are - at least superficially - very comparable to one another). Age, moreover, may also play an influence in these patterns, as I've had chance to observe from my (admittedly limited) experience with physical anthropology (i.e., the study of human bones), where, in addition to other possible forms of bone remodelling, cancellous bone will gradually get resorbed with age (in fact, the pattern and degree of cancellous bone resorption in long bones [particularly the femural head] is a very good indicator of age in Homo sapiens). And that's not even to mention bone pathologies, which osteosclerosis is typically itself already seen to be.