BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 (edited) I made a trip to a different spot on the North Sulfur River this morning. I had been to this spot one time last year, but an unforecast rain shower showed up and turned the river into such a muddy mess that I turned around and left without finding anything. With a 100 degree high forecast for today, I didn't figure rain would be a problem. I found some of the usual things you expect to find at NSR, Hamulus worm tubes, a gastropod, a perfectly preserved complete bivalve, some interesting bones, and lots of bacculites. The only bacculite I brought home was the one in this photo, with the great suture lines. Edited June 15, 2022 by BudB 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 I thought these two bones were especially interesting. They look like mosasaur bones to me, but I can't tell from what part of the mosasaur. Here are views of both sides of each of them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 But today was the day for verts. And each time I found one, it was bigger than the last. First, I found this little shark vert. It's in pretty rough shape, but still put a smile on my face when I spotted it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 Then I found this mosasaur vert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 Then I spotted this fish vert. This is the largest fish vert I've found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 (edited) But if I thought that was going to be the biggest vert of the day, I was seriously mistaken. As I was on my way to leave the river, I spotted this. I'm assuming it's a mosasaur vert. How gigantic did that mosasaur have to be? I'm aware that mosasaurs grew to some pretty huge sizes, but I had no idea there were any this big that had roamed north Texas. Here are several views. It's over 10 cm in diameter (that's 4 inches in Texan measurement), and even taller than that. Edited June 15, 2022 by BudB 1 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
historianmichael Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Your big vertebra is not mosasaur. My guess is that it came from the Pleistocene gravels there. I defer to those more familiar with Pleistocene fossils for an identification. Follow me on Instagram (@fossil_mike) to check out my personal collection of fossils collected and acquired over more than 15 years of fossil hunting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) 29 minutes ago, historianmichael said: Your big vertebra is not mosasaur. My guess is that it came from the Pleistocene gravels there. I defer to those more familiar with Pleistocene fossils for an identification. Wow, that's interesting. The North Sulfur River is a deep enough riverbed that it cuts through a lot of layers, but I did not realize any of them were Pleistocene. Edit: Now that I think about it, I do recall someone finding a mammoth tusk in a bluff wall at NSR, but it wasn't fossilized. Perhaps this is a mammoth vertebrae? Edited June 16, 2022 by BudB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 40 minutes ago, historianmichael said: Your big vertebra is not mosasaur. My guess is that it came from the Pleistocene gravels there. I defer to those more familiar with Pleistocene fossils for an identification. 44 minutes ago, BudB said: Wow, that's interesting. The North Sulfur River is a deep enough riverbed that it cuts through a lot of layers, but I did not realize any of them were Pleistocene. Edit: Now that I think about it, I do recall someone finding a mammoth tusk in a bluff wall at NSR, but it wasn't fossilized. Perhaps this is a mammoth vertebrae? This is actually a mosasaur, and a BIG one - knowing the deposit, it could be the "big guy:" Tylosaurus Note that mammals have amphiplatyan vertebrae (or at leasts the few I know of), not opisthocoelous. ^ Rebecca Hawkins Looks like maybe caudal? @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon ^ Polcyn et al. (2008) 4 1 "Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument." - Carl Sagan "I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." - Richard Feynman Collections: Hell Creek Microsite | Hell Creek/Lance | Dinosaurs | Sharks | Squamates | Post Oak Creek | North Sulphur River | Lee Creek | Aguja | Permian | Devonian | Triassic | Harding Sandstone Instagram: @thephysicist_tff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
historianmichael Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 I stand corrected. In quickly looking at the photos I thought that both ends looked flat. On a second look I see the slight concavity and convexity to either end. Congratulations on a big mosasaur find! 1 Follow me on Instagram (@fossil_mike) to check out my personal collection of fossils collected and acquired over more than 15 years of fossil hunting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Euhoplites Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Sweet baculite 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) 10 hours ago, ThePhysicist said: This is actually a mosasaur, and a BIG one - knowing the deposit, it could be the "big guy:" Tylosaurus Note that mammals have amphiplatyan vertebrae (or at leasts the few I know of), not opisthocoelous. Thanks for that. I had assumed it was mosasaur because I didn't know what else it could be. It certainly dwarfs any other mosasaur vert I've seen. Both this and the fish vert were completely buried in the mud. With the fish vert, one concave end of it was visible, and so I recognized it immediately. Not so, with this mosasaur vert. The convex end was flush with the mud, and it just looked like some old pottery piece as I walked past. Only the matrix that's still attached to that one side made me take a second look and pull it out of the mud. I get the impression that both verts were deteriorating pretty quickly in that wet mud. Edited June 16, 2022 by BudB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 This view of me holding it really drives home just how big that vert is. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Posted July 4, 2022 Share Posted July 4, 2022 Sorry for showing up late to the party like this. But with the move going on, life is absolute chaos for me, right now. Too many proverbial balls to keep an eye on! Anyway, wanted to start off saying that it seems like you had a great hunt! Some really nice finds there! On 6/16/2022 at 2:48 AM, historianmichael said: Your big vertebra is not mosasaur. My guess is that it came from the Pleistocene gravels there. I defer to those more familiar with Pleistocene fossils for an identification. And, yeah, when I saw the first two photographs of this huge mosasaur vertebra, I too was initially misguided into thinking it was something else. Though my first thought went out to plesiosaur, due to the vague heart-shape visible in these photographs. On 6/16/2022 at 3:50 AM, ThePhysicist said: Note that mammals have amphiplatyan vertebrae (or at leasts the few I know of), not opisthocoelous. On closer inspection, however, the procoelous (rather than opisthocoelous) nature of the specimen became clear to me. And, as has justly been pointed out, this rules out some major suspects as the origin of the vertebra, basically leaving us with just mosasaur. (source) On 6/16/2022 at 3:50 AM, ThePhysicist said: Looks like maybe caudal? You are correct in that this does indeed look like a caudal vertebra, more specifically a post-pygal vertebra, which is given away by the overall shape of the vertebral faces on the one hand and how relatively short the vertebra is on the other. Have a look at the below diagram to see how shape and position along the mosasaur vertebral column match up (source): On 6/16/2022 at 10:38 PM, BudB said: This view of me holding it really drives home just how big that vert is. While this is huge, it's not the largest mosasaur vertebra I've seen to date, the largest being an unpublished specimen held in a private collection. Another giant vertebra, however, was posted here not all too long ago. And while there was some discussion on whether it was indeed a mosasaurian due to its enormous size - its bad preservation unfortunately not allowing for undisputed identification as in this case - I maintain that it was. And this certainly seems plausible when comparing it to this one, especially in light of it being a post-pygal one. Much like pliosaurs (and crocodiles are supposed to do) - of which I've got a massive anterior caudal vertebra in my collection that well drives home how enormous these marine reptiles could get - mosasaurs likely kept growing their entire lives, leading to immense sizes in the oldest individuals of the largest species. On 6/16/2022 at 3:50 AM, ThePhysicist said: This is actually a mosasaur, and a BIG one - knowing the deposit, it could be the "big guy:" Tylosaurus Considering this is a post-pygal vertebra, the size of its owner would've been immense in life. So I second your supposition that the most likely candidate for where this vertebra came from is Tylosaurus sp., more specifically, in the context of NSR, T. proriger. A truly humongous find (pun intended)! 2 'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted July 7, 2022 Author Share Posted July 7, 2022 (edited) On 7/4/2022 at 6:18 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said: Sorry for showing up late to the party like this. But with the move going on, life is absolute chaos for me, right now. Too many proverbial balls to keep an eye on! Anyway, wanted to start off saying that it seems like you had a great hunt! Some really nice finds there! And, yeah, when I saw the first two photographs of this huge mosasaur vertebra, I too was initially misguided into thinking it was something else. Though my first thought went out to plesiosaur, due to the vague heart-shape visible in these photographs. On closer inspection, however, the procoelous (rather than opisthocoelous) nature of the specimen became clear to me. And, as has justly been pointed out, this rules out some major suspects as the origin of the vertebra, basically leaving us with just mosasaur. (source) You are correct in that this does indeed look like a caudal vertebra, more specifically a post-pygal vertebra, which is given away by the overall shape of the vertebral faces on the one hand and how relatively short the vertebra is on the other. Have a look at the below diagram to see how shape and position along the mosasaur vertebral column match up (source): While this is huge, it's not the largest mosasaur vertebra I've seen to date, the largest being an unpublished specimen held in a private collection. Another giant vertebra, however, was posted here not all too long ago. And while there was some discussion on whether it was indeed a mosasaurian due to its enormous size - its bad preservation unfortunately not allowing for undisputed identification as in this case - I maintain that it was. And this certainly seems plausible when comparing it to this one, especially in light of it being a post-pygal one. Much like pliosaurs (and crocodiles are supposed to do) - of which I've got a massive anterior caudal vertebra in my collection that well drives home how enormous these marine reptiles could get - mosasaurs likely kept growing their entire lives, leading to immense sizes in the oldest individuals of the largest species. Considering this is a post-pygal vertebra, the size of its owner would've been immense in life. So I second your supposition that the most likely candidate for where this vertebra came from is Tylosaurus sp., more specifically, in the context of NSR, T. proriger. A truly humongous find (pun intended)! Thanks for those details. I really appreciate it. For a rank amateur like me, this vertebrae may remain the crown jewel of my collection for some time. Edited July 7, 2022 by BudB 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatized Deinonychus Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 Wow! What a found! That's a dream find for the NSR! I would put that on display. Total newbie here. I've been fossil hunting exactly one-time and it was at the NSR. I'm probably making a road trip out West next year for a couple of months, so I really need to learn more about the stuff. I thought they flooded the NSR? It's a 5 hour drive for me, but I would love to go again. I didn't find much, and it was right before they were supposed to build the dam, but in four or five hours I think I found a small chunk of a mammoth (or something). I did probably walk two or three miles up river and back. I almost got bit by 3 copperheads. Is there a new spot to hunt on the NSR? Or did they postpone the lake? I would love to go again. I really could use some advice though. I have no idea what I'm doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudB Posted July 9, 2022 Author Share Posted July 9, 2022 On 7/8/2022 at 1:38 AM, Agatized Deinonychus said: Wow! What a found! That's a dream find for the NSR! I would put that on display. Total newbie here. I've been fossil hunting exactly one-time and it was at the NSR. I'm probably making a road trip out West next year for a couple of months, so I really need to learn more about the stuff. I thought they flooded the NSR? It's a 5 hour drive for me, but I would love to go again. I didn't find much, and it was right before they were supposed to build the dam, but in four or five hours I think I found a small chunk of a mammoth (or something). I did probably walk two or three miles up river and back. I almost got bit by 3 copperheads. Is there a new spot to hunt on the NSR? Or did they postpone the lake? I would love to go again. I really could use some advice though. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's not flooded yet. They're still building the dam. I've not seen an estimated completion date. The fossil park has been moved to the FM2990 bridge, and will move again when the lake fills. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted July 9, 2022 Share Posted July 9, 2022 Via the temp park sign: "... water delivery anticipated to begin in 2025." 1 "Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument." - Carl Sagan "I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." - Richard Feynman Collections: Hell Creek Microsite | Hell Creek/Lance | Dinosaurs | Sharks | Squamates | Post Oak Creek | North Sulphur River | Lee Creek | Aguja | Permian | Devonian | Triassic | Harding Sandstone Instagram: @thephysicist_tff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agatized Deinonychus Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to go back soon. I read last night that they are going to have more than one access point to dry riverbed, even after it is flooded? That would be great, if it is still fossil rich in those spots. What is the best way to hunt there? I've been once and just walked a few miles looking at the surface. Is this best? Should I dig around anywhere? Look in the banks? Is there certain things to look for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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