Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 I have sometimes asked for ID assistance on what turned out to be rocks, so my expectations are tempered, but this looks super similar to dino bones I’ve worked on while volunteering at a local university. I took pictures of all sides. It has a sort of a palmwood look on one side but there are some curves and a point that remind me of a bone. I’ve never found anything like it. It broke into 2 pieces despite my gentle handling as I pulled it out of the bank along the Trinity River not far from DFW airport in Irving Texas, where the woodbine and Eagleford meet. I hope I have something cool (non-mollusk) for once. Haha! Not far from this, I found some neat pyrite nodules that I haven’t seen before. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 (edited) Hey Shaun, total rookie guess here, but I'll throw out Mosasaur vertebra ...or half of one...in not quite the best preservation. Now we sit back and see how rookie I am when those who know will tell you what you found. Steve Edited April 1 by SPrice typo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Author Share Posted March 31 12 minutes ago, SPrice said: Hey Shaun, total rookie guess here, but I'll throw out Mosasaur vertebrae ...or half of one...in not quite the best preservation. Now we sit back and see how rookie I am when those who know will tell you what you found. Steve Thank you! I suspect you've seen a lot more than me, so I appreciate the effort, and I will await another perspective simply to bolster the consensus. Congrats on your recent retirement too, I enjoyed reading about your recent adventures! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 1 minute ago, Shaun-DFW Fossils said: Thank you! I suspect you've seen a lot more than me, so I appreciate the effort, and I will await another perspective simply to bolster the consensus. Congrats on your recent retirement too, I enjoyed reading about your recent adventures! It's kinda weird not going to work. I was 18.5 years at my last employment. I'm heading to 67 this fall and still feel 40...mostly. Now? every night is Friday Night! and every day is Saturday! Crazy. Utah weather is holding me back with the spring being - sunny, rainy, snowing, graupeling ( that's weird little snow pellets ) , hail, back to sunny all in one week or even the same day. High mountain desert climate ain't the same as sea level weather that's for sure. I would get some super glue and glue it back together and some more into the cracks were it mine. It may need a full coat of something like somebody did to this one...but maybe not that extreme just yet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 What I just found online is quite a few have been found in the NSR area and they seem to be fairly common. Maybe go back to the same spot and look for more or downstream from where you found this one. Those found also mentioned Eagleford. Great find and good luck if you go back. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikrogeophagus Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 Age is too old and morphology is wrong for mosasaur. This looks like plesiosaur to me and a big one at that. Nice find! 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Author Share Posted March 31 10 minutes ago, SPrice said: It's kinda weird not going to work. I was 18.5 years at my last employment. I'm heading to 67 this fall and still feel 40...mostly. Now? every night is Friday Night! and every day is Saturday! Crazy. Utah weather is holding me back with the spring being - sunny, rainy, snowing, graupeling ( that's weird little snow pellets ) , hail, back to sunny all in one week or even the same day. High mountain desert climate ain't the same as sea level weather that's for sure. I would get some super glue and glue it back together and some more into the cracks were it mine. It may need a full coat of something like somebody did to this one...but maybe not that extreme just yet. The weather sounds like Texas. lol! I will definitely aim to get it looking better, I like the example you shared. I’m 41 with a 3 year old and I’m about to have a boy in May so I’ll probably be working at least as long as you did. At least we have interests to keep us as busy as we want to be! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Author Share Posted March 31 4 minutes ago, Mikrogeophagus said: Age is too old and morphology is wrong for mosasaur. This looks like plesiosaur to me and a big one at that. Nice find! Thank you! I’m thrilled to find it, I’ll have to keep an eye on that spot after the next heavy rain (or drought) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 There you go a totally different water lizard. I noticed it was awfully big, too, for a Mosasaur but went with it out of sheer guessing. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 the third picture shows two holes on the bottom surface. That and the flat ends tells me this is a plesiosaur vert. A very large one. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Author Share Posted March 31 1 hour ago, jpc said: the third picture shows two holes on the bottom surface. That and the flat ends tells me this is a plesiosaur vert. A very large one. Thank you for the education, I’m learning a lot from the comments and I appreciate it! From what I can find online, it doesn’t seem like many plesiosaurs have been found in Texas? Or am I not finding a good representation of the actual paleontologist record online? I’m not sure how to find good resources in this realm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 12 hours ago, Mikrogeophagus said: Age is too old and morphology is wrong for mosasaur. This looks like plesiosaur to me and a big one at that. Nice find! 1 hour ago, jpc said: the third picture shows two holes on the bottom surface. That and the flat ends tells me this is a plesiosaur vert. A very large one. 13 hours ago, Shaun-DFW Fossils said: Definitely bone, as you can tell from the grooved texture on the inside of the specimen. And osteosclerotic at that, indicating a marine vertebrate. As mosasaur vertebrae are procoelous, and this vertebra isn't, this is clearly not a mosasaur vertebra. Instead, the amphiplatian nature of this specimen, the angular shape of the base of it, and the presence of two subcentral foraminifera indicate that this is a plesiosaurian - likely elasmosaur - vertebra, which vertebrae are either amphiplatian or platycoelous... (source) Nice find! Plesiosaur vertebrae, especially if that age, aren't all that common! 3 '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...
Jared C Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 40 minutes ago, Shaun-DFW Fossils said: Thank you for the education, I’m learning a lot from the comments and I appreciate it! From what I can find online, it doesn’t seem like many plesiosaurs have been found in Texas? Or am I not finding a good representation of the actual paleontologist record online? I’m not sure how to find good resources in this realm. Start by googling Libonectes morgani - I believe it was found in the Britton formation but could be mistaken, it was at least found in the Eagle Ford. There is also an undescribed Polycotylid in the Britton, which I suspect is the formation you found this in. See below, a line of verts from a juvenile. Might be the same undescribed Polycotylid. 2 “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun-DFW Fossils Posted March 31 Author Share Posted March 31 42 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said: Definitely bone, as you can tell from the grooved texture on the inside of the specimen. And osteosclerotic at that, indicating a marine vertebrate. As mosasaur vertebrae are procoelous, and this vertebra isn't, this is clearly not a mosasaur vertebra. Instead, the amphiplatian nature of this specimen, the angular shape of the base of it, and the presence of two subcentral foraminifera indicate that this is a plesiosaurian - likely elasmosaur - vertebra, which vertebrae are either amphiplatian or platycoelous... (source) Nice find! Plesiosaur vertebrae, especially if that age, aren't all that common! 9 minutes ago, Jared C said: Start by googling Libonectes morgani - I believe it was found in the Britton formation but could be mistaken, it was at least found in the Eagle Ford. There is also an undescribed Polycotylid in the Britton, which I suspect is the formation you found this in. See below, a line of verts from a juvenile. Might be the same undescribed Polycotylid. Thank you both! You’ve given me some nice rabbit holes (on Easter nonetheless) for me to go down on my educational journey..greatly appreciated! Is it worth reporting or documenting? I’ll probably create my own file with location/time/other data for the sake of accuracy down the road. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared C Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 1 minute ago, Shaun-DFW Fossils said: Thank you both! You’ve given me some nice rabbit holes (on Easter nonetheless) for me to go down on my educational journey..greatly appreciated! Is it worth reporting or documenting? I’ll probably create my own file with location/time/other data for the sake of accuracy down the road. I say hang on to it - but if you find the skull let us know 3 “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 1 hour ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said: Definitely bone, as you can tell from the grooved texture on the inside of the specimen. And osteosclerotic at that, indicating a marine vertebrate. Always happy to learn something new... what is osteosclerotic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 2 hours ago, jpc said: Always happy to learn something new... what is osteosclerotic? Osteosclerosis is a condition in which the density of the bone is increased. In marine mammals this frequently happens in order to overcome the buoyancy problem, and is often found together with pachyostosis - a thickening of the bone cortex - to combine into a condition known as pachyosteosclerosis, leading to the adjective pachyosteoslerotic, which you may have encountered... 4 1 '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...
Brad84 Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 Great finds! It’s for sure Plesiosaur as was mentioned above and more than likely the Eagleford instead of the Woodbine. Congrats! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybot Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Always nice when an Id makes the fossil even better than what it was originally considered to be Nice find! 1 -Jay ''...science is eminently perfectible, and that each theory has constantly to give way to a fresh one.'' -Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shark57 Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 22 hours ago, SPrice said: Hey Shaun, total rookie guess here, but I'll throw out Mosasaur vertebrae ...or half of one...in not quite the best preservation. Now we sit back and see how rookie I am when those who know will tell you what you found. Steve That was a pretty good guess for a rookie. At least you were close. If you want to get rid of the rookie designation you might want to learn that this is a vertebra, not vertebrae. Vertebrae is the plural of vertebra. A lot of "rookies" make this mistake. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 28 minutes ago, shark57 said: That was a pretty good guess for a rookie. At least you were close. If you want to get rid of the rookie designation you might want to learn that this is a vertebra, not vertebrae. Vertebrae is the plural of vertebra. A lot of "rookies" make this mistake. I have heard degreed paleontologists make this mistake. It irks me to no end that these folks might not know the difference. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Luckily, I'm not a paleontologist...whew! I will attempt to remove the "brae" out of "bra", bro. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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