Revisiting Camel-Bison

[Shellseeker]

These finds from last Saturday.

When I first saw this tooth in my sieve, my immediate reaction was "bison", just based on the chewing surface where the chevrons seem more rounded than "v" shaped. Then my hunting partner noted no stylid, and this likely camel-llama I thought that the buttresses looked to be more like camel. Size is H35mm X W22.5mm X L26.1mm (occlusal surface). With the degree of fossilization, it's hard to believe this is Bos but that's a possibility.

If camel, seems large enough to be Heniauchenia.

Next up -- turtle center osteoderm -- different from the thousands of such osteoderms I have seem in the last 5 years. Any ideas on which Turtle and/or why so different looking?

Finally a couple of fish verts: Are these fresh or salt water? Each is in excellent shape. Can these be modern? TFF identified a larger previous version of Vert1 as Sawfish.. Based on size, these are pretty small fish.

It was a great hunting day, out in nature, fantastic weather, found some less common fossils. What could be better? Thanks for all comments. SS

[ZiggieCie]

I am no expert, and I did not sleep at a holiday inn last night, but I don't see the ridge between the cusps that I link with Bison. Nice finds.

[RichW9090]

Bison - the style is clearly present.

The bottom fish vertebra has the flattened appearance I associate with Amia, the bowfin.

The upper vertebra appears to be shark.

Edited June 30, 2015 by RichW9090

[Shellseeker]

Rich,

Thanks for the IDs... The stylid is kind of minimal. I have taken it for a little extra centum. I am pleased that my initial take was bison. If this one turned out to be camel, I would have been less sure of future IDs,

On the shark vert, I have found 3 or 4 of these and used this photo to ID as Sawfish (Pristis Lathami) http://www.dmap.co.uk/fossils/barton/vert/bartvert.htm. I had always considered Sawfish as less common than other sharks and it confuses me not to find other shark vert and the fact that like this one (20mm) they are from small sharks.

We have Gar and Bowfin in the Peace River region, and this vert may be modern. The preservation is very good with trace details unworn. Hard to be certain. I have found puffer fish mouthplates in a similar high state of preservation, and they would not be modern.

[Plantguy]

Hey Jack, nice finds!

On the turtle I have a very similar piece...because of the size Jeff and I were discussing big tortoise and the guys at the Tampa club were saying giant tortoise for sure..I know there were a couple Hesperotestudo's so I'll wait to see if anyone can confirm/narrow it down.

Regards, Chris