Cetacean Saturday

[Fin Lover]

Despite not really feeling up to hunting yesterday (I'm getting discouraged by my finds lately), I decided to go while the weather was still decent.  And when you are not expecting to find much and/or set the bar pretty low, it makes it easy to exceed your expectations and have a pretty good trip.   Here is what I brought home:

 

First up are the odontocete fossils:

 

My first ear bone ever:

 

And a vert and related piece of bone that were sitting together under an uprooted tree:

 

That's it for cetaceans, but that is pretty good for one trip for me.

 

Other verts (not in good shape, though):

 

Burrfish mouth plates (also not good condition):

 

Ray mouth plate pieces and my biggest tail barb so far:

 

Random osteoderms and bone pieces (I keep less than half of the bones I find):

 

Various steinkerns, which I try to limit now as well, but the spiraling ones are cool:

 

Gator tooth that was still partially in matrix:

 

Fish jaw with teeth (maybe...let me know if you recognize it):

 

Crab claw, I think:

 

What I believe is my first piece of petrified wood here (again, feel free to correct me):

 

And, of course, shark teeth:

 

My best Great White so far:

 

My first Angel shark tooth (shoulder and tip of crown are broken):

 

A cool looking tooth - posterior sand tiger I believe:

 

And the rest of the teeth (including a couple broken threshers, a barracuda, a sawfish/sawskate, etc.), which I won't show individually:

  

As always, I wish my body could have handled a few more hours of hunting, but between little rain (no new wash-out), low creek water levels, rising heat, and health limitations, I think it turned out to be a pretty good haul.  And no speeding ticket this trip!   Thanks for reading!

[Meganeura]

@Boesse are you able to ID the ear bone?

[Done Drillin]

Nice finds ! Could that maybe be a croc tooth ?

[Fin Lover]

I believe there was one type of croc, Thecachampsa, but gator is more common in the area, so I just assumed that's what it was. But, I will look into it more.  Thank you!

[Boesse]

The "gator tooth" is actually probably a tooth of the giant dolphin Ankylorhiza, if from the Charleston area, and the periotic is from a waipatiid dolphin.

[Fin Lover]

Thank you, @Boesse.  Yes, it was from the Ladson area.  Ankylorhiza is better than a gator!  

[Echinoid Express]

Very cool! It's always a good feeling to find a really nice Great White tooth. The odontocete teeth are really neat too.

[Shellseeker]

7 hours ago, Fin Lover said:

And when you are not expecting to find much and/or set the bar pretty low, it makes it easy to exceed your expectations and have a pretty good trip.

WOW, WOW and WOW   !!!!!

You may need to set the bar low more often !!! You not only exceeded your own expectations,  but I was out today also.. You far exceeded both my expectations and my actual finds.... Congrats on a great day hunting...

Some notes...

I think that your Ray Barb fragment is from Myliobatis,  an Eagle Ray...

I do not think the two teeth in your Fish jaw,  remind me at all of fish teeth... Measurements ?   Jack

[Fin Lover]

Thanks, @Shellseeker!  I am often very impressed with your finds, so I appreciate the compliment! I had no idea where to even begin on the jaw, and someone suggested fish.  The section is 19mm long, 11mm tall (jaw bone and tooth combined) and 5mm wide.  I am definitely open to it being something more exciting than fish.  

[Shellseeker]

10 hours ago, Fin Lover said:

Thanks, @Shellseeker!  I am often very impressed with your finds, so I appreciate the compliment! I had no idea where to even begin on the jaw, and someone suggested fish.  The section is 19mm long, 11mm tall (jaw bone and tooth combined) and 5mm wide.  I am definitely open to it being something more exciting than fish.  

Fish are exciting !!! I am trying to track a 20 mm jaw found yesterday...and while looking I found this old TFF thread...and so I must eat a few statements.   They might be fish teeth.. 

I think you might find this old TFF thread interesting: Did you ever consider Wahoo?

 

[Meganeura]

4 minutes ago, Shellseeker said:

Fish are exciting !!! I am trying to track a 20 mm jaw found yesterday...and while looking I found this old TFF thread...and so I must eat a few statements.   They might be fish teeth.. 

I think you might find this old TFF thread interesting: Did you ever consider Wahoo?

 

Having been the one to suggest it was a fish jaw… I’m glad I was correct! 

[Fin Lover]

@Shellseeker, no, I didn't consider wahoo because I recently found a wahoo jaw and it is much different:

[Shellseeker]

4 minutes ago, Fin Lover said:

@Shellseeker, no, I didn't consider wahoo because I recently found a wahoo jaw and it is much different:

So,  a key may be that , with my statement , I was thinking narrow pointy fish teeth... Yours are sort of round cone shaped.  NICE find by the way... 6 teeth is a jaw in great shape  !! I would like some of that....

 

This is wahoo premaxilla (Acanthocybium solandri) ??  So does a Wahoo have both loosely and tightly packed teeth in its jaw?

[Fin Lover]

@Shellseeker, if I remember correctly from reading about wahoo, I thought they had tightly packed teeth (no spaces in between).  

 

If you want to research that further, there are some references listed in my Collections Reference Museum entry:

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Fin Lover
Added CRM link

[Done Drillin]

@Shellseeker - if not mistaken the jaw piece you have is from a king mackeral (Scomboromorus cavalla) which has more widely spaced teeth than a wahoo. 

[Fin Lover]

17 hours ago, Boesse said:

The "gator tooth" is actually probably a tooth of the giant dolphin Ankylorhiza, if from the Charleston area, and the periotic is from a waipatiid dolphin.

Bobby, since this one was not gator, I have another tooth found previously in the area that I'm now guessing is not gator either.  Is this one also Ankylorhiza?  They all have two carinae and ridges:

 

Thank you so much! 

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, Done Drillin said:

@Shellseeker - if not mistaken the jaw piece you have is from a king mackeral (Scomboromorus cavalla) which has more widely spaced teeth than a wahoo. 

Thank you,  So keeping an eye on the prize.  The fossil fish jaw has spaced teeth and Wahoo does not,  eliminating Wahoo as a possibility.  King Mackeral  does seem to have anterior teeth with space separations and posterior teeth with no spaces.  It would be a possibility, but maybe only one of many.

[Boesse]

@Fin Lover That one indeed also looks like Ankylorhiza!

[Fin Lover]

Great, thanks!

[Fin Lover]

@Boesse, you identified my first odontocete periotic back in June. I finally found a second one which, from looking at your blog, I think is also waipatiid, but I could be way off.  Would you mind IDing this one as well?  Now that I'm learning what to look for, hopefully I will start finding more and can contribute some to your study.  Thank you!

 

[Coco]

Hi,

 

You have forgotten the size !

 

Coco

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great thread and really super photos of nice finds.

[Fin Lover]

Thanks @Tidgy's Dad!  Unfortunately, that was the only trip where I had zero expectations but did really well. 

 

For anyone wondering what my new post to Bobby is talking about, you can read it on his blog:

https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2023/09/bucket-o-earbones-from-lowcountry-river.html?m=1

Edited November 15, 2023 by Fin Lover
added link

[Boesse]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:29 PM, Fin Lover said:

@Boesse, you identified my first odontocete periotic back in June. I finally found a second one which, from looking at your blog, I think is also waipatiid, but I could be way off.  Would you mind IDing this one as well?  Now that I'm learning what to look for, hopefully I will start finding more and can contribute some to your study.  Thank you!

 

Sorry for being AWOL! Just saw that the forum is back online. This does indeed look to be a waipatiid - and I strongly suspect this is a taxon known from complete skulls with associated periotics from the Chandler Bridge Fm., awesome specimen! Was it found loose or in situ someplace?

[Fin Lover]

Thanks, @Boesse!  It had recently washed out of the bank. 

 

And thanks for IDing my xenorophus tooth earlier today!  It was found near where the periotic was found. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Fin Lover