Palm Bay Florida Estate Find #3 and proper etiquette questions

[Grimmie]

Hello everyone! I'll start with etiquette questions. To be honest, I like to collect things that I think look interesting. I was at an estate sale and bought a small collection of fossils, arrowheads, stone tools, bones, and other things that I  cant even begin to speculate as to what they are. I am definitely now addicted to this and plan on dedicating several hours a day for my new found love. With that said, here are my questions and another item for identification. 

1. How many postings are appropriate per day for identification without becoming annoying?

 

2. Is there an app anyone is aware of that I can simply upload an image and get accurate results?

 

3. What would be the best way to share multiple, dozens of pictures in one large group, if possible to share with all the members?

 

And finally, another set of pictures for identification. To me, this looks like a finger from gorilla. There are markings on the bag it was in that I can make out that says Nebraska and Reptile. I don't know if that is accurate, but please enjoy the photos and any identification would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Dan

[digit]

7 minutes ago, Grimmie said:

1. How many postings are appropriate per day for identification without becoming annoying?

I'd say take it a bit slow to start and see where things go. You may have pieces that are non-fossil and outside of the general interest/knowledge of our membership and posting a lot of them will just overwhelm our members. If you are going to post a series of items it would help to give each item a number just so that we can easily refer to it in the following conversation. For example, "Here are 3 images of item #1". It helps to have the images well lit and exposed and have a ruler scale in the images so we can get a good idea of the size. Using coins, lighters, beer bottles, shoes may give an approximate size but are far from precise.

 

10 minutes ago, Grimmie said:

2. Is there an app anyone is aware of that I can simply upload an image and get accurate results?

Results? Yes.

 

Accurate results? Well....

 

We seem to be on the verge of AI replacing humans in many respects but at the moment we still have new members with pseudo-fossils claiming an AI app "guaranteed" their concretion from Florida was a priceless T-rex embryo in an egg. Visual AI systems can be wonderful tools if they are trained with enough input imagery. iNaturalist is a good example of an app that is useful for identifying bugs, flowers, birds, and several types of commonly photographed animals. There does not seem to be enough fossil imagery being fed into AI image recognition neural nets so the jobs of paleontologists are safe (for the moment).

 

16 minutes ago, Grimmie said:

3. What would be the best way to share multiple, dozens of pictures in one large group, if possible to share with all the members?

You best method would be to post to the Fossil Identification subforum and choose a few well lit/focused images from multiple angles for each subject. Give that item a number (as mentioned above) to make it easy to refer to in conversation. Just a few photos from useful angles are generally sufficient. We'll let you know if a different view would be helpful. Since photos are cheap these days we often see someone with a mystery object posting 20-30 images from virtually the same angle. This doesn't really provide any additional useful information and generally annoys members who have to scroll down through pages of nearly identical images. If you have groups of what appear to be similar objects, posting them (numbered) in a separate topic will likely net better results than posting 3 images each of 50 objects in a single post. Consider your reader--making your post clear and easy to understand will help you with better ID results.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Fossildude19]

1. How many postings are appropriate per day for identification without becoming annoying?

 

I'd limit it to 5 per day, so long as you add all pertinent information, and pictures with something for scale in them.

Do not take for granted that we all know where you found something  - always add location information, where possible.

 

Also, for 3-dimensional objects, 6 pictures should suffice - top, bottom, right side, left side, front, and back. All should be looking straight on at the fossil.

 

 

2-dimensional fossils need a picture of the overall piece, then closeups of the fossil itself. Plants are more easily identified by the veining on the leaves, and how they attach to the stem, or Rachis.

Camera should be held directly above the item - no oblique angles.

 

 

2. Is there an app anyone is aware of that I can simply upload an image and get accurate results?

 

Not that I am aware of. More A-I based apps are being developed, but my experience has been that much AI (including Google Lenz) stink at identifying fossils.

 

3. What would be the best way to share multiple, dozens of pictures in one large group, if possible to share with all the members?

 

Start a topic in Member Collections. Post mass item photos there. But do not expect ID's from these photos.

ID's come from well lit, in focus pictures posted in the FOSSIL ID forum.

 

[Fossildude19]

@Grimmie

Also, no pictures for ID in this post. 

[Grimmie]

You are correct!  To say that I'm still a little wet around the ears would be an understatement.  Photos are being attached now.

[digit]

Nice! That one is a nice whale tooth. We have a resident paleontologist who is an expert in these (Bobby) @Boesse and a passionate fossil hunter (Jack) @Shellseeker who has been steadily acquiring knowledge of these types of fossils.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Shellseeker]

48 minutes ago, Grimmie said:

You are correct!  To say that I'm still a little wet around the ears would be an understatement.  Photos are being attached now.

You purchased a Fossil Collection from the estate of someone who lived in Florida.. I would think that many of the fossils may come from Florida based on easier access.

You have a large Whale tooth..The lateral banding just below the tip in your 3rd photo is a differentiating detail for whale. I love finding whale teeth... We have 2 more common large whale teeth found in the South Eastern US States.... Scaldicetus and Kogiopsis. You can search the Internet or this forum and find lots of tooth examples of either species...

 

I believe yours is the 2nd type : Kogiopsis

 

 

1 hour ago, Grimmie said:

And finally, another set of pictures for identification. To me, this looks like a finger from gorilla. There are markings on the bag it was in that I can make out that says Nebraska and Reptile. I don't know if that is accurate, but please enjoy the photos and any identification would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Dan

Trust but verify... It is not reptile,  and it did not come from Nebraska...

[Grimmie]

These are not the greatest pictures- I put this together quickly. Instead of doing 6 shots of each, which I will get to doing and sharing- are there any particular ones in this group I should put to the group 1st for further evaluation and identification? 

Thank you so much everyone!

Dan

[digit]

Most of the pieces in this photo are too worn to say more than Chunk-o-saurus (a playful term for unidentifiable fragments of bone). There are no dinosaur fossils in Florida but this is a borrowing of a term from out west where often indeterminate pieces of dinosaur bone may be found.

 

The fossil circled in green is one half of a megalodon tooth. The two circled in pink could use more close-up imagery as they may possibly be identifiable.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

[digit]

These others may be useful to see closer up.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

 

[Fossildude19]

[digit]

Yup. That's what those look like. A close-up image of the wide end should show enough for confirmation.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

[Grimmie]

Thank you so much! 

Here is the 1st set of pics of the 1st one in pink. 

[Grimmie]

2nd set of highlighted image.

[digit]

Interesting wear pattern on the occlusal surface. The hole drilled through the root indicates that this was likely worn on a necklace. This could be a modern modification or something more archaic. The hole does look rather uniformly round so I'm guessing it was done more recently. Without good provenance there is only so much we'll be able to infer.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[digit]

Just now, Grimmie said:

2nd set of highlighted image.

 

Yup. Gator tooth! (Fossilized)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Grimmie]

Next set 

 

[Grimmie]

Again, thank you all SO MUCH!

I've never been afraid to ask for help when I need it, or give it when I have it. 

 

[Shellseeker]

From experience of seeing LOTS of broken tooth fragments,  I believe this to be Equus (horse)..

 

The most important photo on most/any fossil tooth is the chewing surface.... Try to get a clear photo under sunlight or halogen,  where the fossil fills 75 % of the space in the photo....

[Shellseeker]

Equus Incisor,

[Grimmie]

Lets try a new category:-)

Could this possibly be a fin? 

It was in the same wrapping as the whale tooth.

Thanks!

Dan

[digit]

22 minutes ago, Grimmie said:

Could this possibly be a fin? 

It was in the same wrapping as the whale tooth.

Nope. What you are thinking of as "fins" are made up of soft tissue and skin overlying the skeletal structure. None of this other than bone gets preserved as fossils. It's a common misconception that those new to fossils make when trying to imaging what a particular object might represent. We've seen no shortage of "snake heads" "embryos" and even "petrified hearts" none of which turned out to be anything more than rocks with a quirky shape.

 

Your piece seems to be a large chunk of smooth cortex bone (from a much larger complete bone). The thickness and size narrow the field (but not enough to be conclusive). These large bone fragments tend to be pieces of either proboscideans (mammoths, mastodons, and gomphotheres) or whale bones. This piece has no diagnostic features so it will likely remain a Chunk-o-saurus. The one distinctive thing that it does show is some marine encrustation (likely bryozoan and barnacle attachments). This would indicate that this piece spent some time at the surface off the coast of Florida (assuming it was locally found originally). There is an offshore bone bed that fossil hunters dive just a few miles off the beach near Venice, FL. This looks a lot like one of those finds. Pieces like this are often tossed up onto the shore after particularly violent storms (hurricanes) so it could be a beach find and not discovered while diving. Other than that not much will be able to be said about this piece other than it is a large chunk of fossil bone likely picked up in Florida.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Boesse]

Agreed on that tooth being some kind of large toothed whale - very likely a sperm whale.