Claw found in Montana. 4.9cm Maybe turtle?

[AndrewMT]

Howdy, I would love to know anything about this claw! I found it about 32 years ago and just rediscovered it hidden amongst my artifact piles. 

-USA, Montana, Petroleum County (not a large county, so I'll leave it at that). Not sure about the specific formation in that area.

-Surface find, didn't have time for any more exploring... but I can always go back.

-4.9cm long

 

Top

Bottom

SideA

SideB

Base

My apologies for the out-of-focus base, best I could do at home.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! I look forward to learning from this amazingly robust Fossil Forum.

[Randyw]

First off welcome to the forum! Secondly I’m sorry but I’m not seeing any signs of this being a claw or a fossil of any kind unfortunatly ….im afraid it’s just rock

[Kohler Palaeontology]

I agree with Randyw. No claw, or fossil here.

[jpc]

Hi... and I hate to tell you... I agree with the others.  there is no bone texture and it is not quite the right shape.

[rocket]

sometimes stones look like fossils, in this case it looks like a claw, but is a nice shaped stone 

[AndrewMT]

Thank you for the Welcome and all of your replies! Wow, the amount of knowledge I have regarding fossils should be apparent now haha. I have some large vertebrae I should probably get some opinions on also (might be rocks as well haha). I guess a person needs to start somewhere in order to learn, my fault for calling it a "claw". 

Great feedback from everyone (the more the merrier), much obliged! 

-Andrew

[Bullsnake]

31 minutes ago, AndrewMT said:

Thank you for the Welcome and all of your replies! Wow, the amount of knowledge I have regarding fossils should be apparent now haha. I have some large vertebrae I should probably get some opinions on also (might be rocks as well haha). I guess a person needs to start somewhere in order to learn, my fault for calling it a "claw". 

Great feedback from everyone (the more the merrier), much obliged! 

-Andrew

 

Welcome to the forum!

I'm glad to see you aren't discouraged by the replies for your item. 

There is no 'fault' for thinking it is a claw. That's how we learn. And the collective membership  knowledge here is unequaled, and you will learn to recognize fossils and what to look for to find them.

I hope to see if your other items are indeed fossils.

Also, a big thank you for adhering to the ID posting guidelines; good pictures of all sides, location, and scale!

[AndrewMT]

It takes a lot to discourage me haha, but Thanks! I might take it into the lab where I have Mass Specs and HPLCs and get a chemical composition/age, such a strange rock.