Identifying Bones

[Australopithecus]

Are there any good guides out there for identifying bones? I don't yet have any fossils that I personally have found, but I would appreciate the knowledge.

-Australopithecus

[Foshunter]

There is a book I use all the time called Vertebrate Fossils: A Neophyte's Guide by Frank A. Kocsis covering the Miocene & Pleistocene Epochs. Inquiries should be addressed to: IBIS Graphics, 2913 Fairfield Ct., Palm Harbor, Florida 34683. This is a contact start for you, very interesting book with actual pictures of bones teeth, etc. hope this helps--Tom

[tracer]

i need lots more books, but do a lot of my hunting for id info online. i spend a fair amount of time trying to eliminate modern animals from consideration when trying to id a bone, in that it's hard to tell a lot of the time how old a bone is. so if i just had some extra money to spend, one book i'd really like to have would be this one - link.

but the problem is just the volume of bones possible. when you go out hunting a lot, you find a lot of bones. after a while you just learn a lot of them by sight.

[jpc]

Wow... cool book. tracer. The one I use is Miles Gilbert's Mammalian Osteology. I don't know how widely available it is...he self-published it here in Laramie primarily for archeologists. It is not as extensive as tracer's link seems to be, but it is a great start and will help familiarize anyone with the basic bones. He also did one called avian osteology, again, modern bones for the archy in us all.

[Procynosuchus]

You may need to begin whit a comparative anatomy book to understand the basic terminology (if you haven't yet, obviously). I can suggest "Comparative anatomy of the vertebrates", by Alfred Sherwood Romer.

I have just finished reading "The Origin and Evolution of Mammals" by T.S.Kemp, very interesting book, but i guess a proper guide to identification would be more effective whit "mere" IDs.