I made a trip to my favorite spot on a Grayson County creek yesterday. We haven’t had any rain lately, so I know the creek is pretty picked over right now, but this part of the creek is tough enough to get to that I thought it might not have had too many people hunting it. I was wrong. There were freshly dug holes everywhere; this is the most picked over I’ve ever seen it. I don’t need to go back until we get a good rain.

But as always, I did find some good stuff. You tend to not find bigger teeth when things are so picked over, and sure enough, I didn’t, but some of the ones I did find were really nice teeth. Here are some in situ photos of the teeth I found. Click each image to be able to zoom in for a closer look.

Here is what I brought home.

My favorite tooth of the day. Not really big, but a beauty.

Here are the two nice Ptychodus teeth I found.

Individual photos of other teeth I found.

I made a trip back to the North Sulfur River yesterday. I had found that giant mosasaur vert as I was leaving last week, and it had gotten hot enough that I didn’t take time to search the area around it well, so I couldn’t resist doing that yesterday. I ended up disappointed in not finding much else in the area near where I’d found that vert, and all the footprints everywhere were a reminder that the river has been pretty picked over since the last rain, even in this remote area where I was. I need to wait for a good rain before making another trip here.

But I did find a few things. This mosasaur vert was probably the best find of the day. It’s actually one of the larger mosasaur verts I’ve found, but seems tiny compared to that giant one I found last week. Here are three views of it, top, side, and bottom. Click the individual photos to zoom in for a larger view.

I was not able to identify any of these next bones. I’ve posted in The Fossil Forum to see if anyone else can identify them. These type bones from NSR are usually Ozan formation, and are either fish or mosasaur. Here are three views of bone #1.

And three views of bone #2. It is so big and thick, it makes me think of mosasaur jaw, but there are no teeth in it.

Three views of bone #3. It’s so thin, I wondered if it’s from a mosasaur paddle or fish fin.

And finally, I found this piece of an ammonite. I would love to see the entire ammonite. It’s larger than most you find at NSR.

I made a trip to a different spot on the North Sulfur River yesterday morning. I had been to this spot one time last year, but an unforecast rain shower showed up and turned the river into such a muddy mess that I turned around and left without finding anything. With a 100 degree high forecast for today, I didn’t figure rain would be a problem.

I found some of the usual things you expect to find at NSR, Hamulus worm tubes, a gastropod, a perfectly preserved complete bivalve, some interesting bones, and lots of bacculites. The only bacculite I brought home was the one in this photo, with the great suture lines.

I thought these two bones were especially interesting. They look like mosasaur bones to me, but I can’t tell from what part of the mosasaur. Here are views of both sides of each of them.

But yesterday was the day for verts. And each time I found one, it was bigger than the last. First, I found this little shark vert. It’s in pretty rough shape, but still put a smile on my face when I spotted it.

Then I found this mosasaur vert.

Then I spotted this fish vert. This is the largest fish vert I’ve found.

But if I thought that was going to be the biggest vert of the day, I was seriously mistaken. As I was on my way to leave the river, I spotted this. It’s a mosasaur vert. A really big mosasaur vert. How gigantic did that mosasaur have to be? I’m aware that mosasaurs grew to some pretty huge sizes, but I had no idea there were any this big that had roamed north Texas. Here are several views. It’s over 10 cm in diameter (that’s 4 inches in Texan measurement), and even taller than that. This view of it in my hand seems to do the best job of showing just how big it is.


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