I took off this morning and made a drive to central Texas to explore a new creek. This part of the creek is Wolfe City formation. I had hunted another Wolfe City spot not too many miles from this one, but wasn’t sure what to expect. I had found mostly teeth at the other spot, so after making a pretty long hike to get to the best looking outcrop in this creek, I searched the outcrop itself, without finding anything other than shell fragments. So I put on my knee pads, and started searching the gravel bar (more of a mud bar, really; this creek is pretty muddy) nearby. The only things I spotted on the gravel bar were a couple of exogyra ponderosa oysters. I didn’t pick them up. They are heavy to carry, plus I already have a good collection of nice ones from my early NSR trips. I was pretty disappointed, since this was the best looking outcrop in the creek. But I’ve learned that where there are exogyra ponderosa oysters, there are usually other fossils nearby. So, I started my trek back up the creek with the intention of checking the gravel bars closely.

Sure enough, on the very next gravel bar, I spotted this.

I was pretty surprised, since I had mainly just found teeth at my only other Wolfe City spot in this part of the state. I was on knee pads when I spotted that vert, but hadn’t found any small fossils at all, so I stood up and spent the rest of my time on my feet, looking for bigger stuff. Sure enough, less than five minutes later on the same gravel bar, I spotted this.

And that was it. The rest of the hike back, I found nothing but more exogyra ponderosa oysters. So I didn’t bring much home, but any time I find mosasaur verts, I’m going to consider that a good trip. Here is a better look at that first smaller one.

And here are four views of that second vert. I think it’s a beauty.