I’ve been having so much fun exploring Post Oak Creek in recent weeks that I decided to try another creek in the area Monday morning. The gravel bars in the creek looked much like those in Post Oak Creek, with lots of fossilized shell pieces everywhere, but in a hour of hunting, I didn’t find a single tooth. So, I decided to pull the plug on that, and drove on over to one of the spots on Post Oak Creek where I’ve been hunting. I was late enough arriving that I didn’t have a lot of time to hunt, and just limited myself to three gravel bars I could reach without too much hiking.

The water level in the creek is still very low. There were lots of tracks and evidence of digging, so I knew it was very picked over. We really need a good rain to bring some new fossils to the gravel bars. But I still managed to find some teeth. Here are some in situ photos for today’s “Find the fossil” game.

Here is what I brought home.

These were the only two Ptychodus teeth of the day.

It took me a little while to figure out what this was. It’s the middle section of a broken gastropod.

There were no spectacular teeth from this trip. Here are the ones I thought worthy of an individual photo.

I made another trip to Post Oak Creek Thursday morning. I explored a new spot on the creek for the first time. We had some rain and snow in the area last week, but I don’t expect it was enough to raise the creek level too much, or wash out much new stuff, but it definitely had everything muddy Thursday. I was surprised that, on this 70 something degree day, there were still spots of snow in shady parts of the creek, over a week after our only snow of the year.

It was obvious that there weren’t as many teeth in this segment of the creek, and I didn’t find any larger teeth. But like other parts of the creek, there were teeth, along with other interesting stuff, to be found. Some in situ photos.

Here is what I brought home Thursday. The bison tooth that joined all the fossils looked like it had been in the creek a long time.

These are the only two Ptychodus teeth I found.

Here is the prettiest tooth of the day. There are so many broken teeth in Post Oak Creek, finding one in this kind of shape will bring a smile to your face. It’s a Scapanorynchus raphiodon anterior tooth.

Here are the other teeth I took photos of individually.

And there always seems to be interesting bones to be found here too. This one looks to me like the upper part of an Enchodus fang.

This one looks like it came from a joint of some kind. A mosasaur, maybe.

And then there’s this. I have no idea what it is. It has such a distinctive shape. I’ve asked in The Fossil Forum to see if anyone recognizes it.

And finally, my favorite find of the day. I’ve only found one other fish vert this large. If you’ve cleaned as many fish as I have, you can appreciate just how large the fish was that this belonged to. It’s enough to make you take a moment to marvel at the amazing creatures who occupied our space all those years ago.

I made another trip to Post Oak Creek yesterday. I visited a spot on the creek where I’d already been twice last year, in the first months of my fossil hunting. The conditions the second trip were much like yesterday, months of low water and very picked over. I didn’t find much that second trip. But I suspected that I have become much better at spotting tiny teeth on a gravel bar, and went back yesterday anyway. Judging from what I found, I must have been right.

There were lots of broken teeth again, and nothing spectacular or unusual enough to justify a post, but I do enjoy documenting my trips, and have a question about one of the bones, so here I am. First, some in situ photos. The tooth in photo 6 is pretty hard to see. Hint: it’s a Ptychodus tooth. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

I ended up bringing home 6 Ptychodus teeth, over 100 other teeth, 4 rocks with teeth in them, several bones, and one gastropod.

A real shame this tooth is broken. Even with one side of the root broken off, and half the cusp missing, this is still the largest tooth I’ve ever found.

This is another tooth that would have been really large if there wasn’t so much of it missing.

The next largest tooth, missing one cusplet and half its root.

Here are some of the more striking smaller teeth. I used to not be able to spot many teeth this size in all that gravel. There’s something to be said for getting down on knees and elbows, and for getting your eyes trained.

Half the root is missing from this tooth. I thought it was interesting how large the cusplet is, compared to the main cusp.

Here is the largest of the Ptychodus teeth.

To me, this was the most interesting of the bones I picked up. On the first side, it’s just a flat surface, with an ordinary bone-looking finish. But on the second side is quite a raised pattern. I’ve asked in The Fossil Forum if anyone recognizes it.

I went back to Post Oak Creek yesterday, and hunted yet another part of the creek I hadn’t seen before. The water is still really low, so there is less wading than usual although, with the temperature in the low ’80’s that afternoon, wading wouldn’t have been a problem. I torqued my bad left knee first thing as I climbed down into the creek, and was hobbled the rest of the day. I found everything on the gravel bars yesterday, though I did look at some interesting outcrops too. Post Oak Creek is as fossiliferous as any place I’ve ever seen.

I called it after around three and a half hours of hunting. I always manage to get dirty and muddy, crawling the gravel bars and climbing in and out of the creek, and I must have really looked like a homeless person, as I hobbled back toward where I parked, backpack on and walking stick in hand, because a woman in a white SUV stopped, got out of the vehicle, and asked me if I needed a coat. I said no, and she asked me if I was sure. I assured her I didn’t need a coat. She looked unconvinced, and did not move her vehicle until after she watched me cross the road and climb into my brand new truck.

Some in situ photos. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

Here is what I brought home. There were 99 teeth, counting the bison tooth. Guess I should have hunted long enough to find one more.

The largest shark tooth of the day. A beauty. It’s a shame that half the root is missing.

There are always modern mammal teeth to be found on these gravel bars. I found a bison tooth yesterday. But this one is different. Besides being much smaller than a bison or cow tooth, it appears to be at least partly fossilized. I have no idea what it is. I’ve asked in The Fossil Forum.

This tooth is still embedded in a piece of matrix.

The only Ptychodus tooth of the day. Either the parts of the creek I have hunted don’t have a lot of Ptychodus teeth, or they have already been hunted by someone with a better eye for Ptychodus teeth than me.

This looks to be some kind of tooth, including part of the root. But it doesn’t have the shiny enamel of a shark tooth, so I’m not sure what it is.

I thought these four were the prettiest of the smaller teeth.

I’m surprised that I was able to find some of these really tiny teeth on those rough and tumble POC gravel bars. I must be getting better at spotting them. And how did the point of teeth as tiny and sharp as these two keep from getting broken on those gravel bars?

I thought this one was interesting. Lots of root, with a tiny, curving tooth.

This broken small round tooth looked like a mosasaur tooth to me. It was identified as a sawfish rostral tooth on The Fossil Forum.

The size of the bison tooth reminds just how big those creatures are.

This bone looked interesting enough that I picked it up, but I have no idea what it is.

I spent yesterday morning at the North Sulfur River. I had never made a trip to the upper part of the river, and decided to do that yesterday. I spent all morning walking (and crawling) the river, but found nothing. When I try out a new spot, I’ve made it a practice to find a nearby second spot to look at, in case the first one doesn’t pan out at all. Sherman isn’t too long a drive to the west of this upper river spot, so I designated a new section of Post Oak Creek that second spot, and drove there after I left the river.

I wasn’t too optimistic about what I might find in this new section of Post Oak Creek. The conditions and cirmcumstances seemed all wrong. I didn’t arrive there until after noon. Post Oak Creek is a long enough drive from home that I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay long. Plus, it’s been quite a while since there was a good rain here. Post Oak Creek gets very picked over when there isn’t new water uncovering stuff. But I figured if I found anything at all under these conditions, that would let me know this is a good spot, and I should return after a good rain.

I also had the thought that if I didn’t find much on gravel bars, I would spend some time searching matrix here. I had never done that at all at Post Oak Creek. I hiked down the creek and hunted a single gravel bar. I never made it past that gravel bar, and ended up finding much more than I expected, and only briefly looked at matrix there. For those so inclined, here’s today’s version of “Find the fossil”. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

I actually took 14 in situ photos, but culled to these 8 to post.

Here is what I brought home. I shouldn’t pick up so many broken teeth, but I can never seem to resist a fossilized tooth.

Here is the first of the two largest teeth. These are among the largest teeth I’ve found in my short time fossil hunting.

And here is the other larger tooth. Neither of these teeth is in perfect condition. But, considering how many teeth I’ve found this year that were so small they required a microscope to photograph, I was still thrilled about finding these two.

Lots of cracks in this one, but it’s in one piece, with the root intact. A real beauty, I think.

The only Ptychodus tooth of the day.

Half the root missing, but still a pretty tooth.

Other teeth from the day.

This looks to me more like a crinoid segment than anything else, though I’ve never found crinoids in this area before. The thought in The Fossil Forum is that it really is a crinoid segment, and came from further west, brought in with construction material.

This is plainly a bone, but I can’t tell what it’s from. Perhaps someone in The Fossil Forum will recognize it.

This bone is as brown as any fossilized bone, but the porous part of it hasn’t become completely filled in yet, so I assumed it must be a modern bone. It seemed like a good candidate to take home and do the flame test on. A flame didn’t produce any smell, but I did eventually get smoke.

And this is obviously a modern bone, but it was so interesting looking I picked it up anyway. I had no idea what it was. It was ID’d in The Fossil Forum as pharyngeal teeth from some kind of fish.

With my short time at the end of the day looking at matrix, I found these two teeth. I also spotted a couple of gastropods in giant rocks, but freeing them would have taken more chiseling than I was willing to tackle that late.

I made another trip yesterday morning to the Navarro County creek I visited a couple of times in the last few weeks. I had found everything I brought home last time on gravel bars, but ran out of time, and never got to search some good looking gravel bars downstream. Those gravel bars are actually a shorter hike than the ones I found fossils on, so I’ve been wanting to come back. I ended up being very disappointed in those new gravel bars. I found nothing. I finally hiked on up the creek to the gravel bars where I’d found stuff last trip, and hunted them again.

The day didn’t produce a lot. Most teeth were just broken pieces. Here is what I brought home. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

Here are a couple of in situ photos.

Here is the tooth in that first in situ photo, no roots left at all.

And the tooth from the second in situ photo, with just one root.

Here’s the largest tooth of the day. No roots, plus the tip broken off.

This bacculite looks a lot like those you find at NSR, except tumbled a lot more.

I so rarely find complete, or almost complete ammonites, so it seems ironic that in this creek, where all the teeth are broken into pieces, I find this guy.

And then there’s this. Here are three views. That’s a Tic Tac I used to prop it up in the first photo. The last photo is a view of the back side. It kind of looks like a piece of jaw bone with two teeth, one of them very tiny, on it. It may be Enchodus.