I took off Monday morning and drove to Sherman to hunt a Grayson County creek again. With the drought we’ve had, all the creeks there were getting pretty picked over. But, much of the county had had 1.5 inches of rain in the past 14 days, and I wanted to see if that was enough to wash much new material into the creek. The spot where I visited is one of my favorites. It’s too short a hike from the access point to escape a lot of hunting, but it usually holds quite a few fossils anyway.

It was obvious from walking the creek bed that the water from the rains had gotten above the lowest gravel beds, but it looked more like a gentle wash, and I got the impression that while the water may have helped uncover a few fossils, it wasn’t enough to really wash in more fossils. We need more of a floor for that, it seems. But, as always, I did find some cool fossils. Here are a few, as they lay on the gravel bars. Click the photos to be able to zoom in for a closer look.

Even without new material washed in the creek, I was able to find over 100 teeth. It’s amazing, the number of fossils the creeks in this area produce.

Here is the biggest of the five Ptychodus teeth I found. A real beauty, I think it’s my favorite of the day.

I think this is the prettiest of the other teeth.

Here are the other teeth I took individual photos of.

Yesterday morning I drove to Grayson County and hunted yet another new spot in a creek. This one did not disappoint. With the extended drought (though parts of Grayson County did get a half inch of rain later in the day yesterday), I keep wondering how these creeks aren’t picked clean, but I’m still finding fossils. Here are a few as they lay. Click on the individual photos to be able to zoom in for a closer look.

Here is what a picked up. There are 124 teeth, but no Ptychodus teeth. It’s funny how hit or miss finding Ptychodus teeth seems to be in these creeks.

I think this a piece of a sawfish rostral tooth. I also found one of these my last trip, but didn’t recognize what it was.

I think this little guy is my favorite tooth from the day. I uploaded the other individual tooth photos from the day into this album.

And then there’s this rock. Here are views of both sides. I had to ask in The Fossil Forum what this was. It’s branching bryozoan, that attach themselves to oysters, it turns out.

I’ve had so much fun hunting teeth in Post Oak Creek that I decided to try some of the other creeks in Grayson County. Last week’s visit to another creek didn’t produce much, but today’s new spot had lots of interesting finds. Like Post Oak Creek, this one is Austin Chalk on maps, near the Eagle Ford boundary. Here are a few finds as they lay. There are two teeth in photo 2. Photo 4 requires a close look. Click on the individual photos to be able to zoom in for a closer look.

Here is what I brought home.

Here are the six Ptychodus teeth I found.

Here is a closer look at the lower right Ptychodus tooth in the last photo. It looks so much different than any Ptychodus tooth I’ve seen. It has the classic crown and ridges, but it’s much flatter than any Ptychodus tooth I’ve seen, and the root looks more like other shark tooth roots than Ptychodus tooth roots. After cleaning it up and looking at it closer, I’ve come to the conclusion that it just looks this way because so much of the root is broken off. The second photo below shows an end view of it, and that side view of it in my hand does the best job of showing how flat it it.

Here are the two biggest teeth of the day. That first one would have really been big if everything wasn’t broken.

Here are the other teeth I saw fit to take individual photos of.

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.