crocodile

08-09-vl-crocodile-4457

This tiny bone found by Vicki turned out to be one of the most important finds of the day. At first thinking it was a very large bird, after closer examination, James realized it was a baby crocodile, the only baby one found in Alabama! After waving us all away from the area, he proceeded to search on hands and knees, finding at least 8 tiny scutes, which had been missed when the bone was flagged. He even hiked back to the cars to get a screen, so the area below the find could be searched. If you examine the photo carefully, the small items that look bits of broken shell are actually parts of scutes.

baby crocodile

August 17, 2008 - Cretaceous - Dallas and Perry Counties, Alabama

Day 1 Friday         Day 2 Saturday         Day 3 Sunday

A weekend trip to the Cretaceous chalk gullies of Dallas County Alabama and a creek in Perry county turned up numerous fossils.  Ancient creatures, including shark, turtle, mosasaur, ptychodus, fish, clam, and ammonite were found during the three day weekend trip.

DAY 3 - SUNDAY

After a good night's sleep, we headed off to a set of larger gullies early Sunday morning. A lot of fish bones, shark vertebra, shark teeth, enchodus jaw/tooth, nice piece of turtle shell, and even crocodile bones were found.  As usual, we stayed in the gullies until darkness made it impossible to collect any more.

(photos courtesy Claire Smith and Vicki Lais)

Gully overview

Overview of one of the gullies surveyed on Sunday.

fish vertebra
fish

Fish vertebra.

fragments of fish bone
fish

Fragments of fish bone.

unidentified item

Unidentified item

enchodus tooth
enchodus

Enchodus tooth still connected to bony part of jaw.

Shark tooth
shark tooth

Cretoxyrhina mantelli shark tooth (ginsu - ecologically similar to the great white shark).

Shark tooth and shark vertebra
shark vertebra, shark tooth

Scapanorhynchus shark tooth and shark vertebra.

ammonite replaced by iron pyrite
ammonite

Part of ammonite replaced by iron pyrite.

Bone
bone

Mosasaur rib bone fragments found by Don.

bone
bone

Protestega (turtle) bone

James and Don in gully

James examines mosasaur rib bone fragments found by Don.

shrimp burrow
burrow

Distinctive burrow internal molds, probably made by ghost shrimp, were common in the gully.

Mosasaur vertebra
mosasaur vertebra

Mosasaur vertebra.

wrapping fossil specimens

Bob is assisting James with wrapping of specimens so they will make it back to the museum safely.

fish bone and shark vertebra
shark vertebra, fish

Fish bone in lower left, broken shark vertebra in upper right.

bone
bone

Small bone in area filled with bone and shell fragments.

collecting in late evening

As the sun gets low in the sky, we're still going around to the marked items, surface collecting or excavating as needed, trying to finish before dark.

sunset

Sunset in the gully.

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