May the Force Be With You!

Tell me these do not look like little Darth Vaders?!

Or a front view of the alien from Alien?

What these fossils come from is an equally alien-looking creature:

I've caught these "searobins" surf-fishing on Cape Canaveral Seashore.  I always hate having to touch those "fingers" when I unhook them.

The waters of the Peace River is are too high for digging so I made my way into one of the nearby creeks, riding on the coattails of fossil friends who had already scouted out the area.  

                                      

We spent a day digging in shallow gravel that held a number of little surprises, including that whole passel of searobin skulls.

Shark teeth were well-represented 

in the sandy gravel where we dug.

Duskies galore!

A smattering of tigers,

sand tigers,

lemons,

and makos, etc. 

But wait!  There's more!

I pulled some hemis and a meg out of there...

as well as a few unusual little shark teeth.

Some mammal fossils...

The top 2 photos are the back and side views of a tapir incisor.  

The bottom 2 photos are a chunk of mammoth tooth showing the chewing surface and a scute from a giant armadillo.

I also found several scutes from normal sized armadillos (i.e. small).

Here's a smorgasbord of small fossils...

I'll go clockwise starting upper left.

Porcupine fish mouth plates, a tilly bone and directly under it a fossilized root/twig, fragments of ray tail spines, drum fish tooth and snake vertebra. Between the fish mouth plates and ray spines are 2 very small dermal denticles from sting rays.  Below the snake vertebra are barracuda teeth, armadillo scutes (middle of photo), garfish scales, and an assortment of alligator teeth.  

Nice!

I'll round the photo gallery out with a photo of middle shell scutes from turtles...

and some other turtle/tortoise fossils.  I especially like the edge of the shell piece.