Angel Trumpets and Devil Trombones

With the blessing of low water

comes the curse of dragging your kayak up and down the river.

I'm starting to feel less like I'm guiding a gentle pack animal along the water way and more like I'm pulling a mule across the desert.  

I have a winner to my little contest which was the first person to correctly identify which movie the title of this week's blog comes from, AND post the answer in the "comments" section of my blog.  Tracy will receive a glyptodont scute in a riker box and it won't be a sad chipped up scute.  Glyptodont heaven has been good to me so I will pay a good scute forward.
I'll think of more easy contest ideas because I love sharing good fossil feelings.

Sooo, we have reached the time of the year where every ounce in the kayak counts

 and that's when Tom finds a big ol' leg bone:

This hunk of proboscidean is more exciting to me than many of my finds but

not more exciting than finding...

a whole freaking dire wolf carnassial!!!!

Yes, boys and girls, I've been hoping and praying to finally find a complete predator molar and not only did my dream come true, it's even in a bit of jaw bone.  Seeing it in my screen was like an electric shock and the day held other surprises.

I also found this beautiful mystery fossil.  I posted it on The Fossil Forum and 45 replies later, I am no closer to knowing what it is although I know it is not a dugong tusk per the reply to a query I sent to Dr. Daryl Domning, a sirenia specialist.  I am waiting to hear back from Dr. Richard Hulbert from the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, FL.  I know how busy these people are and how many requests they must get to ID fossils so I also plan to make an appointment during office hours once we start hunting coral up north this summer.

The mystery fossil may end up being the tooth of a ground sloth

but I found a fragment of a tooth that is definitely from a ground sloth:

Not much in the glyptodont (or giant armadillo) department this trip:

but several fragments of mammoth tooth turned up:

Antler pieces:

Deer jaw, modern and fossilized in case I want to compare:

Horse, of course (and maybe a camelid):

A graduated bottle:

Surprisingly, I found 2 that day but the second one had a broken top and went into the trash bag.

And then there's turtle:

So much turtle that I'm well on the way to filling my decorative jar of nuchal scutes; 

so much more interesting than potpourri.

A few pretty shark teeth:

Odds and ends:

And lots and lots of bones:

This is my 5th season hunting the Peace River for fossils and for the first time, I wondering if I'll need to put wheels on my kayak?