Gallery
These photos are from my Instagram feed and get updated every week.
Big bone cluster I just had to get off the beach, one of three I had to carry up the big hill that day 😂 Nothing like a bit of Functional Fossil Fitness to get you moving 😀 This wasn't even the difficult part, I still had to roll it up a giant hill! Hopefully there is something good in there, judging by the amount of bones it could be 🤞 Check the video on my YouTube channel for the full experience 📽
A very tiny squaliform looking shark tooth I found in a concretion full of whale bones. Perhaps these small sharks were feeding on the whale carcass as it lay on the bottom of the ocean 🤔 Magnification is at 16x.
I thought I was into some bird or penguin bones but it had that fish look to it, that glassy appearance it always seems to have. It looks to be a hyoid arch from a tuna sized fish! Thanks to Canterbury Museum for the identification.
A cluster of very big shark vertebrae from today's hunt 🦈 these are the biggest non-basking shark verts I've seen from this site 😀 One day I'm going to find a tooth in one of these concretions!
3 big blocks of whale bones I managed to get home today, I'm exhausted! It took 4 hours to get these blocks up the hill, I had to roll one as it was too heavy to carry all the way. Two of the blocks contain definite skull material with an ear bone. The third is a bit of a mystery and I will have to investigate it a bit more, it must be close to 100kg 😁 The little red wagon needs some repairs as well, one bearing couldn't take the pressure and have up halfway down the beach.
Beautiful patterns on this crab "shoulder" that I am carefully exposing. Reminds me of a leopard or tiger shark 🐆 The crab was quite sticky on top of the carapace and it shows signs of some crushing and even two holes in the carapace that look very much like claw or tooth marks 🤔
Progress on my largest Tumidocarcinus giganteus prep yet. The concretion weighed 50lbs 😯 I'm hoping to have it done in the next two weeks still 🤞
I spent a amazing morning at @te_papa and even got to see where some of my fossils now live. You might recognize the fossil whale skull on the red trolley 😀 It was so educational seeing complete dolphin and whale skulls to try better and visualize the bones I find. Usually you can only see part of the bone sticking out of a concretion so it's really hard to imagine where it fits in the animal.
Chunky whale vertebrae I found in a tidal pool today, looks to be my biggest so far 🐳 It's from a late Miocene area where I've found quite a few cetacean bits and pieces.
Leg day at the fossil gym today, 120kg (260lbs) of rock retrieved today. A block of whale skull elements including ear bones and one mystery block 🤔 Good thing I strengthened the little red wagon 😂
Here are some close ups of that shark tooth I found over the weekend. Some very faint serrations visible. I wonder if it's a worn Great White or one of the transitional ones 🤔 Let me know what you think! It's from a late Miocene to Pliocene area.
Big shark tooth! And my biggest as well 😍 I dont often find shark teeth and certainly not big ones, so this really got my heart racing. It has some faint serrations on it and is late Miocene to Pleistocene so could be something in the great white family, I'll wait for the shark expert to weigh in 🦈 Prepping it tonight, so keep an eye on my YouTube channel for the prep video later this week. Swipe to see where it was hiding.
My new scribe arrived! Now to tackle some of my bigger fossils 😁 Its the Motovator, named after my first Patreon supporter @moto.lego 😀 This is the SQ model from Ken Mannion. #
The ventral prep of this Tumidocarcinus giganteus I found recently is much easier than the dorsal was. 20 hours in 😂 Can't wait for my new scribe to arrive, it should speed things up quite a bit!
My first Actinotocarcinus chidgeyi prep. What a weird looking crab! Challenging to prep as well as those spikes are fragile. Full fossil prep is on my YouTube, link in my bio. This Actinotocarcinus is rare and only the second I have found and by far the most complete.
Amber fresh from the Baltic sea! Collected by @amberscapeofficial himself and arrived at my door this evening 😁 check out his Instagram profile to see all the cool insects he finds in them. Jarek also does some really cool videos where he scoops the pieces out of the ocean with a big net and then polishes them 🤩 check out his YouTube for those, link in his bio. Thanks so much Jarek, these are beautiful pieces!
An amazing piece of petrified wood still in the matrix, it's a nice little round as well 😁 Cretaceous in age and beautifully preserved 🌳
First big fossil of 2021 😀 its only 10km from the closest road 😂 looks to be a big vertebra and some ear bones in this page block. Guessing some kind of whale given the size of that vert. Happy 2021 everyone! Hope it brings some great fossils!
My favourite fossil shell to find, they are just so nice and symmetrical 😁 this is how I found it, still in the concretion.
My top 10 fossils of 2020 video is up 😁 Link in my bio. It includes an update on the penguin @paleo_craig found as well as the whale skull. Thanks for a great fossil year! Time to take it up a notch in 2021 😀