Gallery
These photos are from my Instagram feed and get updated every week.
Haast eagle bones on display at the Canterbury museum this morning. This was the largest eagle that ever lived and weighed around 15kg compared to the 9kg of the Harpy eagle. They preyed on Moa and probably anything else that took its fancy. Cant wait to find me one of those talons 😁 There is also a monstrous Moa layer out, it's probably a good 3m+ long. I find photos of actual specimens really useful to figure out what bones I find. Have a look at the size of those TMTs! Pretty sure these were the ones that the Hobbits caught a lift on 😀
I went out to explore a new area today and happened across this fossil. I suspect it's a nautiloid of some type, looks to be hollow which is quite weird. Let me know if you recognize it 😁 It almost looks pyritized 🤔
My tiniest crab prep yet! Someone sent me this concretion from the States containing a tiny vulgaris crab. Just need to do the landscaping and a bit of tidying up.
Busy revealing the little brother of my other vulgaris crab 😁 the prep is going well on my tiniest crab yet, not much rock to remove but it has it's own challenges, such delicate legs in there!
I found this strange fossil yesterday and was hoping the shark tooth experts out there could shed some light on it. Could this be a partial root?
Before and after prep photos. Swipe to see the result... Quick little prep of a mystery bone I found about a year ago. I was hoping there would be a joint hiding in the rock but looks to have been broken as well. Oh well, at least now I know 😁 and it is a good looking piece of bone. Does anyone recognize it? It reminds me of a cetacean tooth with the long root.
New fossil prep video uploaded to my YouTube channel. Swipe if you want to see the spoiler 😁 it was a very soft sediment so I could prep it completely manually using a small screwdriver and a toothpick. There was indeed a crab, or half of one, hiding in the rock. Not sure on the species, does anyone recognize it?
Fossil skull selfie! Here is that Eocene bill fish skull I found recently. Swipe to see what I think might be a related section of skull I found close to it. The video of me finding it is on my YouTube channel, link in the bio. I took it past the local museum and they reckon it's one of the biggest fossil fish from New Zealand they have ever seen!
Something I haven't seen before, it's from a oceanic, mid-miocene deposit and looks like the imprint of a coral. Does anyone recognize it? You can almost make out the "stem" at the bottom.
The most photographed concretions in New Zealand, the Moeraki boulders! Cretaceaous era concretions with veins of calcite throughout them, great fun to climb on 😁 Some of them are broken, allowing you to peek inside, no fossils that I could see!
Does anyone recognize this? It looks like a coral but could just as easily be a trace fossil or some geological feature. It's harder than the surrounding siltstone. #
Edit: Looks like it is a bill fish!! I think I've just found a dolphin or whale skull!! Its my most random fossil find ever. I stopped to have a break from driving, walked onto the beach and there it was! Thought it was some petrified wood at first! I might be imagining it, but the one part looks like an ear bone! 😁 I'm still buzzing from finding this!! 😆 Edit: thanks @trevor.clarke4 and @a_fools_experiment for the ID of bill fish!
A beautiful, large fossil bivalve we just found on the beach here in South Canterbury. I don't often find them undamaged and this large 😁 the siltstone is nice and soft as well, not like the rock I usually have to work on.
New video up! 50+ small fossil shark teeth and some other fossils. It's up on my YouTube channel. I've also started a Patreon page with some additional videos every month and will feature updates on some of my secret projects 😁
A nice shark vertebrae concretion, so many verts in there... hopefully a tooth or two as well 😁
I'm absolutely blown away by this piece of art Bill M from the UK sent me 🤩 it's a scene from one of my videos where I fetch a large fossil with my little red wagon, how amazing is that??? And the bottom half have some actual fossils covered in a clear resin. I see some shark teeth, a belemnite, a shark vert and a few ammonites!! Thanks so much Bill!
My New Zealand fossil books arrived! Hoping to use the forams to date the layer the shark teeth was found in, thanks @paleo_craig for your help with this. These books are available from the @gnsscience website as. Shipping was really quick, one business day after ordering!
This is the result of sifting through 9kg of siltstone from a lag layer... 60+ micro fossil shark teeth! I think I see some dalatias and some squalid in there. Some of them are less than 1mm in length! So many other cool things in there as well including some forams in there as well 🤩 There's even a tiny fish / shark vertebrae in there. I'm finishing off the editing of the video where I break down the siltstone using sodium hexametaphosphate, it should be out this week still. Head over to my website for my YouTube link and some of my other finds.
A big crab and a little crab I carried home this morning. The big crab weighs about 30kg and the tiny crab about 100 grams 😁 the big crab looks to be 99% complete, maybe even some leg tips in there!
Found a collection of bones in a clay layer today. Not sure if they are modern and just got mixed in with the clay during heavy rains. 🤔 anyone recognize the animal it could be from? The scapula looks like it could be recognizable to someone. Maybe I just found the remains of some fossil hunter's lunch 😁