Skull Report

After years of finding cool stuff along the cliffs and calling local museums to quarry skulls that I had spotted, it finally happened - I spotted a skull that was fair game for myself!! Only the very tip of the snout was sticking out of a huge block of zone 11 in the wash zone on the beach my friend calls “the batan death march”. With no plaster with me, I decided to just remove it in a block. Easier said then done… As with most skulls along the cliffs that are found in deep water environment layer, lots of bones tend to wash around the skull. I knew that I was going to have to make some painful choices but it was too far to walk back and make some calls - I had exposed too much. It was just lying on the beach fair game for anyone who walked by and spotted it. So I just dug forward and dinged some ribs and tried to stay away from the vertebras. After about 3 hours of digging it was out. The snout had separated from the skull but it was in great shape; nice, sturdy, brown bone. Just then, but totally chance, an acquaintance walked up and saw my predicament. This guy had allowed one of my finds from years ago to be quarried out from his property so he knows me pretty well. He was excited about the find and, even better, willing to help me carry it on the 2-mile walk back to the car - what a guy!!!! We wrapped up the skull block and other pieces as best we could and even used some of our clothes to help keep the jostling to a minimum. After a 40-minute walk we were at my car. Boy was that a big help!!! I took me over a month and a half to prep this out and I still need to finish a travel jacket for it as well as figure out how it’s going to be displayed but it’s going to totally be worth the effort!!! It’s a small Eurhinodelphis skull; with several ribs, a partial bulla and 12 vertebras; mostly cervicals and thorasics. I plan to use some paleo sculpt and fill in the missing pieces on the ribs and maybe eventually the vertebras. I only found only one tooth with the specimen, a small chararinus sp tooth (dusky?) lying right next to the snout and no porpoise teeth to go with it (rats). This was totally worth the wait!!!