Finding the elusive Hexanchus agassizi

This was another fun Lafarge hunt. I took my little brother and we were ready to find some teeth. Through out the day as I hunted I met a few nice people that are fans of BRFC which is always awesome! I did run into da fossz in the quarry and witnessed the ground shot of a nice ric that he found. It wasn’t long until I would bag a nice small ric of my own.

There was still one very rare shark species that I’ve always wanted to find for a long time when I come to the quarry known as the Eocene cow shark Hexanchus agassizi. To find these teeth you have to search crawling on your knees over the limestone. Anyone that has hunted in the limestone knows that finding teeth in this stuff is very far and in between. You may end up with a couple teeth after spending a few hours hunting in this stuff if you are lucky.

On this day I found a good out-cropping of limestone with small areas of teeth exposed. After searching hard for about an hour I found my first two agassizi cow shark teeth but they were badly damaged. Then looking closely over a big block of limestone I spot the blade of another agassizi half exposed. I took the camera out to take the ground shot. Then after putting on my safety glasses I began carefully extracting the tooth with a rock hammer and screw driver. At first I was trying to extract it out of the hard limestone as a matrix piece. The tooth ended up popping right out of the limestone and falling to the ground. I was about to hit myself with the hammer and scream obscenities because I thought I had broke the tooth. I was quickly relieved when I realized it was still whole with no breaks. I can’t wait for the next quarry hunt!