A Day Out With Friends

Fossiling can sometimes be a very solitary hobby but it is definitely at its best when shared with others. Exchanging stories and experiences, along with being able to see finds other than your own can really turn an “OK” day into an unforgettable one. M4 and myself had planned on meeting up today for the past two months. He and Mr. and Mrs. Paleoscan were going to meet at Ramanessin at 12:00. I was going to meet them there along with “KL” and Rob from Times Scientific after a brief Eocene/Miocene stop in the morning. The morning agenda was to meet up with Rob and KL at 9:00, collect for about 2 ½ hours, then head up to Ramanessin to meet the rest of the crew. KL was running a little late so Rob and myself headed on down to the steam. Rob and I practiced our “Oh man” and “Yeah Baby”s for when the first killer tooth would make its way into our screens, but other than my decent cow shark tooth and Rob’s 2 nice sand tiger teeth, we wouldn’t find any killers before KL arrived. KL, as it turned out, didn’t need any practice as he pulled out an absolute killer of an auriculatus! The tooth was about 1 1/4 inches, complete and other than some very minor peel, perfect. As if that wasn’t enough, he pulled out a near perfect chubby 15 minutes later, then a large blade 15 minutes after that! The man was on fire! The morning quickly came to an end, and while I didn’t come up with any Carcharocles teeth, I did manage to find a decent mako to go with the cow shark tooth. We all ogled KL’s finds for a few minutes and headed over to Ramanessin. We met up with M4, and Mr. and Mrs. Paleoscan around 12:00 at the school near Ramanessin. After the introductions and some story swapping we headed down towards the stream. The finds of the day at Ramanessin were Mr. And Mrs. P’s goblin teeth. One was a large lateral that was in great shape and the other was a pristine 1 ½ anterior - one of the nicest I’ve seen! Rob spent some time micro screening and came up with an Angel shark tooth and a couple of Pycnodont nibbler teeth. KL and myself found some nice Goblin teeth , but nothing too out of the ordinary. We regrouped around 3:00 and the day ended as it began, swapping collecting stories, showing off finds and anticipating when and where the next outing would be.