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  • Joseph Dumont posted a new specimen. 5 years, 11 months ago

    5 years, 11 months ago
    5 years, 11 months ago

    Joseph Dumont has contributed specimen mFeM 53878 to myFOSSIL!

    • Hi there, @joseph-dumont, these look like they might be shell hammers, a shell tool used by Florida’s indigenous people! What site were these collected from?

    • Hi Mackenzie @mackenzie-ross-2, these are not shell hammers. I collected these Strombus shells during a Florida Paleontological Society field trip to SMR Aggregates in Sarasota, Fl. – sadly, this shell quarry is no longer active. These Strombus shells have predation holes possibly made by mantis shrimps (stomatopods). I collected over seven (7) gallons of these Strombus shells to find these punched holes – these are the best examples of what I found. Collected from spoil piles – Tamiami Formation, Pinecrest beds 5 through 8. The Strombus shells without punched holes, I removed the sand matrix from the inside of the shells to look for small crab claws – most of the crab claws were donated to the Florida Museum of Natural History. The clean Stombus shells that didn’t have holes were used for children to find in the Tampa Bay Fossil Club Kid’s sand mine. An excellent article on this type of predation can be found on ResearchGate “Stomatopod predation on fossil gastropods from the Plio-Pleistoncene of Florida” – authors Geary, Allmon, and Reak-Kudla. This a great article to read.

      Not sure what happen to original data that I inputted when posting this specimen in myFossil site. Scale in photo is 10cm.

      If you have any questions, feel free to ask – Thanks Joe.

    • @joseph-dumont, very cool! Thanks for the info!