Nebraska Badlands

Sometimes you have to reinforce jackets with a brace to provide structural support and fill in any concave areas. This helps alleviate stress on the fossil inside. Pictured is the Entelodont skull that Bruce MacFadden found this summer while out in Nebraska. We used some broken wooden stakes to provide extra support for the jacket as it made its way back to Florida. #fossil #collectionsite #method

Fossil land snail, Pseudolisinoe leidyi, from the Whitney member of the Brule formation in Nebraska. These snails are not found in the earlier formations, what might that suggest about the ancient climate? #fossil

Jeanette shows off this fossil skull, from an unknown mammal in the Nebraska Badlands. We’re looking at the foramen magnum, the opening where the spinal cord enters the skull! #fossil

After almost two weeks of oreodonts I’ve now moved on to cataloging the Nebraska camels from our collections! #fossil #method

This is what my work station looks like while I’m entering fossil specimens into our Specify database. Doesnt look like much but this process ensures we keep a detailed record of all our amazing finds in the field! #method

It’s not all teeth and skulls here in Nebraska Collections! Although there are many teeth in this photo you can also see some ankle bones from a North American camel here. #fossil #method

While its always nice to collect complete skulls, most of the time what we find are partial or fragmentary bone elements. Despite being incomplete fossils, like these partial oreodont jaws, they still provide scientists the opportunity to identify the animals they belong to and therefore are cataloged in our Specify database! #fossil #method

Today I’ll entering Nebraskan fossils collected by museum volunteers into our Specify database! This process helps researchers access important data (dates collected, taxanomic info, stratigraphy etc.) associated with the fossil material! #fossil #method

Check out this oreodont skull we jacketed in Nebraska this summer. Although fairly common in the badlands, the discovery of an oreodont skull was always exciting! Now that the fossils are back in the Florida Museum collections one of our many museum volunteers will prep this specimen for study! #fossil #collection_site #method