Day 4: Ellie and Tiny Teeth

Last Friday I was going to start jacket work but no one was able to come teach me, so I went through some more of Ellie's soil samples. I decided to start going through soil level nine.

This is what I still have left to go through next time.

This is what I went through and didn't find anything in.

And this is what I found.

This was half a tooth I found still in some of the jaw bone.

This was a really nice tooth I found.

Both these teeth were very small!

Here's a little extra credit question. Can you spot the bone in this picture?

Day 3: Ellie the Dimetrodon

Last Friday I spent most of my time going through soil samples that go with Ellie. I had worked on some of Ellie's soil samples the week before last, so I decided to asks what Ellie is. I found out she is pieces of a Dimetrodon. By this I mean that they haven't found all if the bones but they've found enough of them to name the Dimetrodon they came from.

A little history on Dimetrodons incase you don't know what they are, which most people probably don't. If you've ever been into the Palentology Hall at HMNS you probably remember staring at a large lizard looking sculpture with huge teeth and a large fin on its back, that's a Dimetrodon. I have also included a picture of one bellow incase you haven't seen this sculpture. (Picture by looloolooweez on Flickr)

The reason Dimetrodons are so important is because they're our ancient ancestors. See the resembelence?......No?........I don't blame you. From the outside we don't look very similar, but when you look at both our skulls you find something amazing. We're both two holers, which means we have one hole where our jaw muscle attaches. All modern day mammals are one holers; and that means that Dimetrodons are their of are ancestors. There are both one and two holers and they're the ancient ancestors of different common day life. If this sounds interesting to you you should look it up because it's pretty fascinating!

As always I have attatched pictures bellow of what I did last Friday, so check out what I found digging in soil samples.

 

Day 2: Soil Samples and Paleontology Hall Installations

I had the second day of my internship at HMNS on September 20, 2013.

I started out with soil samples, which was where I left off last time. This time I had a little more of an idea of what I was looking for. Basically bone is shiny, so if you see something shiny it's most likely bone. You can also look for odd textures that you wouldn't expect to find on rocks. So far the two things I've found with odd texture are pieces of shark cartilage and parts of amphibian skull. Digging through the soil this Friday I found quite a few bone fragments and pieces of shark cartilage. I also found three tiny reptile/amphibian teeth, a piece of amphibian skull, and half of a Demetradon tooth (they are in this order in the pictures).

After this we had a change of plans so we went over to the Paleontology Hall and helped install two fossils. One was a feline fossil that kept loosing its ribs and the other was a male Goffer Tortise shell.