August 29, 1998. Now for the surprise. You can see a little "bump" in the picture between the tooth and rib. This is a tooth that I've never seen before.
As a starting place to get the tooth identified, I sent it to Dr. Bruce Mac Fadden at the University of Florida. Dr. Mac Fadden is an authority on horse teeth, but I had to start somewhere. The identification was not a problem. He said "it was from a rodent (about the size of a Prairie Dog) that lived during the Miocene Period." The odd feature about this rodent is the fact that this animal had a "Y" shaped horn on its nose. This made the find extra special to me.
September 9, 1998. Here's a shot of the Gomphothere jawbone, a partial jaw with a partial tusk still embedded, and the Gomphothere tooth.
