Fossils for Everyone

05/02/2024

Have 21 genuine mosasaur teeth from the phosphate mines of Morocco available for free. PM me for address and to organize a pickup time. For those who don't know, mosasaurs were related to modern monitor lizards (like the Komodo dragon of Indonesia or the Australian lace monitors in NZ zoos), but were much larger and lived in the oceans during the Cretaceous Period, where they ate basically anything they could catch, including sharks and smaller mosasaurs. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you like swimming on the ocean), they died out at the same time as the dinosaurs. Their remains were first officially discovered in the 1760s in Dutch quarries, where they were mistaken for those of whales or crocodiles, until the start of the 1800s, when French anatomist Georges Cuvier demonstrated the "Monster of Maastricht " was an extinct species of lizard. One of those first skulls was basically stolen from the Dutch by Napoleon's army and remains in a French museum. Since then, mosasaur remains have been found worldwide, including in New Zealand, but the teeth you see for sale in rock shops, museum shops and other places are from Moroccan phosphate mines.

These teeth are free, but if you insist on giving me a koha, I enjoy Jimmy's pies, chocolate, KFC or simply a small amount of cash (these teeth are worth maybe $20 each retail, but I bought them bulk for $2 USD, they're very common).

27/11/2023

I gave a megalodon tooth and big chunk of dinosaur bone to the autistic son of this woman's sister-in-law. Please consider helping if you can.

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/working-father-seeks-help?fbclid=IwAR1Hqgo691DLl7Arzg2xqJRO9oDG65HhD23if-Gyo9Rz-CferjKOlnKmBIw

Doted father and husband stuck in a hospital with temporary paralysis

17/11/2023

At least as far back as the 1950s, children's fossil collections usually contained fragments of dinosaur bone from the Morrison Formation, along with other common North American specimens like petrified wood and Florida Cenozoic shark teeth. I've often thought about purchasing one or two of these old kits, but I have other priorities. I know paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter once said his first dinosaur was an indeterminate fragment from one of these kits.

Nowadays, most fossils in children's private collections are from Morocco or Western Sahara. According to one of my fellow collectors, Moroccan material first appeared on the market in the late 1990s, with preserved dealer catalogs showing that Moroccan specimens were significantly more expensive back then. I know this must've changed by 2007, when I purchased a small Spinosaurus tooth from the Otago Museum gift shop for $15 (NZD).

14/11/2023

Just a concept/prototype photo of the dinosaur goodie bags I'm planning to make and give away next year. A Moroccan mosasaur tooth, a Lance Formation chunkasaur and a small hand lens in a velvet pouch.

I would love to add a third fossil such as a coprolite or eggshell but 1) the vast majority of "coprolites" sold online are just agate pseudomorphs (in other words, they're rocks) and 2) commonly sold eggshells are either illegal (Saltasaurus and Oviraptorid) or small and expensive (Hypselosaurus and Maiasaura).

It will be a while until I have enough of these goodie bags to give away (I want a large stockpile first, maybe 50-100). But I think it's the most efficient way of doing these giveaways.