Queenpup found an enormous vertebrae!!! ID please?

[MamaSheepdog]

What a neat experience for MC! There is a very small museum in Old Downtown Bakersfield. Maybe we could take it there. It would be really neat to take it to the Museum of Natural History in LA, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, unfortunately.

I googled whale vertebrae, and that is definitely what it is.

 

[mystang89]

I don't know anything about bones getting brown the older they get or anything but maybe it is from a whale or something like it from long ago. I know there were water shifts and land shifts a long time ago so maybe a whale (or something there bouts,) got beached and was unearthed recently?

I don't know, I'm a bit of a romantic in that respect. Maybe not necessarily romantic, more of a dreamer.

 

[Lastfling]

I took a field trip to the phosphate mines in eastern NC. Phosphate is mined open pit which unearthed a lot of bone from the cretaceous period (I believe). Somewhere in the basement of my folks house there is a whale vertebrae which I found during that trip that was unearthed during the mining. It looks remarkably similar to your find. Even though the bones were buried at a depth of approximately 30-40 feet or more they were still white in color. So, with all that being said - my vote is Whale.

Is it really dry there? I imagine the soil needs to be moist most of the time for the bones to absorb tannins (I assume it would be tannins?) to make them brown?

Matter of fact, the soil was sandy, but dark, a blackish gray if I remember correctly. In addition, the area was on the in the coastal plain, adjacent to Pamlico Sound, so dry it wasn't. A lot of the pits had standing water in the bottom. I believe iron and other minerals in the soil would possibly leach color into bone also.

 

[gulien]

I also vote whale, and recent. Someone probably brought it home as a souvenir, and pup pinched it. I'd ask around a bit more, then put it on the mantel. Nice find!

Come visit me and bring your dog? Lol

 

[Dood]

I'm pretty sure it's a marine animal vertebra.

It looks like it doesn't have much density and is light for its size, especially if your dog carried it home typical of animals that don't need to fight gravity to get around.

 

[Zass]

Most common answer I got was whale vertebrae, so I googled it, and yep, looks just like one

https://www.google.com/search?q=whale+v ... 24&bih=743

It would be cool to see it with a size reference object