Beach fossil finds (Which bone?)
Welcome to Naturalis’ automatic beach fossil identifier. Have you found a fossilized bone or tooth on the beach and are curious about what it is? Then you’ve come to the right place!
Below, you can upload a photo of your find and receive a prediction from the AI model, which has been specially trained to identify fossil beach finds. On this page, you’ll get an answer to the question: what specific bone or tooth is this? Want to know which species this fossil belongs to? Use our species model.
Good photos for an accurate identification
Here are some tips for a good identification.
- Photograph one object per photo
- Place a scale bar/ruler next to the object
- Photograph the object against a plain, high-contrast background
- Take the photo from directly above the object
- Ensure good lighting with minimal shadows
- Low confidence score for an identification? Photograph the object from another angle and try again.
We Need Your Feedback!
This AI model is an experimental setup that we aim to improve further. Your feedback would be extremely valuable to us. Do you have comments or suggestions? Send them to isaak.eijkelboom@naturalis.nl.
Background
LegaSea
These AI models were developed as part of the LegaSea project, in which we study fossil beach finds to better understand biodiversity changes during and since the last Ice Age. LegaSea is a research project financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO-ENW). Want to learn more? Visit www.naturalis.nl/en/wetenschap/legasea or email your question to isaak.eijkelboom@naturalis.nl.
Training Data
This AI model has been trained using two large datasets: standardized photos from museum and private collections, as well as photos from the citizen science platform Oervondstchecker.nl. In the collection dataset, objects were photographed from six to eight different angles. In Oervondstchecker, the number of photos per find varies.
Examples from the training data: on the left, a reindeer humerus from the Naturalis collection. On the right, a badger lower jaw, uploaded to Oervondstchecker by D. Elphick.