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Picked this up at a rock shop over the holidays. The label only said “Permian, Kansas”. Permian material is new to me. A bit of looking around and I came up with Cladodus occidentalis. Thoughts? The tooth is almost exactly 1 inch (2.54 cm) in max dimension. The perky box top is that size. There are striae on the primary blade. It has one to two cusps on the shoulders but I cannot discern whether they too are striated. The third photo is view is from the base up. The 4th photo is a C. occidentalis from the Oceans of Kansas website. Any help would be appreciated.

As I was recently doing some research on the prehistoric shark genus Cladodus, I came across some info that classifies the genus as a member of the family Cladoselachidae, Order Cladoselachiformes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladoselachidae This is somewhat confusing to me as mindat and the Paleontological Database aka fossilworks list Cladodus as a member of the family Ctenacanthidae, Order Ctenacanthiformes. https://www.mindat.org/taxon-8657177.html http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=104838 I'm personally leaning more towards Cladodus being a member of at least the Ctenacanthiformes. But I'm curious what are the origins of this taxonomic confusion on the genus Cladodus's phylogenetic placement in the Chondricthyan family? Is Cladodus a member of the Cladoselachiformes or Ctenacanthiformes? What do you guys think?

I've visited the Pennsylvanian Bond formation in Oglesby Illinois a few times but have only found a few cladodont teeth so far! I find a decent bit of teeth from crusher plate chondrichyans like Deltodus, but I've also heard there have been some large cladodont teeth found in the area. I'm just curious what is the largest cladodont teeth found in Oglesby Illinois?

Recently I went on a fossil hunting trip with a few friends to a roadcut in Oglesby Illinois from the Pennsylvanian Bond Formation. This was around July and I found a lot of cool Brachiopod fossils, but I decided a few days ago I wanted to get a closer look at some of the larger matrixes I collected to see if I missed something! At the very edge of one the matrixes, I discovered a small pretty exposed cladodont tooth that I couldn't find a specific ID of? The specimen is about 1/2 inch in length (5.0 mm.). But I wanted to see it a bit closer, so I put it under a microscope one of my college professors let me borrow. The specimen has a pretty slender shape overall and the top of the medial cusp appears to be broken off. I compared the specimen to other ctenacanthiformes from the Bond like Heslerodus and Gilkmanius. It does resemble Gilkmanius a bit, but I looked further and have drawn a slightly different conclusion - this could be a specimen of a juvenile Saviodus striatus. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/fossil-of-the-month_2022-07_Saivodus.php Like Saivodus, the Medial cusp is incredible slender for what's left of it. The Laterial cusps and cusplets on Saivodus teeth are much smaller compared to the Medial cusp than those of Heslerodus and Gilkmanius. On the microscope image, you can just barley make out a small cusplet next to the Medial cusp and a small Lateral cusp on the left side of the image (since under a microscope, it's actually on the right side of the tooth). Still, I'm not 100% sure my ID is correct. I was wondering if anyone is able properly ID this specimen? I'm also wondering if this cladodont tooth is indeed a specimen of Saivodus striatus or another member of the genus (which I would be awesome) or a a member of different Ctenacanthiform genus (which also would be awesome)?

Pictures first, full descriptions will follow Paleozoic Sharks and “Sharks”