Meg Toof

[snolly50]

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/article238068599.html

[bcfossilcollector]

Wow. Beautiful tooth but no where near the record for the largest verified tooth found. Perhaps they are referring to largest tooth from a region? Interesting. 

[bcfossilcollector]

The argument that while larger Meg teeth  do exist in private collections and are disqualified from consideration for that reason seems odd to me. 

[Kane]

2 minutes ago, bcfossilcollector said:

The argument that while larger Meg teeth  do exist in private collections and are disqualified from consideration for that reason seems odd to me. 

In order for the scientific claims to be valid, there has to be institutional access to the specimen(s) by researchers. If a researcher cannot access them, they cannot verify or falsify the claims. 

[FossilNerd]

I agree with Kane. Breaking a world record in anything requires an official institution to recognize the breaking of the record. That goes for anything from doing the most push-ups in an hour, running a marathon the fastest, to the biggest meg tooth. Otherwise, it’s just hearsay. 
 

In this case, the official institutions happen to be universities and museums. If they don’t have access to the tooth to official measure them, then it doesn’t count.

[bcfossilcollector]

59 minutes ago, Kane said:

In order for the scientific claims to be valid, there has to be institutional access to the specimen(s) by researchers. If a researcher cannot access them, they cannot verify or falsify the claims. 

I do agree with qualified researchers needing to have access to the specimen(s) to have a proper verification of the same. I believe, as regards the Gordon Hubbell collection  , that researchers have had access to his amazing collection which includes a 7.25 inch Megalodon tooth. The famous Bertucci tooth. However,  I could be in error.