Why Dino Collectors need to have Material Verified

[Troodon]

I urge caution to all collectors buying or trading from dealers, diggers or fellow collectors.    Most collectors, diggers or dealers are honest and trustworthy but not all have a firm handle on identification and I'm seeing this situation worsening not improving.   Its not easy even for paleontologists who are trained.   I include collectors because like myself, have over the years, been sold misidentified material.   So dont trust anything you see offered to you and get it verified.   Here is just a sampling of a few items I've run across.  

 

Provenance is very important in identification  ALWAYS request Formation, State or Province and very important County or Town if in the States or City/Area if Alberta.

 

I see lots of genus/species names being assigned to Ceratopsian or Hadrosaurian bones.  Other than Edmontosaurus from the Hell Creek or Lance formations its extremely difficult to assign names to any post cranial material from these families.  There are just to many named or yet to be named species from Campanian deposits of formations like Aguja of Texas and the Judith River  & Two Med Formations of Montana not to mention Canada.

 

Theropod teeth especially Jurassic ones are very hard to distinguish between one another, photos are just not adequate to validate them.   Serration counts and dimensions are needed to try to properly assign them.   So request it from the seller.

 

Some real life examples:

Very nice Metatarsal listed as a Lambeosaurus from the Hell Creek Fm,  Jordan,  Montana.   Species does not even exist in the HC.  Its Edmontosaurus 

 

 

This beautiful vertebra is being listed as a caudal of a Carcharodontosaurus sp., a great collector piece.   The description states that the ball and socket indicated how far the tail could swing.  Unfortunately the seller is looking at the wrong end of the dinosaur.   To me it looks like a cervical vertebra of a Spinosaurid.  I did advise the seller a few days ago and he did say a change would be made and the listing has been corrected.  

 

Here is a photo of a Sigilmassasaurus for you skeptics

 

 

This type of tooth from the Kem Kem is an indeterminate Abelisaurid not a RAPTOR, not a Dromaeosaur, not a Deltadromeus 

 

Very nice femur being listed as Pachycephalosaurus, its Thescelosaurus ..

 

Very nice rooted tooth being listed as Torosaurus, its a Ceratopsian tooth.  There is no way to distinguish Torosaurus teeth from all the other large bodied ceratopsian in the Hell Creek Fm other that if it was found with an identifiable skull.

 

This claw was sold as Troodon from the Judith River, to me it looks like Caenagnathidae

 

This is being listed as a first phalange Toe bone of a tyrannosaur Daspletosaurus.  Its a metatarsal of an indeterminate Tyrannosaurid either Daspletosaurus or Gorgosaurus.  Unless it was found with some Daspleto diagnostic material, difficult to tell them apart.  Seller was advised a long time ago,  no changes made.  

 

A Daspletosaurus tooth is listed from the Judith River Fm...beautiful tooth but one cannot distinguish teeth between teeth of Tyrannosaurids and Daspletosaurus sp.  although assumed to be present its yet to be described from JR deposits

 

 

[Ruger9a]

That's scary.  Most beginners and novice collectors assume the seller is correct in their description of an item.  Especially if they have very good feedback and/or a very good reputation.  I found out the hard way they are not always correct.  Thanks for the heads up/caution. 

[Troodon]

Part of what is going on is that a large number of collectors want to buy specimens with a species name.  Dealers in turn recognize this and oblige them with a name to help in a sale.  Bottom line for collectors and they need to recognize this, is that a lot of material outside the Hell Creek/Lance formations will not have genus names associated with them and fewer with species names.   Collectors just have to understand that isolated material either a tooth or bone is very difficult to assign to a genus/species.  Family names are the most accurate but not sexy or showy to support those $$$ you've spent. 

 

Feedbacks on auction sites are worthless.  Buyers rarely find out they bought a misidentified item and if they do its too late change their feedback.  This is scary why I take the time to continue to post these topics

@Ruger9a

[Dinoguy89]

Thanks frank. I've certainly been victim of buying material, to then discover it wasn't what it was sold as. Thanks for your continued work

[Kiros]

Thank you frank! Great post, most of people don't understand how much "specific" is a specie or a genus name. most of the time differences between species or genuses are so subtle that even paleontologist (with complete skeletons) are unsure of. 

[Bobby Rico]

Words for the wise indeed. I don’t really buy much dinosaur material but when I buy fossils in general I am happier  to purchase with a good locations and no ID, than with an ID and vague location. Sometimes I have seen members purchased really beautiful and perfect  theropod teeth with IDs and then they are really disappointed when it turns out they can’t completely  ID tooth. Before buying ask the sellers how they ID the specimen, ask for the precise locations and then double check the info in papers or by posting on the forum.  Thanks Frank for helping us all. 

[zekky]

I also urge caution, people on this forum aren't always correct either.

[jpc]

But Frank is pretty reliable.  Frank has done a lot of homework in this topic.  It takes a lot of work to correctly identify bones and teeth, and most often, it just cannot be IDed to genus, nevermind species.  I work in paleo and I just don't have the time to learn what Frank has learned.  Esp cuz I work in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Eocene and Oligocene.  I have also IDed stuff on this forum that has turned out to be wrong.  It is Ok to be worng.  Often that stuff gets sorted out in the discussions, which is one of the beauties of this site and its participants.  

 

AND that tyrannosaur metapodial is upside down.  Shame, cuz they had a custom mount built.   

[fossilsonwheels]

6 hours ago, zekky said:

I also urge caution, people on this forum aren't always correct either.

The point of this and numerous other posts on TFF is education and verification which is a great thing to encourage in my opinion. Nobody gets it right 100% of the time. Professional Paleontologists get it wrong too sometimes. That does not change the value in taking the advice given here. @Troodon stresses educating yourself and verification. Sound advice. 

[Troodon]

22 hours ago, zekky said:

I also urge caution, people on this forum aren't always correct either.

Not many of us are always correct but the forum provides the best resource and opportunity to "get it right" especially in the Dinosaur world.   Education to our members is very important, and something I will continue to aggressively focus on.  

 

BTW: I re-read this post and I would change nothing but say that verification and education is more important today than its ever been for both the collector and the seller.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

On 12/29/2019 at 4:39 PM, Troodon said:

Part of what is going on is that a large number of collectors want to buy specimens with a species name.  Dealers in turn recognize this and oblige them with a name to help in a sale.  Bottom line for collectors and they need to recognize this, is that a lot of material outside the Hell Creek/Lance formations will not have genus names associated with them and fewer with species names.   Collectors just have to understand that isolated material either a tooth or bone is very difficult to assign to a genus/species.  Family names are the most accurate but not sexy or showy to support those $$$ you've spent.

I think in part the problem here is that with the rise in interest in dinosaurs, more and more people want to own a bit of that history, without wanting to invest in educating themselves. Instead, they prefer to rely on the vendor for information. The vendor, on the other hand, recognises that they can capitalize most on their fossils if they provide a genus and species name, and preferably have specimens of the most desired species. I therefore appreciate vendors who indicate as much about the provenance (including geological) as possible, and identify things by how certain they are of the identification - i.e., not necessarily to the genus or species level. I'm fine with them making a speculative statement as to what they think it is, as long as they make this clear in their description. Yet, even with these best of intentions, it's impossible for vendors to know all about everything, which means incorrect identifications will slip in. Obviously, one could argue that sellers should specialise as to their offer, so they can be extremely knowledgable about that. But, unfortunately, getting into a niche-market within a niche-market is often not economically viable - especially when this is their main venue of revenue.

 

On 2/20/2021 at 7:05 PM, jpc said:

I work in paleo and I just don't have the time to learn what Frank has learned.  Esp cuz I work in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Eocene and Oligocene.  I have also IDed stuff on this forum that has turned out to be wrong.  It is Ok to be worng.  Often that stuff gets sorted out in the discussions, which is one of the beauties of this site and its participants.

Which goes to show exactly the point illustrated above. Yet, while it's okay to be wrong here on the forum as well as as part of the scientific process, it's a lot harder when you're talking about the commercial side of things. Often dealers will feel that they need to be all-knowledgable and generally not have as much recourse to ask questions and confirmation of their identifications as we as collectors have on this forum. The same thing goes for museums that don't have specialised staff working for them, though. So even there you're not safe from misinformation (as I've observed on various occasions). Of course the latter is, again, part of the advancement of science, and mostly applies to the smaller museums, I think. But it just goes to show that you generally need to educate yourself on what interests you to be able to fully evaluate the information provided to you - whether this is vendor information, museum displays (museum publications are likely to have undergone a more thorough review process and have involved one or more specialists) or even academic works.

 

On 2/21/2021 at 4:32 AM, Troodon said:

I would change nothing but say that verification and education is more important today than its ever been for both the collector and the seller.

I totally agree. For, while I too have, on occasion, fallen victim to wrong identification, I have also been able to use it to my advantage. Sometimes a seller simply doesn't quite know what they're selling, but someone with specialised knowledge might (although there are vendors who will simply assume that, since they don't know what something is, it must be rare and thus valuable, therefore up the price-tag)....

 

On 12/29/2019 at 4:39 PM, Troodon said:

Feedbacks on auction sites are worthless.  Buyers rarely find out they bought a misidentified item and if they do its too late change their feedback.

Again, I totally agree. However, I personally make a point out of first evaluating my purchase and pointing out misidentification if I recognize it. Wish more people would.

 

In the end, I guess it all boils down to: buyer beware! But lets try and do our best to help each other - by raising awareness of this issue (thank you, @Troodon), but also by providing more meaningful feedback on purchases whenever possible.

[BadlandTraveller]

Thanks @Troodon.

 

I feel these miss identifications are important but the real uphill battle for 99% of the collectors who just aren't on your level Troodon is the items outright mislabeled or an extreme amount of preparation.

 

Buying a Hadrosaur metatarsal that turns out to be ceratospian sucks, but buying a turtle toe bone being labelled as theropod with only 25% actual bone is more the uphill battle fossil collectors these days face. There is so much fossil garbage floating around you really need to be an expert to collect. 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 hour ago, BadlandTraveller said:

There is so much fossil garbage floating around you really need to be an expert to collect. 

Well, just for laughs then, as I doubt anybody would fall for this, but: sold as Moroccan "polished" theropod teeth (just to be clear, they're corals)