Taxonomic Shark Displays- a work in progress

[fossilsonwheels]

The second Hexanchiformes display is essentially done. The last two pieces arrived a few weeks ago and except for labels it is good to go. 

 

Notorhynchus teeth include 

N. serratissimus from London Clay

N. kempi  from KZ

N. primigenius  from two Oligocene locations in Germany, Calvert Cliff, Gironde France

N. cependianus from Lee Creek, the Netherlands and Belgium

 

Heptranchias sp. Oligocene Poland

 

Notidanodon from Russia, Morocco, and the UK

 

Weltonia from Morocco

 

I like this one and am pretty satisfied with how it turned out. 

[Notidanodon]

Hi kurt great teeth, the uk notidanodon is n.loozi 

as I understand, notidanodon is poorly studied so all lower cretaceous and palaeocene notidanodon are currently lumped under N.Loozi

[Notidanodon]

For the heptranchias, as they are rupelian, I labelled mine H.Howelli 

[fossilsonwheels]

I can call the Orectolobiformes display done even though the final tooth is not yet in hand. Some recent micro matrix searches helped fill in a couple of blank spots and we have a Nebrius from the Nanjemoy Formation that should be here soon. We also have a Lee Creek Rhincodon tooth that is in the filter feeder display. 

 

This was was surprisingly difficult to finish in all honesty but a fun one because quite a bit came from micro searches. The final labels will include exact location information and species when applicable. 

 

The first tooth is an unidentified Orectolobiformes from the Hartwell Clay. I don’t believe it be Pseudospinax and there are several possibilities as there are several Carpet Sharks known from the Jurassic formations in the UK. I lean towards Palaeobrachaelurus as a possible ID. 

 

Pseudospinax  Ringstead Bay UK

 

Cantoscyllium and Plicatoscyllium that were micro matrix finds from Post Oak Creek. 

 

Plicatoscyllium Severn Formation Maryland. 

 

Cederastromia  Tambov Region Russia

 

Restesia  Aguja Formation Texas

 

Cretorectolobus  Tykbutuk Kazakhstan

 

Orectolobus  Tallahatta Formation Alabama 

 

Orectolobus  Port Campbell Limestone Australia 

 

Chiloscyllium  Mesaverde Formation Colorado 

 

Chiloscyllium Atco Formation 

 

Chiloscyllium, Palaeorhincodon, and Squatiscyllium, Nebrius, and Ginglymostoma Morocco, can’t remember the locations off hand but they’ll be on the final labels. 

 

Nebrius Castle Hayne Formation North Carolina

 

Ginglymostoma from Nanjemoy, Bone Valley and Cookiecutter Creek. 

 

 

[fossilsonwheels]

Super happy to show off our Pristiophorus display. Sawsharks are super cool and have all sorts of interesting adaptations. I really was looking forward to these amazing critters having a larger role in our education programs. They have been a challenge for me as a collector. Even finding the very limited number of specimens we have was not easy. 

 

@siteseer and @Untitled help us out quite a bit with this. I am still actively working on expanding this display but I’m really happy with this part of the collection so far. Some pretty cool locations for sure. I love having some from our home state.  

 

Pristiophorus sp

Oligocene

Old Church Frm

Virginia 

 

Pristiophorus sp

Miocene

Jewett Sands 

Kern Co California 

 

Pristiophorus sp

Miocene

Port Campbell Limestone

Australia

 

Pristiophorus lanceolatus

Pliocene

Bahia Ingles

Antofagasta, Chile 

 

 

[fossilsonwheels]

We have had a couple of unexpected opportunities to add to the Heterodontus display. We are getting a really nice one from Tasmania which is I’m stoked about. We also got a really cool surprise in our recent search of micros from the Atco Formation. We found a tooth that is a match to the Heterodontus tooth in Hamm’s paper. This is only our second Cretaceous Bullhead tooth. Pretty satisfying to find one via micro hunting. 

 

I think this will be moving to a larger Riker sometime soon. For now, this what we have. 

 

 

[fossilsonwheels]

I love Makos. They are a great shark to talk about in our programs because of the awesome adaptations they have and of course they have cool teeth. I’d say we have a fairly modest collection but I like it. 

 

The two big ones (both over 2”) are from the Ashley Marl and other Oligocene one is Chandler Bridge. 

 

Some colorful STH teeth and a few from Lee Creek. 

 

A pair of small teeth from Gironde France and one from Belgium 

 

A baby tooth from Australia 

 

A pair from Peru, one from Chile and one from the Gloria Formation of Mexico. 

 

The lone retroflexus is North Carolina. 

[fossilsonwheels]

Displays of shark teeth do not have to be big to be cool. A small group of Porbeagle teeth is cool because Porbeagles are cool. Also a species under threat. 

 

One tooth from the Netherlands and 6 from Kattendijk Sands Saint-Niklaas Belgium. Our only teeth from that location in Belgium. 

[fossilsonwheels]

[fossilsonwheels]

The Goblins are done. Moved into the larger display and I like how this one ended up. 

 

Scapanorhynchus texanus from Texas, North Carolina, New Jersey, Mississippi and Maryland 

 

The teeth from Alabama and Colorado are better matches to S. tenius based on photos from Elasmo but I can’t say for sure. 

 

I have seen Scapanorhynchus teeth from Kazakhstan labeled as either S. raphiodon or S. lewisii. I don’t really know which is correct. 

 

Scapanorhynchus puerconensis from New Mexico

 

Anomotodon principalis from the UK and A. plicatus from Morocco 

 

A. novus from Maryland 

 

A. sheppeyensis from UK and I believe that would be the ID from the Santee Limestone 

 

I don’t know the species from Castle Hayne or Kyiv clay. 

 

Mitsukurina from Bonpas France

 

 

We have two more Bonpas teeth on the way and Nanjemoy Anomotodon too but this is basically done. 

[fossilsonwheels]

Anacoracidae is done. We gave away about 200 Moroccan Squalicorax teeth to school kids and probably used 20-30 in trades so the number of teeth in the display is limited. I am also not going to bother with species here. 

 

Squalicorax from Morocco, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, two Texas formations, two Kansas locations and Colorado. 

 

Pseudocorax from Texas

 

Palaeoanocorax ? I think I misspelled it but we have one from Russia

[fossilsonwheels]

The Eel Sharks moved to a larger display. This one is dominated by fossils from the Permian of Oklahoma but includes teeth from Carboniferous of Scotland, the Permian of Germany, Permian Texas and Kansas. 

 

The cool thing about collecting Eel Shark fossils is that micro matrix searches can really provide a wealth of material. You will find teeth but also fin spines, denticles and cartilage. Pretty cool if basic collection. 

[fossilsonwheels]

I moved the Bullheads to a larger display. Room to add a few but done for now. 

 

We have a couple of Jurassic teeth. Paracestracion  and Heterodontus from Ringstead Bay. 

 

Cretaceous Heterodontus from Texas (Kemp Clay, Atco) and Colorado (Mesaverde). 

 

Paleocene tooth from Morocco 

 

Eocene teeth from UK and Belgium. 

 

Miocene teeth from Tasmania, Chile, and California. 

 

@siteseer, @will stevenson, @JBMugu, and @Untitled contributed some of these cool teeth or provided matrix that gave us teeth. 

[fossilsonwheels]

The completely full Orectolobiformes display. I listed the teeth in a previous post. We found a Cantioscyllium in our Colorado matrix and I added the Atco Ginglymostoma. 

 

Several of our TFF friends contributed to this. @digit, @Troodon, @Untitled contributed teeth. @Captcrunch227 provided matrix from Post Oak Creek that gave us a few teeth. Quite a few teeth in this one came from micro matrix searches. Not included is a Lee Creek Whale Shark tooth in a different display. 

[digit]

Lookin' good!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[fossilsonwheels]

30 minutes ago, digit said:

Lookin' good!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Thank you Ken. They look good and most are pretty much done. Couldn’t have done without the support of friends like you ! 

 

Kurt

[fossilsonwheels]

Squatina is essentially done. I really like this display. It came together very nicely. @digit, @sharkdoctor, @will stevenson, @Untitled, @Captcrunch227 and @JBMugu contributed teeth and/or matrix that added to the display. 

 

There is a specific favorite in this display and it’s the one my son found in our hometown Chico Formation. Still amazed he found it. Loads of STH teeth and a couple of tiny verts that were an excellent match to a paper I found. We even have a couple of denticles from the Calvert thanks to Aaron. 

 

We can place them as far back as the Jurassic with some Pseudorhina from Ringstead Bay. 

 

Cretaceous teeth from Texas, New Jersey, Colorado, and California. 

 

I think the Lede Sands in Belgium is Paleocene aged. The only tooth in our collection from that location. 

 

Eocene teeth from Morocco, Belgium, and England. 

 

Miocene teeth from Virginia, California, Australia. The Chilean is Miocene/Pliocene. Pliocene teeth from the Netherlands and Cookiecutter Creek. 

[digit]

23 minutes ago, fossilsonwheels said:

Couldn’t have done without the support of friends like you ! 

This forum is all about sharing fossil information (and boasting about your last great find). Your work with groups outside the forum helps us reach folks who are not members here (yet).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Notidanodon]

wow, loving the collection, glad i could help contribute to it, and hope i can help add to it in the future, inspiring stuff  

[fossilsonwheels]

updated Thresher Shark display. The unlabeled tooth is an Alopias vulpinus tooth we found in the Cookiecutter matrix provided by @digit. The STH teeth came from matrix provided by @JBMugu. The Moroccan teeth came from @Daniel_63 who I should have credited in earlier posts. Eric provided some fantastic Moroccan teeth to us. 

[fossilsonwheels]

There are not many of these that I would say need more work at this point but this one definitely does. I just separated Sphyrna from the larger Carcharhiniformes display and look forward to improving this but it’s not too bad. The STH and Old Church specimens were finds in micro searches from matrix provided by @JBMugu and @sharkdoctor. The Great Hammerhead, the Belgian tooth and the Topanga Frm tooth came from @Untitled. 

[fossilsonwheels]

12 minutes ago, will stevenson said:

wow, loving the collection, glad i could help contribute to it, and hope i can help add to it in the future, inspiring stuff  

Thank you Will. We appreciate your contributions very much. Been a fun project but I am also very happy to be in the finishing phase lol 

[fossilsonwheels]

A fun and small Lamniformes display that I don’t think I’ve shown yet. Pseudoscapanorhyncidae  ?? Maybe lol I can’t remember the family name but these definitely seem like they belong together. Very similar teeth. @Troodon, @Anomotodon and @Untitled contributed to this. 

 

Leptostyrax from Texas. Two formations, Paw Paw and Denton Clay I believe. One from the Kem Kem and one from South Dakota. 

 

The Protolamna are all Paw Paw Formation. 

 

Pseudoscapanoryhnchus from the Melovatka formation. 

 

 

[fossilsonwheels]

Catsharks are looking good. The unlabeled teeth are possibly Catshark teeth from the Calvert Formation. I will be taking some pictures tomorrow and doing an ID post for those. We may not end up keeping them depending on what they end up being but more on that later. 

 

@siteseer and @sharkdoctor helped us out with this display. I expect the labels will change over time. 

 

We start the display in the Jurassic with Palaeoscyllium teeth from the UK

 

Pteroscyllium from the early Cretaceous of the UK. 

 

Scyliorhinidae teeth from the Late Cretaceous of Colorado. 

 

Scyliorhinus entomodon from Morocco, Virginia and Belgium

 

Scyliorhinidae teeth from the Miocene of Virginia. 

 

Megascyliorhinus from the Miocene of Australia. 

 

Pachyscyllium from the Oligocene of Virginia plus Miocene teeth from France.  

 

Stenoscyllium and Scyliorhinidae from Morocco 

 

Premontreia teeth from the Eocene of Virginia and Belgium

 

We will have a Pachyscyllium from Lee Creek and a Moroccan Foumtizia soon. 

 

I am certain this will continue to expand as I love Catsharks and searching micro matrix which is a great way to find Catshark teeth. 

[fossilsonwheels]

My favorite displays are definitely the Hexanchiformes and Squaliformes. I am really happy with how they have grown. A year ago our Squaliformes collection lived in 6x8 riker and was a very basic representation of a really interesting order of sharks. 

 

It now occupies two 12x16 displays and includes a surprising diversity of sharks from some pretty awesome locations. I have also developed a sentimental attachment to this one because there are a lot of TFF friends who helped create this. These displays also have our rarest shark teeth. Some pretty difficult teeth to find. 

 

We got matrix to search that gave us Squaliformes from @JBMugu, @sharkdoctor, and @digit. Very important additions. 

 

Jesse, Aaron, and Ken also included teeth with the matrix they sent. We also got teeth though trades, purchases and generous gifts from @Troodon, @siteseer, @will stevenson, and @Untitled. The bulk of this collection is really teeth from TFF members which just adds to it’s awesomeness. I also cannot overstate my appreciation to our TFF friends because they were willing to part with some extremely rare shark teeth. 

 

When we do return to teaching, the Cow Sharks, Goblins, and Dogfish will be the focal point of a Deep Sea Shark program. In fact, it will be the only program we offer for awhile.  

 

First display is Squalus and related genera. 

 

The oldest Squalus tooth comes from the Cretaceous Northumberland Formation, Hornby Island. 

 

Paleocene Squalus from Aquia Formation. 

 

Eocene teeth from the UK, two locations in Belgium ( Egem and Orp-Le-Grand), and Morocco. 

 

Miocene teeth from Calvert Frm, STH, and Lee Creek. 

 

Pliocene tooth from The Netherlands 

 

Pleistocene tooth from Japan. Our only Japanese tooth ! 

 

The oldest tooth in this display is the Protosqualus, early Cretaceous UK

 

Centrophoroides from the late Cretaceous, The Netherlands

 

Megsqualus teeth from Hearne Bay UK and Nanjemoy Formation. 

 

Fantastic diversity and a nice full full display ready for a classroom !!!