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White river teeth


joshuajbelanger

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Today the wife and I hit my white river spot.  It was a very successful hunt-my wife has a keen eye for fossils, much better than me!  Anyway, this tooth was found.  I immediately thought some kind of rhino or hippo.  I’m thinking hyracodons?  We also found this oval piece of enamel in the same area.  I’m thinking mastodon for this one.  These are total guesses on my part and I’m more familiar with the verts of Florida.

 

Any thoughts are welcome and appreciated. 

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The first complete tooth is rhino (hyracodon or subhyracodon, probably sub given the size) and the large partial tooth is from a titanothere (aka brontothere). They were the largest animals in this ecosystem and their teeth often get heavily broken up due to the freeze thaw cycle out there. 

Congrats on some awesome finds! I would love to have a go-to spot where I could hunt white river fossils (make that any fossils within a 2 hour + trip).

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I don't have a Subhyracodon jaw, but here is Hyracodon.  No hippos (bunodont teeth) in the White River, I think.  And a titanothere.

 

rhino_hyracodon_lower.JPG.5766ebd059f8c95782267f8bd7580003.JPG

 

hippomax.jpg.b4c1f11b6bd3682ab172c385bc5c7375.jpg

 

brontothereM2.JPG.e30e294c7b9eb63706b19f8efd0ab9b2.JPG

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http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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Thank You so much guys!  Yup, brontothere, that fits perfectly!  And, lemme just pat my own back for calling out rhino!  My wife had her doubts!

 

Also, for some reason I was thinking white river group went passed the Oligocene...what kind of geologist am I?  :DOH:
 

Thanks again!!!  So cool.

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9 hours ago, joshuajbelanger said:

 

 

Also, for some reason I was thinking white river group went passed the Oligocene...what kind of geologist am I?  :DOH:

It does... it includes the Arikareean and Whitneyan Land Mammal Ages which are both Miocene.  

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The first tooth ,a right lower p3 of a titatanothere not a rhino. I have many from Wyoming.

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15 hours ago, jpc said:

It does... it includes the Arikareean and Whitneyan Land Mammal Ages which are both Miocene.  

 

The Whitneyan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 33,300,000 to 30,800,000 years BP, a period of 2.5 million years. It is usually considered to fall within the Early Oligocene.

2 hours ago, fossillarry said:

The first tooth ,a right lower p3 of a titatanothere not a rhino. I have many from Wyoming.

 

Please show us some images of your titanothere teeth so that we can learn to distinguish them from rhino teeth.

 

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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1 hour ago, Harry Pristis said:

 

The Whitneyan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 33,300,000 to 30,800,000 years BP, a period of 2.5 million years. It is usually considered to fall within the Early Oligocene.

 

 

 I stand corrected.  And my time scale shows the Arikareean spanning the Oligocene - Miocene boundary.  

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+1 on titanothere.

 

I'm not able to find the same tooth here at the moment but I do have some rhino jaws pictured for comparison.  Subhyracodon on either side and a Hyracodon in the center.

 

 

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4 hours ago, jpc said:

 I stand corrected.  And my time scale shows the Arikareean spanning the Oligocene - Miocene boundary.  

 

This is from Hulbert's 2001 book:

 

5ecdc5200dfdb_NALMAsoldnew.jpg.76e0aadcbfe7092004381e5d0cfbe151.jpg

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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On 5/25/2020 at 9:16 AM, jpc said:

I agree with P-noel on the IDs.  No elephants at all in the White River.  

 

Hi JP,

 

Right, there were no probiscideans in North America until the Barstovian.

 

Jess

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On 5/25/2020 at 10:03 AM, PaleoNoel said:

The first complete tooth is rhino (hyracodon or subhyracodon, probably sub given the size) and the large partial tooth is from a titanothere (aka brontothere). They were the largest animals in this ecosystem and their teeth often get heavily broken up due to the freeze thaw cycle out there. 

Congrats on some awesome finds! I would love to have a go-to spot where I could hunt white river fossils (make that any fossils within a 2 hour + trip).

So, you weren’t lying about brontothere teeth getting beat up...I find so much of the enamel, all over.  But...I also find these!  I’m not gonna lie, the fossil finding is easy in this spot...the fossil extraction is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.  All the fossils are so incredibly fragile, some are whole, but beyond the scope of even plaster extraction.  About 15% pay off.

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