Two Carboniferous teeth

[Strepsodus]

Yesterday I received a parcel from a member of the forum, containing fish and plant fossils from the Scottish coal measures, as well as a tooth which I found in West Yorkshire (UK) and sent to be prepared.  My favourite of the Scottish fossils is a tooth which I am fairly confident is Strepsodus sp.  Since little is known about Rhizodont teeth, it’s often very difficult to put a genus name to a particular species.  Despite this, when I first saw this tooth the shape immediately made me suspect it is Strepsodus, so I decided to have a closer look at the striations.  I was pleased to see that the striations look a very good match to Strepsodus sp in my opinion.  I am therefore about 90% sure it is Strepsodus, and it’s the only tooth in my collection that I would call Strepsodus with any confidence.

Sorry for the low quality photo, it’s quite small (5mm) and the shiny surface made it difficult to show the detail.

Here is the tooth from West Yorkshire, before and after prep.  It measures 12mm long, and is the largest tooth I have found in the Yorkshire coal field.  It also the best preserved coal measures tooth I have found.  This tooth comes from a mussel band, in which fish remains are quite rare, apart from in very thin fish layers which sometimes occur in the band.  However, this is not within one of the fish layers.  I’m not sure what fish this tooth is from, I suspect an identification would be almost impossible until more information about these fish is discovered and published.  It is from the Pennine Lower Coal Measures formation (upper Carboniferous).

 

 

[doushantuo]

some of you may like:

jefferypalassrhizopdissa()strepsodj.1431.x.pdf

THE CARBONIFEROUS FISH GENERA STREPSODUS AND ARCHICHTHYS (SARCOPTERYGII:
RHIZODONTIDA): CLARIFYING 150 YEARS OF CONFUSION
by JONATHAN E. JEFFERY

Palaeontology, Vol. 49, Part 1, 2006, pp. 113–132]

[Fossildude19]

@jdp   @Archie

[Archie]

I'm pretty certain your right with a Strepsodus sp. on the Scottish one, I'll get some pics of those larger teeth from the site with the very similar striations I'm also pretty sure are Strepsodus for comparrison.