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lower symphyseal Otodus obliquus tooth from the Eocene of Virginia


MarcoSr

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I just found this 17mm tooth today (see the below pictures) in matrix that I collected from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation, of Virginia awhile back.  I thought that the tooth was an Otodus obliquus symphyseal tooth and sent a PM to Lutz Andres to get his opinion of the tooth.  He responded back:

 

“Hi, it's a lower symphyseal Otodus or Parotodus, and 17 mm is a bit large for Parotodus.”

 

Because of the 17mm size and the fact that Parotodus is not reported from this Formation, I’m going with the Otodus ID.  I have a number of Otodus obliquus symphyseals from Morocco but this is the first one that I have personally collected from Virginia.  My friend Mike F. has collected two Otodus obliquus symphyseals from the same formation.

 

 

 

5effd84384934_Symphyseal17mm1.thumb.jpg.5d3afc58741eb9e5d5109ad08f0f308a.jpg

 

5effd84579ee8_Symphyseal17mm3.jpg.150192eeba4c1526011240d49d553691.jpg

 

5effd846bf9b9_Symphyseal17mm4.jpg.99b2a56cb8ee2f8841ceec06a28c4f53.jpg

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 11

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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Awesome find Marco, congrats :thumbsu:

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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4 hours ago, Praefectus said:

Wow. Nice find. It's in really good condition too. 

 

3 hours ago, hokietech96 said:

That is awesome. Congratulations 

 

1 hour ago, jcbshark said:

Awesome find Marco, congrats :thumbsu:

 

Thank you.  Personally finding an Otodus obliquus symphyseal tooth was on my bucket list for fossil finds.  One of my friends that I collect with found two Otodus obliquus symphyseal teeth years ago that were probably from the same shark.  It only took me 25 years and over 170 trips to the Virginia Nanjemoy Formation to finally find one.  My last bucket list shark tooth from the Nanjemoy Formation is a Hexanchus symphyseal tooth.  I've found over 80 Hexanchus teeth but no symphyseal tooth yet.  Two of my friends have both a male and female symphyseal tooth.  Hopefully I'll eventually find one.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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Marco, 

Congratulations on a magnificent and rare find!

The Hexanchus can't be far behind. ;) 

    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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7 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Marco, 

Congratulations on a magnificent and rare find!

The Hexanchus can't be far behind. ;) 

 

Tim

 

Thank you.  I still have a good number of trips worth of matrix to go through, but the odds are still against me.  It is a matter of luck.  I definitely make the trips and put in the time searching matrix.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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Hi,

 

7 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

I've found over 80 Hexanchus teeth but no symphyseal tooth yet.  Two of my friends have both a male and female symphyseal tooth.

 

Marco, what is (are) the difference(s) between a symphyseal male tooth and a symphyseal female tooth Hexanchus ?

 

Coco

----------------------
OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici

Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici
Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici
Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici
Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici
Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici
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1 hour ago, Coco said:

Hi,

 

 

Marco, what is (are) the difference(s) between a symphyseal male tooth and a symphyseal female tooth Hexanchus ?

 

Coco

I’m interested in that also.  I know how in the others. The males main cusp is much larger compared to the other cusps as opposed to the females.

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3 hours ago, Coco said:

Hi,

 

 

Marco, what is (are) the difference(s) between a symphyseal male tooth and a symphyseal female tooth Hexanchus ?

 

Coco

 

1 hour ago, Searcher78 said:

I’m interested in that also.  I know how in the others. The males main cusp is much larger compared to the other cusps as opposed to the females.

 

There has been some disagreement among researchers (note this could be resolved by looking at the lower symphyseal teeth of extant male and female Notorynchus and Hexanchus sharks which I haven't seen discussed anywhere) as to whether lower symphyseal Hexanchus teeth display sexual dimorphism.  Below is what Kent 1994 states on the subject:

 

 

5ef730fa3d901_Kent19943.thumb.jpg.d1a758944591f235c9223aebe29559e7.jpg

 

 

Below is a line drawing Kent 1994 of a Hexanchus gigas lower symphyseal tooth.  The features of this tooth are what I attribute to a male Hexanchus lower symphyseal tooth:

 

 

5ef730f511276_Kent1994H.gigas.jpg.f63b1d4339b20e187c40eac36ed5a66b.jpg

 

 

Below is a line drawing Kent 1994 of a Notorynchus primigenius lower symphyseal tooth.  The features of this tooth are very similar to what I attribute to a female Hexanchus lower symphyseal tooth (See the text above from Kent 1994):

 

 

5ef730f6c9f85_Kent1994N.primigenius.jpg.c1a73c98a5283bd04ae7707f7c7a7a7c.jpg

 

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 3

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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Thanks for the information.

 

Coco

----------------------
OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici

Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici
Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici
Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici
Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici
Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici
Otolithes de poissons récents ! ici

Un Greg...

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That's a great tooth, MarcoSr.  I've never collected a site that could yield an Otodus or at least it was highly unlikely.  I've seen them from the Late Paleocene/Early Eocene of Mprocco.

 

Jess

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7 hours ago, siteseer said:

That's a great tooth, MarcoSr.  I've never collected a site that could yield an Otodus or at least it was highly unlikely.  I've seen them from the Late Paleocene/Early Eocene of Mprocco.

 

Jess

 

Jess

 

I didn't realize that Otodus could have lower symphyseal/parasymphyseal teeth.  I was aware of the upper symphyseal/parasymphyseal Otodus teeth.  I have a number of those from Morocco and a good friend has an associated pair from the Nanjemoy Formation in Virginia.  From PMs with Lutz Andres on Facebook I learned about the lower symphyseal/parasymphyseal Otodus teeth.  Lutz said that the lower ones were much rarer to find than the upper ones.  He said that he and friends had around 50 uppers and only a couple of lowers.  He said for Parotodus it was reversed and the lowers were much more common.  I'm not sure how you tell the difference between the Otodus and Parotodus symphyseal/parasymphyseal teeth but Lutz said that the Parotodus ones tended to be much smaller in size.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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9 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

 

Jess

 

I didn't realize that Otodus could have lower symphyseal/parasymphyseal teeth.  I was aware of the upper symphyseal/parasymphyseal Otodus teeth.  I have a number of those from Morocco and a good friend has an associated pair from the Nanjemoy Formation in Virginia.  From PMs with Lutz Andres on Facebook I learned about the lower symphyseal/parasymphyseal Otodus teeth.  Lutz said that the lower ones were much rarer to find than the upper ones.  He said that he and friends had around 50 uppers and only a couple of lowers.  He said for Parotodus it was reversed and the lowers were much more common.  I'm not sure how you tell the difference between the Otodus and Parotodus symphyseal/parasymphyseal teeth but Lutz said that the Parotodus ones tended to be much smaller in size.

 

Marco Sr.

 

Hi MarcoSr.,

 

By the early Eocene, Otodus was on a path to losing its symphyseal teeth.  I think only some of the population retained that file.  Even fewer individuals of Parotodus had one - an even more reduced tooth than before.  I'm not sure how Andres determined that Parotodus had a reversed number of symphyseal/parasymphyseal files unless there are some number of dentitions reflecting that.  Is that in a paper?  I think the youngest Parotodus symphyseal I've seen is from the Early Miocene Batesford Formation in Australia though younger ones wouldn't surprise me.

 

How small would a Parotodus mangyshlakensis symphyseal be?  I think the technical term would be "teeny-tiny."

 

Jess

 

.

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3 hours ago, siteseer said:

 

Hi MarcoSr.,

 

By the early Eocene, Otodus was on a path to losing its symphyseal teeth.  I think only some of the population retained that file.  Even fewer individuals of Parotodus had one - an even more reduced tooth than before.  I'm not sure how Andres determined that Parotodus had a reversed number of symphyseal/parasymphyseal files unless there are some number of dentitions reflecting that.  Is that in a paper?  I think the youngest Parotodus symphyseal I've seen is from the Early Miocene Batesford Formation in Australia though younger ones wouldn't surprise me.

 

How small would a Parotodus mangyshlakensis symphyseal be?  I think the technical term would be "teeny-tiny."

 

Jess

 

.

 

Jess

 

Lutz Andres wasn't commenting on the number of files but was reflecting on the number of upper and lower parasymphyseal/symphyseal teeth that he and his friends had in their collections from Otodus and Parotodus.  For Otodus they had many more uppers and for Parotodus they had many more lowers.

 

I do not have any Parotodus symphyseal or parasymphyseal teeth.  I only have a few regular Parotodus teeth from the Eocene of Morocco and a few regular Parotodus teeth from the Miocene of MD and NC.

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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I just found this 8mm tooth today (see the below pictures) in matrix that I collected from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation, of Virginia awhile back.  It is a sand tiger parasymphyseal tooth.  I'm posting it to show the feature differences with the Otodus parasymphyseal tooth posted above.  The Otodus tooth is much more robust and although only twice the length of this sand tiger tooth, the Otodus tooth dwarfs it.

 

 

5effe324b3395_parasymphysealsandtiger8mm1.jpg.59da47df3eccf4b4ac87b642be26b9a9.jpg

 

5effe326883c5_parasymphysealsandtiger8mm3.jpg.a079d7240a7d40e4bafe97a409354199.jpg

 

5effe3284b228_parasymphysealsandtiger8mm4.jpg.ebc665345fb11681eef3083b5b1325d0.jpg

 

 

Marco Sr.

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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