FossilDiggin Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Found this one and I can’t seem to figure out what it is. Any help would be great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darktooth Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 This looks like some kind of woodwork. I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDiggin Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Woodwork? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDiggin Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Best I could come up with is sawfish snout 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagacious Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 Looks like it might be a piece of the leading edge of a pectoral fin from a large Pachycormid fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone wolf Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Definitely a sawfish rostrum 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abyssunder Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Interesting specimen " We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. " Thomas Mann My Library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 2 hours ago, Lone wolf said: Definitely a sawfish rostrum What features make you say that? I’m not seeing tessellated cartilage and the sockets are unlike any sawfish I’ve seen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 I agree with Al Dente. Nothing about this suggests sawfish. I agree with Darktooth that this could be a piece of river tumbled wood. 2 Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagacious Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 On 7/19/2020 at 4:45 PM, FossilDiggin said: Found this one and I can’t seem to figure out what it is. Any help would be great! Here's a photo from the Oceans of Kansas website of a piece of a pectoral fin from the Pachycormid fish Protosphyraena. The leading edge of Pachycormid pectoral fins were often serrated similar to your fossil. Check out the website to compare more images with your item. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 13 hours ago, Al Dente said: What features make you say that? I’m not seeing tessellated cartilage and the sockets are unlike any sawfish I’ve seen. If @FossilDiggin could get close up photos of the area I circled, it might change my mind about this not being sawfish (It would have to be a Cretaceous species). I didn't notice this texture previously. edit: Oops, I forgot this is from Louisiana. No Cretaceous fossils that I'm aware of from there, so can't be sawfish. It would rule out Protosphyraena too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boesse Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 I am tuning in here with utmost interest: I have little to offer, aside from 1) the sockets do seem somewhat shallow for sawfish rostral spines; 2) the element looks unusually dense for a sawfish rostrum, which aside from the prismatic cartilage seems to be somewhat porous and "woody" not unlike the texture of a billfish rostrum; 3) those grooves do look pretty reasonable for sawfish and 4) in many chondrichthyans there is a layer of smoother tissue overlying the prismatic cartilage, which is only exposed if the overlying tissue flakes off. As I was typing this I thought "I wonder if it could be Propristis" which is known from the Eocene of North Africa and the southeastern USA and known from several Tethyan locality rostra - the teeth are fairly closely spaced much like this, and I am actually somewhat confident that this is a chunk of a Propristis rostrum. I thought it looked familiar... What do y'all think? Figures from: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi-1oWB7OPqAhV4lHIEHYheCAIQFjAAegQIAxAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.calpoly.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1172%26context%3Dbio_fac&usg=AOvVaw2aBR7QiJAjnsmmconBv6dd 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 51 minutes ago, Boesse said: As I was typing this I thought "I wonder if it could be Propristis" which is known from the Eocene of North Africa and the southeastern USA and known from several Tethyan locality rostra - the teeth are fairly closely spaced much like this, and I am actually somewhat confident that this is a chunk of a Propristis rostrum. I thought it looked familiar... What do y'all think? Looks like a match. Propristis has been found in the the Yazoo Clay of Louisiana. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDiggin Posted July 23, 2020 Author Share Posted July 23, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone wolf Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 It’s a sawfish rostrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone wolf Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 (edited) I found a picture of two rostrums in my collection. Definitely Eocene and probably Pristis lathami Galeotti. Edited July 24, 2020 by Lone wolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 7 hours ago, Lone wolf said: I found a picture of two rostrums in my collection. Definitely Eocene and probably Pristis lathami Galeotti. I agree that your two pieces appear to be the same as FossilDiggin's piece. They are not Pristis lathami. Pristis has deep rectangular sockets that hold the rostral teeth. Here is an example of Pristis lathami from North Carolina. This photo comes from the North Carolina Fossil Club publication. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 On 7/19/2020 at 7:45 PM, FossilDiggin said: Really interesting sawfish rostrum. Could you please take pictures of each end? The rostrum sides are really distinctive as shown in your first picture above but I would also like to see the medial and lateral nerve canals in cross section like shown in the figure that Boesse posted above. Your second picture above seems to be showing one of the canals. I haven't come across Propristis in the Eocene of MD/VA yet and would like to be able to recognize even a small piece of rostrum in case I ever do. Kent in Publication 152 1999 identified a single sawfish rostral tooth from the Eocene of Virginia as Propristis schweinfurthi. However Cappetta in Handbook of Paleoichthyology Volume 3E 2012 states that the genus "Propristis has been recorded erroneously in the Ypresian of Morocco (Noubhani & Cappetta) and of Virginia, USA (Kent 1999) on the basis of teeth that belong in fact to Anoxypristis." Marco Sr. 1 "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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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