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Omomyid primate partial jaw from the Eocene of Virginia


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I have already posted pictures of this partial jaw in a topic “The most rare fossil on your collection” in “Member Collections”.  However, I would like to start a thread here in “Partners in Paleontology - Member Contributions to Science” so I can discuss any updates with this partial jaw.

 

I found this partial jaw ( 3mm by 3mm by 1mm) in February 2019 in matrix from the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation, Potapaco B Member in Virginia.  Below are pictures that I took of the partial jaw:

 

 

5f9ec16dbfd84_MammalTooth3mmX3mmX1mmMC1.jpg.cf033020ce70a8f6d913290f36e9113c.jpg

 

5f9ec172c0889_MammalTooth3mmX3mmX1mmMC2.jpg.484fe66461ea15b40c4af48fc3b80b61.jpg

 

5f9ec176001dc_MammalTooth3mmX3mmX1mmMC3.jpg.5aa10e4fd76ee26b0d454cb5175810ad.jpg

 

5f9ec17884993_MammalTooth3mmX3mmX1mmMC4.jpg.a52c8fb0b827a3fa1810781721c8a580.jpg

 

 

I sent these pictures and then the specimen itself to Dr. Ken Rose who is a Johns Hopkins University emeritus and who is associated with the Smithsonian Institution.  From looking at the pictures Ken had originally thought that the specimen might be from a hedgehog.  However, after receiving and seeing the specimen itself, I got the following statement in an e-mail from Ken “I’ve had a chance to look at your jaw, and it turns out to be significant.  It’s not a hedgehog.  This is the first primate jaw I know of from the east coast. By all means search the concentrate for any other pieces that could relate to it (premolars would be especially useful)”.  This is an example demonstrating that even very good pictures may not be adequate to get an accurate ID of a specimen.

 

Because of the rarity of the specimen I donated it to the Smithsonian Institution.  This fossil actually caused the USGS and Dr. Weems to relook at the age of the Eocene Potapaco B Member of the Nanjemoy Formation in Virginia where it was found.  I sent matrix samples to the USGS from the hole where the specimen was found and they confirmed that the layer was the Potapaco B Member of the Nanjemoy Formation by looking at the dinoflagellates in the matrix samples.  However, Dr. Rose determined that the features of the specimen where much more primitive than the published NP11 date of that layer suggested.  So Dr. Weems looked back at all of the research and core samples on the Nanjemoy Formation and determined that the Potapaco B Member of the Nanjemoy Formation was actually about a million years older than previously reported and was in the top of NP10 versus in NP 11.  So the age of the specimen was tentatively determined to be 54 to 54.5 Ma.

 

A paper would have been published this spring/summer but Covid-19 stopped everything cold.  The Dr. Rose's lab was closed and he wasn't able to compare primate specimens from museum collections because the museums were closed.  However progress has been made recently and comparisons with other fossil primate specimens have been completed and a paper is in preparation (first draft is almost done). Figures have been drafted, but there is a problem with the resolution of the scanned images of the jaw, so the jaw may have to be rescanned which requires sending it back to North Carolina. However, optimistically Dr. Rose will submit the paper by the end of this year. I can't say anything about the ID of the specimen until the paper is released.  Below is a figure showing representative lower dentitions of Omomyid primates from researchgate.net:

 

 

5f9ec246b9af2_Representative-lower-dentitions-of-omomyid-primates-figured-phylogeneticallyresearchgate_net.thumb.jpg.ad8de1f23b11645d625cab2fdcd9bf16.jpg

 

 

Below are pictures showing an artist conception of what an Omomyid primate looked like (alamy stock photo) and a representative Omomyid skull both from Wikipedia.org:

 

 

5f9ec34ac5a27_Omomyidaewikipedia_org.thumb.jpg.a5aa581484523d26db7b878a84c57f49.jpg

 

5f9ec3434e4e8_Omomyidae2wikipedia_org.thumb.jpg.fded9fd0e0046d59ff4b1f7f6b2a47b2.jpg

 

 

Marco Sr.

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"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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Great find

1 hour ago, MarcoSr said:

“I’ve had a chance to look at your jaw, and it turns out to be significant.  It’s not a hedgehog.  This is the first primate jaw I know of from the east coast. By all means search the concentrate for any other pieces that could relate to it (premolars would be especially useful)”

Im sure when you read this your jaw dropped. :) Congratulations on a very important find

“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

"With hammer in hand, the open horizon of time, and dear friends by my side, what can we not accomplish together?" -Kane (Kane)

"We are in a way conquering time, reuniting members of a long lost family" -Quincy (Opabinia Blues)

"I loved reading the trip reports, I loved the sharing, I loved the educational aspect, I loved the humor. It felt like home. It still does" -Mike (Pagurus)

“The best deal I ever got was getting accepted as a member on The Fossil Forum. Not only got an invaluable pool of knowledge, but gained a loving family as well.” -Doren (caldigger)

"it really is nice, to visit the oasis that is TFF" -Tim (fossildude19)

"Life's Good! -Adam (Tidgy's Dad)

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Can't wait to see this published.  Great work, Marco!

 

The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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Great to hear that there has been progress on this awesome find--hope to be able to see the paper soon.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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That's an amazing discovery! So cool to know there were primates climbing around the east coast during the Eocene!

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Spectacular.  Hey, what paper did you get that Omomyid cladogram from?  The illustrations are nice and I am tryinh to ID some of my (personal and museum) Eocene mammals, and I am pretty sure there are a few Omomyids among them. 

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31 minutes ago, jpc said:

Spectacular.  Hey, what paper did you get that Omomyid cladogram from?  The illustrations are nice and I am tryinh to ID some of my (personal and museum) Eocene mammals, and I am pretty sure there are a few Omomyids among them. 

 

Jean-Pierre

 

Tornow 2009  Systematic Analysis of the Eocene Primate Family Omomyidae Using Gnathic and Postcranial Data

 

 

You can download the full paper at the below ResearchGate link:

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-Representative-lower-dentitions-of-omomyid-primates-figured-phylogenetically_fig5_232691383

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 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

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

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6 hours ago, Top Trilo said:

Great find

Im sure when you read this your jaw dropped. :) Congratulations on a very important find

 

I was definitely surprised and very happy when I received Dr. Rose's e-mail.  I was really glad that I sent the jaw to him.  Because of the rarity of terrestrial mammal specimens from the Nanjemoy Formation (it was a near shore marine fauna) I sent anything mammal that I found to Dr. Rose for evaluation and donated everything of scientific value.

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 2

"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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7 hours ago, Monica said:

What a super-cool find!!!  Congratulations!!! :yay-smiley-1:

 

5 hours ago, thelivingdead531 said:

Everything about this is amazing! Congrats on such a significant find! 

 

2 hours ago, PaleoNoel said:

That's an amazing discovery! So cool to know there were primates climbing around the east coast during the Eocene!

 

Thank you.  If Dr. Rose was correct in his initial thoughts, this will be the first reported primate fossil specimen from the East Coast of the United States.  The only other fossil primate specimens that I'm aware of found east of the Mississippi River, were found in Eocene deposits in Mississippi.

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 2

"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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3 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Can't wait to see this published.  Great work, Marco!

 

 

3 hours ago, digit said:

Great to hear that there has been progress on this awesome find--hope to be able to see the paper soon.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

I was extremely happy when I learned of the progress on the paper.  Covid-19 had stopped everything cold for months.  I'm looking forward to the paper but I already know what will be in it but I can't share that information.  I'll update this thread when the paper is published.

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 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

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

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26 minutes ago, MarcoSr said:

I'll update this thread when the paper is published.

 

looking forward to it

“If fossils are not "boggling" your mind then you are simply not doing it right” -Ken (digit)

"No fossil is garbage, it´s just not completely preserved” -Franz (FranzBernhard)

"With hammer in hand, the open horizon of time, and dear friends by my side, what can we not accomplish together?" -Kane (Kane)

"We are in a way conquering time, reuniting members of a long lost family" -Quincy (Opabinia Blues)

"I loved reading the trip reports, I loved the sharing, I loved the educational aspect, I loved the humor. It felt like home. It still does" -Mike (Pagurus)

“The best deal I ever got was getting accepted as a member on The Fossil Forum. Not only got an invaluable pool of knowledge, but gained a loving family as well.” -Doren (caldigger)

"it really is nice, to visit the oasis that is TFF" -Tim (fossildude19)

"Life's Good! -Adam (Tidgy's Dad)

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Amazing work, Marco!

Thanks for posting it here.   :tiphat:

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5 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

 

Jean-Pierre

 

Tornow 2009  Systematic Analysis of the Eocene Primate Family Omomyidae Using Gnathic and Postcranial Data

 

 

You can download the full paper at the below ResearchGate link:

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-Representative-lower-dentitions-of-omomyid-primates-figured-phylogenetically_fig5_232691383

 

Marco Sr.

Thanks Marco.  There's a lot of good info in there.  Including the history if Omomyid nomenclature, which I am struggling through these days.  Your timing is great, (lucky for me), that you post this just as I am working through Omomyid taxonomy and ID.   

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8 hours ago, jpc said:

Thanks Marco.  There's a lot of good info in there.  Including the history if Omomyid nomenclature, which I am struggling through these days.  Your timing is great, (lucky for me), that you post this just as I am working through Omomyid taxonomy and ID.   

 

Jean-Pierre

 

The premolars are the most diagnostic teeth.  If you have them, I would start there for your ID determination.

 

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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12 hours ago, Darbi said:

@MarcoSr, that is really cool! Thank you for sharing it with us and also please keep us updated!

 

12 hours ago, Top Trilo said:

 

looking forward to it

 

9 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Amazing work, Marco!

Thanks for posting it here.   :tiphat:

 

8 hours ago, Petalodus12 said:

Absolutely wonderful find! Congratulations!

 

I have made 200 trips (I keep a trip log) to different sites in Virginia, over the last twenty years or so, that have the Eocene, Nanjemoy Formation, Potapaco B Member layer.  In all of those trips I have only found two partial terrestrial mammal jaws in matrix from those sites, this one and another jaw that was described by Dr. Rose as a new species of marsupial, Peradectes gulottai.   So it has been a lot of work to find this jaw.  I found this jaw in a small matrix sample that I took the first time from a new site.  A good friend and I sample different sites in Virginia to see if they are worth collecting.  I searched the matrix right away to see if it was worth going back to this site and found this specimen.  Obviously we went back and did a lot of digging hoping to find more of the primate.  That didn't happen.  We have since moved on to other sites because this specific site had lots of pyrite and associated acid which etched a lot of the marine specimens that I'm really interested in.  So much acid, that there weren't any nanofossils in the matrix samples that I sent to the USGS for dating purposes which would have conclusively determined the NP zone for dating purposes.

 

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

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

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Wow! Not only an epic find for paleontology, but it altered the age of a member in a geological formation as well! Thanks for your continued efforts to support the sciences! :thumbsu: 
 

Congratulations! :yay-smiley-1:

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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49 minutes ago, FossilNerd said:

Wow! Not only an epic find for paleontology, but it altered the age of a member in a geological formation as well! Thanks for your continued efforts to support the sciences! :thumbsu: 
 

Congratulations! :yay-smiley-1:

 

Thank you.  With early primates it is critical to date the fossils accurately.  These early primates spread quickly around the world and accurate fossil dating helps determine the migration routes.  The below figures (a) and (b) are from Beard 2008 The oldest North American primate and mammalian biogeography during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and show the most parsimonious pattern of dispersal for early species of Teilhardina. 

 

 

image.png.99cb73abcb867ca4d6de8ace832d911d.png

 

 

"Under this scenario, Teilhardina originated in Asia and dispersed across Beringia to occupy coastal regions of North America during the early part of the PETM (red pathway). A major fall in eustatic sea level later in the PETM allowed Teilhardina to disperse across the North Atlantic land bridge connecting Greenland with northwestern Europe (orange pathway). Increased precipitation in the Rocky Mountain Interior finally allowed Teilhardina to colonize the Bighorn Basin during zone Wa-0 (yellow pathway)."  Beard 2008

 

Marco Sr.

  • I found this Informative 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

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

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