Fish tooth, failed shark tooth?

[Linus]

I'm wondering what the rounded fossil might be? 

The place it was found contains mostly sand, and smaller shark teeths here and there. I think later createous? Really small shark teeth sometimes, not more than 2-3 mm sometimes.

 

The rounded fossil is about 1cm on the long side.

 

It might just be a pebble, or a fish tooth or a gastric stone, or a miss-grown shark teeth? I really don't know? I'll add some of the shark teeths for reference so you guys know the setting it was found in. 

 

 

 

[PaleoNoel]

It may be a fragment of the internal mold of a marine gastropod (also known as a steinkern), the elongate partial tooth seems to be shark (hard to be sure since it's incomplete) and your squalicorax is indeed squalicorax.

[old bones]

I agree with partial gastropod steinkern.

[Linus]

Ok, I think I understand the idea behind a gastropod? You mean that it should be the inner most part of the shell, right? Never seen that part of a steinkern though? Care to give a reference?

 

There are no shells or nothing found of the sort that would fit a gastropod of that size or color. All shells found on location are sandy coloured, almost all teeth are black or brown.

No shell found whatsoever had any darker tone.

 

I'll post a ref of a shell found about hundred meters away. All I have found are very thin, small and sandy coloured.

 

The material looks more like the root of a sharktooth than that of a shell?

Perhaps just a pathological sharktooth?

 

[digit]

A steinkern is a German word for 'stone seed' because the internal molds of bivalve mollusks tended to like seeds. The term is used to indicate an internal mold (impression) of a mollusk shell (gastropod or bivalve) and not any actual part of the mollusk itself. A quick internet image search for 'steinkern' should turn up lots of examples. And I agree that the curve and slightly decreasing diameter is very characteristic of a gastropod steinkern.

 

If you've got a hollow shark tooth it is not so much 'failed' as 'just forming' when the shark died. If you would have asked me how shark teeth form I would have assumed the internal dentine forms first and then the root and the finishing touches would have been the enamel coating (and I'd have been dead wrong). Contrary to expectations (mine at least) shark teeth form the enamel outer layer first and then are infilled with the dentine before the root finishes off the tooth. Any of the forming teeth in the back rows in the jaw when the shark died would be preserved as this hollow enamel crown.

 

The third specimen is a beautiful example of a Squalicorax Crow Shark. I'm probably fond of them because we don't get fossils stretching back to the Cretaceous in Florida.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Linus]

8 hours ago, digit said:

The term is used to indicate an internal mold (impression) of a mollusk shell (gastropod or bivalve)

Aha, I thought "internal" referred to an inner part of the internal mould. Never seen any of those

 

So you mean a part of something like the image below? 

 

8 hours ago, digit said:

a Squalicorax Crow Shark. I'm probably fond of them because...

Yes, that is the one tooth I've ever wanted to find. My hair stood on end when I found it. I know it is common in some places, but it is one of the coolest tooths I've ever seen.

Sadly, I only found this single one.

 

 

 

[old bones]

4 hours ago, Linus said:

Aha, I thought "internal" referred to an inner part of the internal mould. Never seen any of those

 

So you mean a part of something like the image below? 

Yes, That is what your find appears to be, a portion of a gastropod steinkern like the one you referenced from Ancient Bones gallery. 

 Julianna