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New Fossil Teeth added to the collection


mikeymig

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I recently acquired some amazing specimens from my good friends collection. These pieces were part of the William Pinch (8/15/1940-4/01/2017) collection. Bill is well known in the mineral community for his incredible collection of one-of-a-kind and rare minerals from around the world. Bill also collected other natural history specimens including these two wonderful fossil teeth. These fossil teeth were available in the 80s and 90s and are now very hard to acquire. I'm very proud to own these teeth from the Pinch Collection.

Happy Collecting

 

Lophiodon .JPG

Desmostylus.JPG

Edited by mikeymig
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Many times I've wondered how much there is to know.  
led zeppelin

 

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Nice acquisitions, Mikey!  :) 

Thanks for posting them. 

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    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."

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Mikey . . . The last time I checked, Desmostylus was placed in the Order DESMOSTYLIA(?), Family DESMOSTYLIDAE(?).  Do you have more recent info placing this taxon in the Family HIPPOPOTAMIDAE?

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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5 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

Mikey . . . The last time I checked, Desmostylus was placed in the Order DESMOSTYLIA(?), Family DESMOSTYLIDAE(?).  Do you have more recent info placing this taxon in the Family HIPPOPOTAMIDAE?

From https://dinopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Desmostylus  I always thought it was a type of Sirenia so I dont know. I do know that there is a bunch of debate/confusion about Desmostylus and I thought that Hippopotamidae was the most recent information.   

Many times I've wondered how much there is to know.  
led zeppelin

 

MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png IPFOTM.png IPFOTM2.png IPFOTM3.png IPFOTM4.png IPFOTM5.png

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Matsui K, Tsuihiji T. 2019. The phylogeny of desmostylians revisited: proposal of new clades based on robust phylogenetic hypotheses. PeerJ 7:e7430

 

"In the currently-accepted taxonomic scheme, Desmostylia includes two families, 10 to 12 genera, and 13–14 species (Shikama, 1966; Kohno, 2000; Inuzuka, 2005; Domning & Barnes, 2007; Barnes, 2013; Beatty & Cockburn, 2015; Chiba et al., 2016). The two families are Desmostylidae Osborn, 1905, and Paleoparadoxiidae Reinhart, 1959."

 

I think Desmostylus was never placed in Hippopotamidae, though it was considered initially to be a sirenian.  There are several hypotheses dealing with the desmostylid phylogeny:

 

image.thumb.png.8e3ba19728fa20a12973b4a78de09b07.png

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http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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So they belong to their own order, family, and genus then went extinct. They are weird. Love it. 

Many times I've wondered how much there is to know.  
led zeppelin

 

MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png IPFOTM.png IPFOTM2.png IPFOTM3.png IPFOTM4.png IPFOTM5.png

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8 hours ago, mikeymig said:

So they belong to their own order, family, and genus then went extinct. They are weird. Love it. 

 

Humm.  Well, actually, first they went extinct, THEN they got their own order, family, and genus.  They are weird!  :thumbsu:

http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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15 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

 

Humm.  Well, actually, first they went extinct, THEN they got their own order, family, and genus.  They are weird!  :thumbsu:

HaHa Harry. You know what I mean. No living descendants or anything even close to them today. Thank you for the comments and information. I appreciate it.  

Many times I've wondered how much there is to know.  
led zeppelin

 

MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png IPFOTM.png IPFOTM2.png IPFOTM3.png IPFOTM4.png IPFOTM5.png

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On 7/13/2021 at 8:31 PM, mikeymig said:

From https://dinopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Desmostylus  I always thought it was a type of Sirenia so I dont know. I do know that there is a bunch of debate/confusion about Desmostylus and I thought that Hippopotamidae was the most recent information.   

 

You have to be very careful with websites.  Harry is right.  Desmostylus was considered a sea cow at first.  I have seen an old restoration of it with flippers.  I hesitate to say that it was never assigned to the Hippopoatamidae because within the first 40 or so years of its description, Desmostylus was considered a probiscidean, a sirenian, and even a multituberculate (Inuzuka et al., 1994).  It's still mostly known from isolated teeth but partial skeletons have been found.  I think someone was confused while trying to find its closest modern relative or that person might have read that desmostylians might have had a lifestyle vaguely described as "sort of like a saltwater hippo" which I have heard at least two people say at a show when trying to describe it.  Desmostylians have been considered to have descended from an afrothere ancestor like hippos and sea cows but they they are neither ancestors of hippos nor are they descended from them.

 

The Temblor Formation is around the age of the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed which is roughly 15-16 million years old.  Hundreds of complete teeth and thousands of partials/fragments (isolated cusps) were found at the Coalinga site before the digging got tougher.  I'm told heavy equipment would be needed to expose more of the formation because of how it dips.  I've known some of the guys who dug those - a couple of them have passed.  They were hitting it hard back in the 70's and into the 80's.  Maybe 20 years years ago, I heard that the land had changed hands.  I heard it became BLM land and I heard it just has a different private owner.

 

Anyway, I always thought Desmostylus and its relatives were among the most interesting mammals, and animals in general, that have ever lived.  Even well into the 21st century scientists are still trying to pin down where it fits in the tree of life.

 

Jess

 

Inuzuka, N, D. P. Domning, and C.E. Ray.  1994.

Summary of taxa and morphological adaptations of the Desmostylia.  The Island Arc 3, 4: 522-537. 

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Lophiodon is also an interesting animal.  It lived during the mid-late Eocene.  I bought a tooth back in the late 80's to 90's simply because I didn't know what a Lophiodon was.  At the time it was thought to be a relative of tapirs but I've read that it may be more closely related to chalicotheres as Lophiodontidae has been assigned to the Ancylopoda.

 

 

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