New, bigger megalodon size estimate

[Shellseeker]

 

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/school-lesson-leads-to-bigger-megalodon-size/

 

BIGGER Megs  !!!!  New ways to measure Megalodon Teeth...

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Shellseeker

[Shellseeker]

Resized a photo from the article.

[Al Dente]

23 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

Resized a photo from the article.

The caption on this says these were found in North Carolina but I’m pretty sure this is the set found by Larry Martin in Polk County Florida. 

[Shellseeker]

5 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

The caption on this says these were found in North Carolina but I’m pretty sure this is the set found by Larry Martin in Polk County Florida. 

I thought it was a little strange. These look like Bone Valley teeth straight out of a phosphate mine.

Thanks for pointing this out.

I know the post grad student performing the study and could probe.  Let me check with Ken first.  @digit He spends lot of his hours in Gainesville.

[digit]

I know Victor Perez and will get to the bottom of this--straight from the horse's megalodon's mouth (so to speak).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

[digit]

EDIT: After some digging....

 

In the FLMNH article:

 

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/school-lesson-leads-to-bigger-megalodon-size/

 

it is mentioned that the 3D mesh files for these teeth are available here:

 

https://www.morphosource.org/projects/00000C138

 

You can see in the object naming for these files that the catalog number for this group of teeth is UF311000 (particularly nice round numbers like this are reserved for particularly nice specimens). You can see by the collection data that this associated set was collected at the phosphate mine in Aurora, NC.

 

 

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

The caption on this says these were found in North Carolina but I’m pretty sure this is the set found by Larry Martin in Polk County Florida. 

I did some additional snooping in the FLMNH vertebrate paleontology database looking for meg teeth from Polk County, FL. Not having any luck locating an associated tooth set found by Larry Martin. It may be in there and I may not be querying the DB the proper way to get it to pop up.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Al Dente]

I looked through the original paper and Victor Perez has this illustration in the publication. UF31100 (from North Carolina) is the first dentition. The Polk County tooth set is the third one down. It is possible they made mirror images of the Yorktown dentition and painted them like Bone Valley teeth. 

 

 

[digit]

Set (C) from the above figure is labeled as CH-31-46P which I found a company selling painted replicas of these 46 teeth with this description:

 

This beautiful set of 46 Megalodon shark teeth replicas, from the collection of Dr. Gordon Hubbell, is the most complete set of associated Megalodon teeth ever found. The unusual color is due to the phosphate mine where it was found. From the Miocene Era (10 million years ago), Dr. Hubbell estimates these teeth to have come from a 40' Megalodon. Each tooth is painted on both sides replicating their original color, ready to be custom mounted.

 

I can drop Victor an email to see the origin of this pictured set:

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Shellseeker]

@Al Dente, @digit

You are doing the detective work. I find the stepping stones fascinating. Thanks you.

[digit]

20 hours ago, digit said:

I can drop Victor an email to see the origin of this pictured set:

 

Looks like the caption for that image on the FLMNH article needs updating (I'll attempt to locate the appropriate person to fix this). I've heard this back from Victor, the author of the paper (emphasis mine):

 

Yeah, that is a reproduction of the dentition found in Bone Valley. All the teeth are painted casts in that image. The color doesn't actually match the real teeth and the dentition is not from North Carolina as the caption says. The actual teeth from that dentition are shown in Figure 1B and Figure 3C of my paper. It's also worth noting that only 44 of the first functional row of teeth were found, rather than all 46. 

 

On 7/18/2021 at 10:17 AM, Al Dente said:

The caption on this says these were found in North Carolina but I’m pretty sure this is the set found by Larry Martin in Polk County Florida. 

21 hours ago, Al Dente said:

It is possible they made mirror images of the Yorktown dentition and painted them like Bone Valley teeth. 

 

Well spotted! These are the Polk County (Bone Valley) tooth set. They are reproductions painted to look more like BV teeth than the actual teeth. As Victor mentioned there were 2 lateral teeth missing from the set (L6 & l7) which were likely mirrored from the other side of the jaw to complete the set of 46 total teeth.

 

Can't slip anything past the eagle eyes of our membership.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken