Bone or Plant?

[erose]

Hey folks, hopefully some of you can help me with this odd thing.  It was collected back in 2008 from a small exposure of the Pecan Gap Formation, Taylor Group (Upper Cretaceous) in Austin, Texas. It was found in amongst typical marine fossils such as Exogyra, baculites, bivalves, gastropods and a few scrappy shark teeth.  I feel like I have seen this before in a book or museum but I have had no luck looking through my own library. As you can see it has a bone-like outer texture but the shape is unlike any bone I know of. But then I am not a "vertebrate guy."

 

All suggestions welcome...

 

[FranzBernhard]

Ha! The first mystery item from Texas that is not a rudist .

Shoot in the dark: Sponge?

Edit: It was veeery dark and I was wrong . Indeed learned something new!
Franz Bernhard

Edited August 30, 2021 by FranzBernhard

[Rockwood]

That's a piece of an animal that was deposited at sea. Ankylosaurs and kin float.

[NSRhunter]

Guaranteed 100% that is a mosasaur tooth root! Nice find  

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I agree with mos tooth root.

 

[Gareth_]

Yep, it's a root. It's a shame there is no crown cos that'd just add to the awesomeness of the find..... @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon may be able to identify it further. Or is today going to be the day he is finally stumped? 

[erose]

OKAY! Cool beans.  That would be the most interesting find from what was a very small exposure made accessible only for a few brief months before they graded it back over.

[tombk]

very cool find, indeed!

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

9 hours ago, Gareth_ said:

Yep, it's a root. It's a shame there is no crown cos that'd just add to the awesomeness of the find..... @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon may be able to identify it further. Or is today going to be the day he is finally stumped? 

 

Definitely a mosasaur tooth root. But as these aren't diagnostic, there's little in terms I can add in terms of identification

 

Beautiful find!

[Gareth_]

4 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

But as these aren't diagnostic, there's little in terms I can add in terms of identification

 

I'll let you off the hook, being non diagnostic seems like a fairly good excuse haha

 

[erose]

6 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Definitely a mosasaur tooth root. But as these aren't diagnostic, there's little in terms I can add in terms of identification

 

Beautiful find!

As much as I love to be able to identify fossils to species or at least genus level I am quite happy to label this as "Mosasaur Tooth Root."