Polypterid/Bawitius jaw from Kem Kem?

[ziggycardon]

Hi, 

I have a friend in Morocco who is helping me get my hands on some Bawitius or other Polypterid material from the Kem Kem Beds as it is one of my top bucket list fossils. 

Today he send me this picture what he might believe could be a match for my search. Now I am not a fish expert and there isn't a whole lot of Bawitius material available to compare it to. 
So I was hoping of some of the Kem Kem or fish experts might chime in and shed some light on the piece. 

 

 @LordTrilobite @gigantoraptor @Haravex 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by ziggycardon

[LordTrilobite]

It looks like a lower left fish jaw.

But other than that I don't think I can be of much use.

[ziggycardon]

11 hours ago, LordTrilobite said:

It looks like a lower left fish jaw.

But other than that I don't think I can be of much use.

Thank you for taking a look anyway! 

Been looking in scientific papers and on google but I can't really find anything that looks similar like it so far. 

[gigantoraptor]

There aren't too many pieces described from Bawitius, and I don't think there is a paper on Bawitius from the Kem Kem beds, so I got this from the paper that described the species originally (from the Bahariya formation).

 

Quote

Ectopterygoid with at least 14 teeth in main tooth row; single row of large teeth extending to posterior end of bone; largest teeth oval in cross-section and located medial to base of lateral process on narrow ventral (oral) face; anterior end of medial face with shagreen of denticles; largest denticles appearing as narrow band of ventrally pointing marginal teeth

 

 

Also, you could compare to the skulls/jaws of living species of Polypterus. For example Polypterus senegalus:

 

 

I've also seen a Kem Kem skull once which I think would be a good fit for Bawitius, I'll PM you the pictures of that one later today.

 

Hope this at least helps a bit

 

 

 

[ziggycardon]

19 minutes ago, gigantoraptor said:

There aren't too many pieces described from Bawitius, and I don't think there is a paper on Bawitius from the Kem Kem beds, so I got this from the paper that described the species originally (from the Bahariya formation).

 

 

 

Also, you could compare to the skulls/jaws of living species of Polypterus. For example Polypterus senegalus:

 

 

I've also seen a Kem Kem skull once which I think would be a good fit for Bawitius, I'll PM you the pictures of that one later today.

 

Hope this at least helps a bit

 

 

 

Thank you very much, that might prove very helpfull. 

I've recently aqcuired a book on Polypterids and been searching the web yesterday as well for pictures of jaws and skulls on Polypterids and I did come accross this picture of a bichir as well. 

 

Do you have as a Kem Kem collector any Polypterid material yourself yet? 

And would you as KK collector without being certain of this jaw id buy it if the price was right?

[gigantoraptor]

55 minutes ago, ziggycardon said:

Do you have as a Kem Kem collector any Polypterid material yourself yet? 

I have a small jaw with a partial tooth. I'm still looking for a scale but I'm pretty sure that will turn up eventually. 

 

56 minutes ago, ziggycardon said:

And would you as KK collector without being certain of this jaw id buy it if the price was right?

Yes, I would. I have no problem with pieces without an exact ID sitting in my collection. Quite a lot of Kem Kem is only partially described, so I have quite a few pieces from there that can't get an exact ID (yet).