A large megalodon in matrix

[Brad s.]

Would it be possible to remove from matrix? Is it better left in the matrix considering it already has damage? The matrix is a hard sandy kind of rock.

[jpc]

Possible?  I 'm sure it is possible.  But why remove it?  It looks great like this.   Of course this sort of thing is all personal opinion.  : )

[digit]

I'm a fan of exposing the edges and undercutting just a bit to show the serrations well and leaving it on the matrix chunk as a display pedestal. You can easily sand down the matrix base nice and flat so that it sits stably. I'd clean off the top surface of the tooth but not a whole lot more. Sweet tooth!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Brad s.]

Thank you for the input, I think I will clean up the edges and sand the bottom for display.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Brad s.

[fossilnut]

I'm not a shark tooth expert but this tooth seems to have cusplets so I  believe it to be a earlier lineage angustidens or ariculatus   It is also from Summerville SC which I believe the earlier types are found. You state wrinkled, so maybe pathological. I have read that large teeth from older sharks may form with a wavy-wrinkled serration line due to their age. Interesting. Others will be better able to confirm. A beautiful tooth in any event. Could you show us a side view with the wrinkles?

Edited September 24, 2021 by fossilnut
added pathological

[Brad s.]

35 minutes ago, fossilnut said:

I'm not a shark tooth expert but this tooth seems to have cusplets so I  believe it to be a earlier lineage angustidens or ariculatus   It is also from Summerville SC which I believe the earlier types are found. You state wrinkled, so maybe pathological. I have read that large teeth from older sharks may form with a wavy-wrinkled serration line due to their age. Interesting. Others will be better able to confirm. A beautiful tooth in any event. Could you show us a side view with the wrinkles?

Very interesting. I’m aware that some megs can have a wrinkled portion near the root, but I have not seen pictures of one this pronounced. My impression was this was an early megalodon that had these wrinkles because it was transitioning from the side cusplets of the chubutensis and the extra length of the cusplet was being formed into the straight blade of the megalodon. I can take a picture of the side  of the blade later today.

[Top Trilo]

Amazing find, that's a monster of a tooth.

I would call this Otodus megalodon and not any previous species in the lineage. The teeth of O. angustidens did not reach this size and O. auriculatus had even smaller teeth. The size and width and nearly lack of cusplets also rule out O. chubutensis in my opinion.

While searching max tooth length for O. angustidens the first site that came back said, "Boessenecker found the largest tooth from this shark known to exist". From this website. Boessenecker is @Boesse

[Gareth_]

6 hours ago, Brad s. said:

Would it be possible to remove from matrix? Is it better left in the matrix considering it already has damage? The matrix is a hard sandy kind of rock.

 

 

 

5 hours ago, digit said:

I'm a fan of exposing the edges and undercutting just a bit to show the serrations well and leaving it on the matrix chunk as a display pedestal. You can easily sand down the matrix base nice and flat so that it sits stably. I'd clean off the top surface of the tooth but not a whole lot more. Sweet tooth!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

I agree with this! None of my shark teeth are still in the matrix, leaving it in the matrix is a far more uncommon and a unique way to present a Meg tooth. It just needs a bit of prep to clean the labial side and expose the serrations 
Very nice tooth indeed! 

 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, fossilnut said:

I'm not a shark tooth expert but this tooth seems to have cusplets so I  believe it to be a earlier lineage angustidens or ariculatus   It is also from Summerville SC which I believe the earlier types are found. You state wrinkled, so maybe pathological. I have read that large teeth from older sharks may form with a wavy-wrinkled serration line due to their age. Interesting. Others will be better able to confirm. A beautiful tooth in any event. Could you show us a side view with the wrinkles?

 

 

 

Otodus angustidens and Otodus ariculatus teeth are I believe too small to be this tooth.... and the morphology is wrong. It is possible it's a Otodus chubutensis tooth but I'm not sure they got this big ...? Besides there are no actual cusplets present - just a wrinkled area at the base of the crown.
I'm more leaning to it being a pathological O. megalodon tooth, the "wavy" area (especially visible on the pic with the size on it) doesn't look like reduced cusplets, there is too much "wavy area" - and O. chubutensis teeth had vestigial cusplets. 
If I am correct and it is a pathological O. megalodon tooth, then it is rare indeed. The size adds to that rarity!  

Edited September 24, 2021 by Gareth_

[minnbuckeye]

In my humble opinion, the aesthetic appearance would be decimated by removing the matrix. I would give all my megalodons (not many) for a tooth like this. As @digit says, some minor matrix removal could improve the looks. If you attempt this, please show us your results!!!!!  

 

 Mike

[Gareth_]

@Top Trilo I can't see a size referenced in that page..... but I would assume this example is approaching the maximum size for Otodus angustidens

 

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by Gareth_

[Brad s.]

Pictures of the wrinkled portion of the blade.

[Brad s.]

Some pictures not in focus

[digit]

15 minutes ago, Gareth_ said:

but I would assume this example is approaching the maximum size for Otodus angustidens

Would be really large for an "angi" but I believe the specimen in the matrix is more of a "chub" (O./C. chubutensis). The blade is wider and the side cusps are not as detached and more like wrinkles in the enamel edge of the main cusp.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Top Trilo]

21 minutes ago, Gareth_ said:

@Top Trilo I can't see a size referenced in that page..... but I would assume this example is approaching the maximum size for Otodus angustidens

Yes, I didn't find one either. It was more of a side note, however they definately didn't even get close to approaching 6 inches, 15cm. 

 

5 minutes ago, digit said:

Would be really large for an "angi" but I believe the specimen in the matrix is more of a "chub" (O./C. chubutensis). The blade is wider and the side cusps are not as detached and more like wrinkles in the enamel edge of the main cusp.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

What makes you say chub over meg? I have not seen any thing say their teeth surpassed a slant height of 5.1 inches (13cm)

[Gareth_]

43 minutes ago, Top Trilo said:

While searching max tooth length for O. angustidens the first site that came back said, "Boessenecker found the largest tooth from this shark known to exist". From this website. Boessenecker is @Boesse

 

11 minutes ago, digit said:

Would be really large for an "angi" but I believe the specimen in the matrix is more of a "chub" 

 

Yep, I was just posting pics to reference near maximum size of O. angustidens  (as a side note from the main topic)

The tooth in the matrix is not O. angustidens - size and morphology 

[Brad s.]

This is a large angustidens found in the same area. The two differ greatly in the shape, and I think the angustidens was narrower at least in some specimens. The deep “U” shape in the root distinguishes them further.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Brad s.

[Brad s.]

[Boesse]

It's a pathologic Carcharocles megalodon for sure: fantastic specimen! The cutting edge of the tooth is just wrinkled, that's not a cusplet. Definitely leave it in the rock!

 

As for the largest Carcharocles angustidens - I have not found the largest specimen, and the largest specimen ever found is probably in a private collection somewhere; the largest documented specimens are in our paper on a C. angustidens nursery from the Charleston area, which we used to estimate the maximum size of C. angustidens at about 10-11 meters in length (2/3 to 3/5 the size of the largest C. megalodon).

[Gareth_]

4 hours ago, Gareth_ said:

I'm more leaning to it being a pathological O. megalodon tooth
If I am correct and it is a pathological O. megalodon tooth, then it is rare indeed. The size adds to that rarity!  

 

1 hour ago, Boesse said:

It's a pathologic Carcharocles megalodon for sure: fantastic specimen! The cutting edge of the tooth is just wrinkled, that's not a cusplet. Definitely leave it in the rock!

 

 

This amateur collector has been learning things!   Seeing a number of teeth in the flesh, lots of time watching videos and reading good information on here from the experts like @Boesse really do help!

While I have your attention, I often see the maximum estimate of O. obliquus at about 12m. With the largest tooth found reaching 104mm (I think), do you think this estimate is accurate or slightly exaggerated?  With your estimate of O. angustidens being less than that, I would think it would be unusual for a shark to slowly evolve to a size of 12m, then shrink down a bit (O. angustidens), only to get larger again in the final species or two (O. chubutensis / O. megalodon)

This genus of shark holds a special place in my heart... an O. obliquus tooth was my first fossil

Edited September 25, 2021 by Gareth_

[sixgill pete]

Beautiful tooth. As @Boesse stated it is definitely a C. megalodon. And I too would leave it in the matrix. 

I personally have found 2 C. auriculatus right at the 4" mark. I have seen one slightly over 4". The largest C. angustidens I have is 3.5 inches, but there was one found at the same quarry that was over 4". I believe that the 4 inch range is about max for both of those species. 

Clubs, I'm not sure about but I would think 4.5 or so on them. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by sixgill pete

[RJB]

On 9/24/2021 at 11:53 AM, Brad s. said:

Thank you for the input, I think I will clean up the edges and sand the bottom for display.

Everybody and their grandmother has a meg tooth, but how many have one still in the matrix?  I bought one many years ago for that very reason.  I think it is super cool that its in matrix but like JP said, its your call.  

 

RB

[MarcoSr]

Really nice tooth.  I agree with others, based upon size and tooth features, the tooth is O. megalodon.  Large megs can have ruffles.  I remember reading that the teeth of a large megalodon could get very crowed in the jaw and the limited spacing could cause pathologies in the teeth.  The O. megalodon, with ruffles, below is 5.63".

 

 

 

 

I really like the tooth in the matrix, but I would clean the matrix up a little, as others have suggested.  If you haven't removed matrix before, I wouldn't start with this specimen as you could easily nick/damage serrations or scratch the enamel.  Also be aware that even if you remove the matrix correctly from the enamel of the tooth, the enamel color under the matrix could be slightly different from that of the exposed enamel.

 

Marco Sr.

[Brad s.]

On 9/27/2021 at 8:05 AM, MarcoSr said:

Really nice tooth.  I agree with others, based upon size and tooth features, the tooth is O. megalodon.  Large megs can have ruffles.  I remember reading that the teeth of a large megalodon could get very crowed in the jaw and the limited spacing could cause pathologies in the teeth.  The O. megalodon, with ruffles, below is 5.63".

 

 

 

 

I really like the tooth in the matrix, but I would clean the matrix up a little, as others have suggested.  If you haven't removed matrix before, I wouldn't start with this specimen as you could easily nick/damage serrations or scratch the enamel.  Also be aware that even if you remove the matrix correctly from the enamel of the tooth, the enamel color under the matrix could be slightly different from that of the exposed enamel.

 

Marco Sr.

I think I will leave in matrix. It is somewhat soft as in places my fingernail can make scratch into it a little  - very sandy. My first measure was 5 7/8 with a tape measure, but I went back and used calipers and it is right at 6”. This was a an exciting find for me considering it was located 200 yards from the house I grew up in, so a lot of sentimental value. I will post a picture of the final results when it’s cleaned up.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Brad s.

[Brad s.]

It’s not completely done, but some hard rock was removed and blade is still intact.

[Gareth_]

Nice work! 

Good to see the blade is intact too