Very odd whale tooth

[Shellseeker]

We have company coming and I am forced !!!! to clean up a room full of bags full of fossils. The reckoning has arrived.

It is slow because I slow down for interesting fossils.

 

Over the summer, I obtained about 10 badly beaten whale teeth from the phosphate mines in Bone Valley. I did not think they would be worth the $25 I paid but the selleris a friend. In checking out that bag ,  I discovered a very odd tooth.

 

 

I had another whale tooth about the same length (57 mm): Has anyone seen this type of whale tooth variation?  Is it pathological?   Thanks for looking, Jack

[Styles]

If I picked this up I probably would have called it a rudist and tossed it in my invertebrate drawer.  Really interesting find - I know very little of whale teeth, so curious to see what others have to say.

[Shellseeker]

15 hours ago, Styles said:

If I picked this up I probably would have called it a rudist and tossed it in my invertebrate drawer.  Really interesting find - I know very little of whale teeth, so curious to see what others have to say.

Thanks for your response. There actually was a significant amount of whale diversity in the Southeast US, and I have been fortunate to find and collect numerous individual teeth of different sizes and shapes.

However, this is my 1st that looks like this.

Whale teeth are normally oval in shape, built on layers of dentine surrounded by cementum.

The blue shade is Dentine,  the lighter yellow is cementum. Those verital lines marked in red say this is a whale tooth.  Curioser and curioser.... @Boesse

[Styles]

Thanks for all the info - learned more about whale teeth in the last 10 minutes than I have my entire life.

[Boesse]

I'd be willing to bet that this is from near the posterior end of the toothrow, obviously some kind of sperm whale IMO.