Colorado River Antelope Tooth?

[GPayton]

Found this little artiodactyl tooth on one of my trips to the Colorado River near Wharton, Texas about a month ago and have had some trouble getting a concrete ID. Any teeth other than bison or horse are basically impossible to find in the Brazos and so I'm way out of my depth with this one. I'm assuming it's too small to be camelid and the pictures I've seen that most closely resemble it are of antilocaprid teeth. This one must be an m3, the third lobe is just broken off (which you can see pretty clearly in the third and the fifth pictures). The occlusal surface is 1.5 cm across but obviously would be longer if the rest of the tooth was still there. As always, thanks for looking, and I'd be incredibly grateful if anybody can confirm my suspicions or point me in the right direction. I'll tag some of the Pleistocene experts that have been particularly helpful in the past: @Harry Pristis @Lorne Ledger @garyc @Shellseeker - love that these guys are a part of this forum! 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by GPayton

[garyc]

I’d love to tell you that it’s a pronghorn tooth and I’m not entirely confident, but if I picked that up on the Colorado, I’d think it was a broken bovid tooth. I hope I’m wrong. I know pronghorn we’re in our area

[fossilus]

I've found a pronghorn tooth in brazos. It was identified by Nate at @PrehistoricFlorida on the forum. I can see some similarities to mine, although mine was barely erupted and smaller.

[Harry Pristis]

My guess is that this is a sheep tooth.  I don't have a lot of experience with sheep teeth, but that's the direction I would research if it were my find.

 

 

[Lorne Ledger]

It does indeed look like a lower right M3 of Antilocapridae.  It does conform to A. americana but not positive without seeing and measuring it in-hand.  You could say Antilocapridae cf. A. americana.  The "cf" indicates that it conforms to that species.  It is too lean to be sheep or goat, although there were Pleistocene goats and sheep around.  Also the length of the tooth would rule out goat/sheep imho.

 

Great find, they tend to be rare, but I have found one similar to your on the Brazos River.

[GPayton]

@Harry Pristis - I hadn't considered sheep or goat, and considering the larger size of my tooth compared to the incredibly small antilocaprid teeth I've seen come out of the Peace River that might cross antelope off the potential ID list. 

@Lorne Ledger - I've been unable to find anything that gives me definitive measurements of goat, sheep, or Antilocapra americana teeth. Do you have any references you can send my way that I can take a look at? I know you're quite experienced when it comes to the Brazos so I trust your judgement. 

[Lorne Ledger]

I do, just trying to find it.  My uncle wrote a paper on antelopes from pit 91 at Rancho La Brea - looking for my copy.   In the mean time here are pix of my two antilocaprids from the Brazos River.  First one is a single tooth M3 on the small side, ID'd as Tetrameryx.  The second is a complete left mandible but only one partial M3 remains.  Not ID'd to species but it is in the size range of A. americana

 

 

[Lorne Ledger]

@GPayton  As promised, here is the paper on Antilocapra americana

 

[GPayton]

@Lorne Ledger Wow! Thank you for the paper, it's incredibly helpful. After reading it I pulled out my ruler and measured my tooth to see if it matched the measurements given for the first M3 the paper describes since the illustration of the occlusal surface looks exactly the same as my example and the two teeth were a perfect match. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by GPayton

[Lorne Ledger]

So happy it was helpful.