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Liopleurodon Ferox Tooth?


Alston Gee

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I know this pliosaur tooth has been discussed early in another post, but here are more pictures with true colour (I guess) provided by the seller. The true locality of this tooth remains unknown although the seller claimed it was from Oxford Clay Formation, England. Does this tooth belong to Liopleurodon Ferox or Cretaceous pliosaur?

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Preservation of this tooth indicates it as having come from the Akrabou Formation at Asfla in the Goulmima region of Morocco. Thus, it's a Turonian plesiosaur tooth. With the outer layers of the crown missing, it's hard to say what kind of plesiosaur for sure, but we can at least rule out elasmosaur. The stoutness of the root and overall conical shape of the crown's core further would indeed suggest this is pliosaur rather than polycotylid, which would make this a brachauchenine pliosaur tooth.

 

Thus, definitely not Oxford Clay, not Middle Jurassic, nor Liopleurodon ferox (for which a tooth crown would be needed by way of identification anyway).

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'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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Have a look here as well, by the way:
 

 

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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It's hard to say since it's so small and fragmentary. You'd really need a better impression of the striations to determine whether it could be L. ferox or not. At least it has the right age, however, as the information on the label can be considered reliable. All the same, the tooth is rather small and has a number of striae that are restricted to the base of the tooth, which would be unlike L. ferox. Following Tarlo's (1960, p. 183) diagram (reproduced from Madzia, 2016, fig. 8), this particular pattern, however, is consistent with Peloneustes philarchus (see also here).

 

peerj-04-1998-g008.jpg.03466509aecf45566c9aaf6cbf605c1e.jpg

 

(A) Machimosaurus ('Simolestes') nowackianus, (B) Simolestes vorax, (C) Liopleurodon ferox, (D) Liopleurodon pachydeirus, (E) 'Pliosaurus' andrewsi, and (F) Peloneustes philarchus.

 

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'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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