Professional Can't Tell Fossil From Modern Elephant.

[PaleoRon]

Anyone who has ever seen a mammoth tooth and a mastodon or gompothere tooth side by side can immediately tell the difference. Although a mammoth tooth resembles a modern elephant tooth both the mastodon and gompothere are vastly different in appearence. The guy mentioned at the bottom of this article is the head of the vertebrate paleontology department at a museum and he can't tell the difference between a modern elephant jaw and a fossil jaw of what appears to be a gompothere, or possibly a mastodon. At least he guessed right that it is from a mammal.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...nosaur-bus.html

[Fruitbat]

Hmmmm.....and "...Michael J. Ryan, head of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History" needs to go back and take some good general vertebrate paleontology classes. I think that if I couldn't tell the difference between a modern elephant mandible and a mastodont-style mandible I would just keep my big mouth shut if National Geographic ever called me.

-Joe

[Guest Nicholas]

Although it was probably a mistake, and people are blowing it out of proportion he probably should have known better.

[Gatorman]

Ok thats just wrong.

[Guest Cris]

Wow.....How come nobody sends me packages like that? And it is pretty sad that he couldn't ID it.

[PrehistoricFlorida]

Gomph.

[Boesse]

First , thats not as bad as the archaeologist who thought it was Triceratops.

Second, Michael Ryan is a ceratopsian paleontologist. On one hand, most dinosaur paleontlologists A) don't really give a darn about anything younger than 65 Ma and don't really study teeth ever, because teeth in dinosaurs preserve comparatively little phylogenetic signal (e.g. are horribly undiagnostic relative to mammals).

If Ryan threw a mandible at me and asked me if it was chasmosaurine versus centrosaurine, I'd have no idea.

As an aside, what are the oldest known proboscidean fossils in South America? I guess it could be Mammut, but I don't think there are any pre-great american interchange proboscideans in south america.

Bobby

[MOROPUS]

First , thats not as bad as the archaeologist who thought it was Triceratops.

Second, Michael Ryan is a ceratopsian paleontologist. On one hand, most dinosaur paleontlologists A) don't really give a darn about anything younger than 65 Ma and don't really study teeth ever, because teeth in dinosaurs preserve comparatively little phylogenetic signal (e.g. are horribly undiagnostic relative to mammals).

If Ryan threw a mandible at me and asked me if it was chasmosaurine versus centrosaurine, I'd have no idea.

As an aside, what are the oldest known proboscidean fossils in South America? I guess it could be Mammut, but I don't think there are any pre-great american interchange proboscideans in south america.

Bobby

You`ve got the point! The last thing is crucial.How can be a Gompho?

[Boesse]

Well, apparently proboscideans never even made it to south america (even during the great american interchange; I checked Al Romer's textbook) which indicates that the fossil isn't even from south america (or australia). So, theoretically speaking, it could be a gomphothere.

Either way, doesn't matter so much. A ceratopsid expert shouldn't be expected to know a darn thing about mammalian tooth morphology.

Bobby