What is it? Unidentified Moroccan Tooth

[Tolmanbridge]

I got this tooth and a few others in trade from a geologist in Southern Morocco probably close to twenty years ago.  At the time he sent me a number of teeth, all identified as mosasaur.  This one always bothered me with that id as it looks quite a bit different from the other mosasaur teeth.  It has a more compressed oval cross section than most of the mosasaur teeth I have had in the past.  It also appears to have a bit of serration on the edges.  Supposedly location given to me:  Timhdite, Morocco, possible Oil Shales    The geologist was working for oil companies in the area at the time.  I have long ago lost the contact information so can't contact him for further information.  Also wondering about the color.  All the teeth I got from him were pure black, reminding me almost of the California tar pit colors.  Thanks for any help you can give me.

[ziggycardon]

Preservation looks to be from the Oil Shales of Bakrit (same age as the typical phoshate layers from Khouribga). 
Looks to be mosasaur indeed, Mosasaurus beaugei from a first glance @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon & @Praefectus might shed some more light on it.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Locality data is indeed correct as Timahdite/Bakrit in Morocco, which are now confirmed oil shales (although grain consistency argues for sand rather than shales). It's the oil content in the deposits here that give the fossils embedded therein their characteristic black colour, with the age being said to be about 4my older than that at the Ouled Abdoun phosphate mines.

 

The tooth is also without a doubt a mosasaur, but the gains covering the specimen make it hard to read the tooth's ornamentation (you should be able to fairly easily remove this encrustation by using a preparation needle, or even just wiping with acetone, but you should take care to reapply Paraloid or another consolidant afterwards if using acetone, since these teeth are internally quite weak and have a tendency to fracture and fall apart if left unconsolidated). There does to be some type of faceting, but it's hard to make out the exact nature of it. Similarly, the photographs don't really illustrate either cross-section and medial curvature too well.

 

If I'd be to estimate these characters, though, I'd say there's primarily just a distal curvature, and the cross-section is (sub)equal between the carinae. The curvature of the tooth moreover seems to be restricted to the top third of the tooth, which matches our recent description of Hainosaurus cf. boubker. Whether this could be the save species, though, I wouldn't be able to say...

[Praefectus]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:51 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

If I'd be to estimate these characters, though, I'd say there's primarily just a distal curvature, and the cross-section is (sub)equal between the carinae. The curvature of the tooth moreover seems to be restricted to the top third of the tooth, which matches our recent description of Hainosaurus cf. boubker. Whether this could be the save species, though, I wouldn't be able to say...

I have to disagree. Medial curvature and faceting makes me think this tooth is a dead-ringer for Mosasaurus. The posterior carina being mostly straight in lateral view also makes me think Mosasaurus. Hainosaurus have more of a hook-shape to them. 

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

11 minutes ago, Praefectus said:

I have to disagree. Medial curvature and faceting makes me think this tooth is a dead-ringer for Mosasaurus. The posterior carina being mostly straight in lateral view also makes me think Mosasaurus. Hainosaurus have more of a hook-shape to them. 

 

 

Hmm... Could be. One thing I may not have paid enough attention to is that in the photograph you reposted the tooth does extend a bit further than I originally interpreted it to. On that photograph, there are two highlighted edges on the right-hand side, and I think I probably chose the left-most for the location of the carina, giving the tooth a distinctly different shape. However, then the right-most edge doesn't make sense any more, so the tooth is probably wider and more twisted than I originally made it out to be. Good catch!