Suchomimus (?) foot and hand claws

[LordWampa]

Hello, latley I am starting to see some suchomimus claws on the internet. I think that I also saw some vender with those claws in Tucson thanks to @Troodon post. I wanted to make a topic in the ID section to know if someone has acces to a paper or knows of some material that helps Id this as suchomimus. Because rigth now my feeling is that if somebody finds a spinosaurid type of claw in Elrhaz Fm they just label it suchomimus and that's it.

 

I will leave here some photos here of what i found (take ito account that some of them have restorations mostly in the tip):

 

[doushantuo]

Wamp,you MIGHT not need this,but you may still like it:

Rev. Mus. Argentino Cienc. Nat., n.s.7(2): 167-175, 2005
Buenos Aires, ISSN 1514-5158
Theropod pedal unguals from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)
of Morocco, Africa
Fernando E. NOVAS2, Fabio DALLA VECCHIA & Diego F. PAIS

333-657-1-SM.pdf

[Troodon]

This is not a new topic but one that continues to need to be discussed.  Agree this is alot like Morocco where everything gets labeled Spinosaurus and for Niger everything gets labeled Suchomimus. 

 

I don't believe there is any documentation that describes hand claws, would be nice to see one if it exists.  The holotype paper just shows a small outline of the arm, useless.   I believe foot claws are really unknown in the documented fossil record and none were found with the holotype material.   Most of what you see reconstructed in museums or sold I believe is inferred by looking at other Baryonychine's like Baryonyx and even Spinosaurus.  So we have some idea what these look like.  The new Spanish Baryonychine hopefully will provide new insights into the hand claws, not sure if foot claws were discovered.

 

The hand claws shown above appear to be of different morphologies from one being inflated and robust, one long and narrow to another being very compressed.   From the same hand?? Unlikely.  I will say that a good number of these claws appear to show evidence of being restored, it changes nothing other than questioning the real shape. 

 

 

Other than knowing what these claws look like I believe the bigger problem is an accurate provenance that insures the deposit (formation) mentioned is correct.  I was very comfortable with those typically mentioned by sellers until a paper dropped at the end of last year.  It was looking at the Microvertebrate assemblages in the Gadoufaoua area and figure 1 was a detailed map of the area.  It showed how close all these different age deposits sit and made me question do local diggers really know if they are in the Echkar or Elrhaz Fm or even if it's Jurassic.  It then passes through several hands before it gets to a seller all looking to maximize $$$.

 

The other question I like to raise is are there other Spinosaurids in these deposits?  We know so little.

 

So identification of these claws is very problematic, buy at your own risk.

 

Pochat-Cottilloux Y., Allain R. & Lasseron M. 2022. — Microvertebrate fauna from Gadoufaoua (Niger, Aptian, Early  Cretaceous). Comptes Rendus Palevol 21 (41): 901-926. https://doi.org/10.5852/cr-palevol2022v21a41

 

 

 

[Troodon]

A bona-fide Baryonyx hand claw  Digit I

Reminder this species is a bit older than Suchomimus, so whats different

 

[Troodon]

I did find this from a blog by Paleontologist David Hone only Digit II & III are real

 

[LordWampa]

12 hours ago, Troodon said:

I did find this from a blog by Paleontologist David Hone only Digit II & III are real

 

 

Yes, I mean from the ones that I posted I would be interested in the first one. That supposedly it's a foot claw, searching for internet, you can compared to others foot claws or spinosaurid foot claws and the anatomy seems similar. Because i can't find any suchomimus foot claw as you said.

 

If by good faith we suppose it really comes from Elrhaz Fm I guess it could be from a Suchomimus? But I guess that the best way to describe it would be a spinosauridae foot claw from niger?

[Troodon]

The first one does not appear to be a foot claw but hand but is it Spinosaurid?  Acquiring the center section a theropod claw

make identification problematic since diagnostic features are missing

[LordWampa]

28 minutes ago, Troodon said:

The first one does not appear to be a foot claw but hand but is it Spinosaurid?  Acquiring the center section a theropod claw

make identification problematic since diagnostic features are missing

 

It's just the center section? In this other two pictures seems that it's almost a full claw minus a little detail on the tip and the back part, but no completely broken. What details would you look for?

[Troodon]

Always good to have a complete picture if you're trying to ID something.  Need a straight in view of the ventral and dorsal sides.  No oblique images please.   Yes the entire articulation side is missing and a little of the tip.

[Phos_01]

Be extremely careful if you are planning to buy one of these claws. They have been restored. On first glimpse they look great once you have a beter look they are not. 

Here is an example. Seller states 'Tip has been restored but its more like 60% of the entire claw' painted black to cover it all up, one other bad thing is that you cannot even properly see the repair now with an UV light because the whole thing is painted black. It also states 'Frontfoot claw probably belonged to Suchumimus' .. 

The last two claws you have posted look beter. But also the first one the tip is restored about 2inch of it. You can see it 

 

I have not seen a Suchumimus find with an intact tip, its very very rare. Almost in all cases restored, but it needs to be properly stated and shown, no paintjobs. 
I have marked the repaired parts on the black claw. entire tip is man-made

Edited March 29, 2023 by Phos_01

[LordWampa]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:58 PM, Phos_01 said:

Be extremely careful if you are planning to buy one of these claws. They have been restored. On first glimpse they look great once you have a beter look they are not. 

Here is an example. Seller states 'Tip has been restored but its more like 60% of the entire claw' painted black to cover it all up, one other bad thing is that you cannot even properly see the repair now with an UV light because the whole thing is painted black. It also states 'Frontfoot claw probably belonged to Suchumimus' .. 'footclaw' really? 

The last two claws you have posted look beter. But also the first one the tip is restored about 2inch of it. You can see it 

 

I have not seen a Suchumimus find with an intact tip, its very very rare. Almost in all cases restored, but it needs to be properly stated and shown, no paintjobs. 
I have marked the repaired parts on the black claw. entire tip is man-made

 

Thanks for the heads up. Yes, in this case the seller specifies that all the tip has been restored. But anyway, I was just using the other photos as examples of "suchomimus claws" appearing on the internet.

[LordWampa]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:36 PM, Troodon said:

Always good to have a complete picture if you're trying to ID something.  Need a straight in view of the ventral and dorsal sides.  No oblique images please.   Yes the entire articulation side is missing and a little of the tip.

 

Unfortunately this is all the pictures I have right know, I will try to get non oblique images.

[Dino Dad 81]

Not sure how much it actually being from Suchomimus itself matters to you, but it will probably always have to just be spinosaurid. Just look at what happened to so much the material assigned to Baryonyx 1-2 years ago, when other similar spinosaurids were found in the same area. To me, that kind of stuff makes finding a LARGE specimen especially appealing for African spinos. 

[Troodon]

I'm not sure what you are really looking to do here.  You have provided no locality information and have a partial claw with no diagnostic features.   It's an indeterminate theropod claw from Niger and I really question that it's a foot claw if it turns out to be Spinosaurid.   It looks nothing like a published Spinosaurid claw from Morocco with that curvature and have no knowledge of what Suchomimus look like.

 

[LordWampa]

9 minutes ago, Troodon said:

I'm not sure what you are really looking to do here.  You have provided no locality information and have a partial claw with no diagnostic features.   It's an indeterminate theropod claw from Niger and I really question that it's a foot claw if it turns out to be Spinosaurid.   It looks nothing like a published Spinosaurid claw from Morocco with that curvature and have no knowledge of what Suchomimus look like.

 

 

Sorry, I though that I said the locality somewhere, the seller says it's from Elrhaz Fm. And think I haven't explained myself clearly enough, my bad.

 

What I am looking to check it's of it's possible to ID it as suchomimus because as I said I got the feeling that people are IDing everything that comes from Elrhaz Fm as Suchomimus or just if it come from Niger. And as it seems as you were telling me that this is the case and it's not posible to Id it as suchomimus. Then my next question would be if  it's posible to Id it at least as spinosaurid or just theropod. And from what you are telling me it's seems it's not possible to ID it better than theropod claw. In conclusion depending of what Id is possible I would he willing to pay one price or another.

 

Sorry for the mess, I think I didn't explain correctly what I was looking for.

[Troodon]

Elrhaz Fm is not a locality and if that cannot be supported by a SPECIFIC locality how can it be identified.   Please re-read my initial comments on provenance, nothing changes.