Jump to content

Unidentified Oligocene Shark Tooth


Haizahnjager

Recommended Posts

Here is a tooth I found yesterday in an Oligocene layer of South Carolina. It looks like a lot of teeth I have seen from older time periods (i.e. Striatolamia macrota from the Paleocene), but I have never found anything quite like it from the Oligocene. Any ideas?

post-162-1210684052_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have my reference stuff here at work, but it looks similar to some Carcharias cuspidata I've seen. The age and location also fits.

There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you're supposed to be doing something else

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great tooth (picture is nicely done as well). One of the most intriguing things to me about this tooth are the serrations on the cusplets. They don't fit the descriptions of C. cuspidata that I have. If somehow this was reworked from an earlier layer (possible?), S. macrota might be a candidate (particularly the root structure), but the cusplets still seem different from the macrota I've found.

Besides fossils,

I collect roadcuts,

Stream beds,

Winter beaches:

Places of pilgrimage.

Jasper Burns, Fossil Dreams

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://users.skynet.be/belgiansharkteeth/p...s/cuspidata.htm

Here's a picture I found of a C.cuspidata from Belgium. The cusps on the last one are somewhat similar to your specimen. I've also read that there is quite a wide variation in teeth from this species. I'm using your fingers as a size reference (I hope you don't have monster hands) and since I don't see any striations, I think I can rule out Striatolamia and C.acutissima as possibilities. Are there any striations I just can't see?????

There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you're supposed to be doing something else

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a tooth I found yesterday in an Oligocene layer of South Carolina. It looks like a lot of teeth I have seen from older time periods (i.e. Striatolamia macrota from the Paleocene), but I have never found anything quite like it from the Oligocene. Any ideas?

I agree with cuspidata. A very common tooth in the NJ early miocene. I have seen quite a few with similar cusps, although its a heavily reworked layer so nothing as beautiful as that! Great tooth!

---Wie Wasser schleift den Stein, wir steigen und fallen---

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the direction guys, after doing a little more research, I am pretty sure it is a Carcharias cuspidata upper 3rd anterior. They seem to be much more prevalent in Europe with the serrated cusplets, and I talked to a few people that have hunted this area for a long time and they don't seem to remember ever seeing one quite like it!

Thanks again for taking a gander.

Rob C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...