Exceptional Cetorhinus Maximus From Kern County, Among Other Micros

[Interpaleo]

Hi!

I've been cleaning teeth all week from my last dig down in Bakersfield and I thought I'd show a couple tiny teeth off. I'll eventually get around to posting the while pile, but its going to take me a few more days.

Meanwhile, here's what I consider to be a very nice Basking shark tooth, along with a very large angle shark, and a pathological dogshark tooth. The micro teeth from Kern county are not quite as plentiful as the lee creek material, but its a close second. I always expect to find at least a half dozen micro species of shark, ray denticles, fish teeth, and awesome randoms.

And my fossil cleaning helper.

Joe

[siteseer]

Joe,

That basking shark is unusual because they are not often found with bilobed roots to that degree. I think the Squalus tooth is a posterior tooth. They are lower-crowned with relatively extended distal heels.

There are some weird denticles and oddball rays when you get down to that 1-2mm material. Rare finds include cat shark, swell shark, and butterfly ray teeth.

Cats are very curious about fossil cleaning. A neighborhood cat sometimes watches me when I bust out some bones to clean or some matrix to sort.

Jess

P.S. The basking shark species is probably not C. maximus, which is the modern species. The STH form is in the same size range as the modern one but follows a different range in shapes and textures. Some teeth resemble Oligocene teeth from Europe with a smooth crown and more laterally-extended root lobes while others seem to be on the road to the modern form with a more upright root and more ornamented crown.

Hi!

I've been cleaning teeth all week from my last dig down in Bakersfield and I thought I'd show a couple tiny teeth off. I'll eventually get around to posting the while pile, but its going to take me a few more days.

Meanwhile, here's what I consider to be a very nice Basking shark tooth, along with a very large angle shark, and a pathological dogshark tooth. The micro teeth from Kern county are not quite as plentiful as the lee creek material, but its a close second. I always expect to find at least a half dozen micro species of shark, ray denticles, fish teeth, and awesome randoms.

And my fossil cleaning helper.

Joe

Edited March 1, 2012 by siteseer

[Interpaleo]

The basking shark species is probably not C. maximus, which is the modern species!!!!!!

Silly me, thanks for pointing that out

I'm still learning about the STH site. Really fun place to look around, but I usually end up getting distracted by all the big makos. The micros are all bonus finds at home when I'm cleaning teeth. The basking shark tooth was actually stuck to the front side of a Hemipristis upper, fell off when I started busting matrix off.