Molar In Bone Somehow Attached To Fossilized Mass W/ Veins?

[parrbarrs]

MORE PHOTOS ADDED LOWER IN THE THREAD!!

Hello all-

After a week of extensive searching/investigating, I am still clueless and need your help!

What I know:

- It is mostly rock-hard and very smooth to the touch with many indentions resembling veins or roots. However, the immediate location where the tooth is attached looks and feels like bone (not fossilized). The underside is rough and prickly.

- There are numerous cavities running down into the specimen an inch or two. The sides of the cavities have ridges that run lengthwise and appear somewhat porous.

- I do not know exact weight as of yet, but for now let's just say it weighs what you would expect a typical rock that size to weigh.

- This was recently acquired from a family member who picked it up without much thought over 25 years ago- I am still trying to determine exactly where it was found, but believe it may be central Texas (surface find).

- On a side note, and obviously take this with a HUGE grain of salt, this family member claims that it was once x-rayed by a vet who believed the "mass" most resembled a brain as evidenced by "brain folds" apparent in the xray. I am still looking for those x-rays!

Any takers? I took plenty more photos if needed!

Edited April 12, 2012 by parrbarrs

[Mike from North Queensland]

Looks like a cancerous growth in bone as to what or who is a interesting question. The only part that may give a clue is the tooth

[dragonsfly]

Show a pic of the jaw part horizontal , tooth and sockets , left to right ,so we can see the mass's relationship to the given (jaw) . Thanks, John

[Xiphactinus]

That is one gnarly piece of bone. Definitely some kind of injury or disease like Mike said. Looks beyond painful.

[Govinn]

I guess cancer has been around a LOT longer than I thought... very interesting piece...

[Al Dente]

It looks like torus mandibularis which is a type of hyperostosis that occurs in the jaw. Here's a google link of images showing mostly humans with this condition. From what I read about 7% of people have it to varying degrees.

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&q=torus+mandibularis&gbv=2&oq=torus+mandibularis&aq=f&aqi=g4g-S6&aql=&gs_l=img.12..0l4j0i24l6.2452l2452l0l3389l1l1l0l0l0l0l94l94l1l1l0.frgbld.

[Auspex]

That's a highly pathological piece of jaw bone...<ouch!>

I might be possible to identify what the poor creature was; can you take a good photo of the chewing surface of the tooth?

I might add that it appears to be fairly recent.

[32fordboy]

Wow. Talk about a specimen. Kind of reminds me of the tooth and flesh masses some people get inside them. Maybe it is a stillborn specimen?

[Fossildude19]

Nick,

Good thought with the Teratoma, but I think they are less bone-like and more cyst-like.

Regards,

[flyguy784]

Possibly a jaw section from modern sheeps head wrasse ?

[parrbarrs]

Thanks for the great input!

One question: would a tumor easily end up as a "rock-like" substance (you could crack someone's skull with this thing), or was there some non-typical process at work here?

Here are a few more photos as requested:

Thanks again.

[Bill]

No idea. The original bone doesn't look like fish to me though.

[Auspex]

Bone is mostly mineral, and pathological bone could be even denser than normal.

[Bill]

I agree, but the cancellar appearance in the last pic's, doesn't look like fish bone to me.

[flyguy784]

Look at the lower jaw of this, California Sheepshead Wrasse. I don't know, but the tooth looks like a sheepshead tooth and an aged SH lower jaw just might be that odd looking.

[flyguy784]

Look at the lower jaw of this, California Sheepshead Wrasse. I don't know, but the tooth looks like a sheepshead tooth and an aged SH lower jaw just might be that odd looking.

[ashcraft]

Here is a photo of a sheepshead jaw sans flesh. The internet is a wonderful place

[flyguy784]

Here is a photo of a sheepshead jaw sans flesh. The internet is a wonderful place

There's lots of different species of SH. No dog in this fight bud, just saw alot of similarities. Hard to believe that chin is just "flesh".

[Auspex]

To me, the bone structure (tortured as it is) and the tooth look mammalian, though the excessive wear on the tooth (possibly a result of the crippling pathology) overcomes my already week ID skills.

[ashcraft]

There's lots of different species of SH. No dog in this fight bud, just saw alot of similarities. Hard to believe that chin is just "flesh".

Don't know much about salt water fish. According to what I have read, there is only one species of sheepshead, but about 120 species within its family, the porgys.

Order: Perciformes

Family: Sparidae

Genus: Archosargus

Species: probatocephalus

Brent Ashcraft

[araucaria1959]

The tooth looks multi-rooted and seems to be from a mammal. I suppose a benign tumor since (i) a malignant tumor would be too destructive and not able to differentiate into true bone tissue; (ii) the borders of the tumor look smooth and not irregular as if the tumor was invasive (like a malignant tumor). X-ray may help to get more information about the roots; the end of the exposed root may have been resorbed because of the tumor.

The specimen looks recent or of historic age, so I don't think it's a true fossil. It looks as if the specimen had been cut from the jaw directly beside the tooth, so maybe it had been resected intentionally. But from whom? The tooth is not from horse or cow or dog. It looks like a very worn human lower molar; such degree of abrasion is unusual nowadays, but common in historic times.

It is difficult to calculate the size of the tooth from the scale in the first pictures, but possibly size may fit with human (lower) molar. It would be helpful to know the exact mesio-distal and bukko-lingual length of the crown.

However, the concave side doesn't fit with human tooth. But the tooth shows a crack. Can it be that there was a second crack at the concave side and a small piece of tooth was broken off, making the originally convex side concave now? The pictures are not sharp enough to decide this; you must decide it yourself with your original specimen in your hands.

I don't claim a human origin for that specimen; but I can't rule it out - as a result of a historical resection, thrown away instead of getting analyzed in a histological laboratory as would happen nowadays. To get closer to the answer, three questions can help:

(i) what happend at the concave surface on one side. Is this the original tooth surface (not humanlike!), or is a small piece of tooth broken off there?

(ii) what are the dimensions of the crown? Are they compatible with human origin (if the dimensions are corrected for the lost part if a small part is broken off?). If it is a third molar, the dimensions may be quite variabel.

(iii) what is the exact position of the roots? Are they compatible with a human lower molar? Again, they can be quite variable if it's a third molar.

X-ray may help too.

araucaria1959

[Tarheel59]

Easy enough to answer one question, take the specimen to your dentist. Ask him/her to check it out for you explaining when, where of find and that you want to find out if a human or other is donor. I am sure a dentist can tell us more about this tooth if it is or not a human one... Jeff

Edited April 12, 2012 by Tarheel59

[Kuxansum]

What ever it turns out to be. That is a cool specimen. It does look like mammal. I don't think it's human. Just doesn't look like a human molar.

[darrow]

It looks as if the specimen had been cut from the jaw directly beside the tooth,

I'm seeing the same thing...

[araucaria1959]

Here is a link to a pic with human (upper) molars from historic times; they are heavily worn. The tooth we are discussing here, if it is human, would be a lower molar, so it cannot be directly compared to the molars of the pic, but the degree of wear would be similar.

araucaria1959

http://www.google.de/imgres?q=worn+molar&hl=de&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=yr0hxYBbWjYwFM:&imgrefurl=http://rickwilsondmd.typepad.com/rick_wilson_dmds_blog/2011/03/tooth-wear-ancient-versus-modern.html&docid=94Vf6BDBgmo7xM&imgurl=http://rickwilsondmd.typepad.com/.a/6a01156e42deab970c014e86ee796a970d-500wi&w=500&h=424&ei=f2eIT5zcA8vGtAa9342SCw&zoom=1&biw=1244&bih=829&iact=rc&dur=906&sig=106779637910143281915&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=167&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:83&tx=92&ty=61