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Cretaceous Mystery Tooth


Northern Sharks

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My turn to ask for help with a tooth I have. It comes from the cretaceous deposits near Amman, Jordan and was purchased as Serratolamna Serrata. To me, it looks very close to a Cretolamna Appendiculata I have from Mississippi. I bought it mainly for the location so I don't care which it is, but I would like to have it correctly id'd. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

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

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it does indeed look like an Cretalamna appendiculata and being they are both from cretaceous period it is even more logical

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it does indeed look like an Cretalamna appendiculata and being they are both from cretaceous period it is even more logical

Anson, i'm curious. Is there a distinguishing feature that makes a Cretalamna a 'cretalamna'. I'm not all that up on Cretaceous teeth and we have a Cretaceous band that is rich in teeth of and I only call them 'cretalamna' by default. What's curious, however, is there only ever seems to be one genus of tooth when we find them in large numbers. In contrast , if i only find one or two cretalamna then there are other teeth such as Ptychodus and Ischyrhiza.

Do most Cretaceous shark deposits of cretalamna consist of only that genus and not others?

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In TX Serratolamna is only found in Maastrichtian deposits while Cretolamna ranges from Albian through roughly Santonian. What age is your mystery tooth?

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

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The tooth seems to be from the Maastrichtian.

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

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Anson, i'm curious. Is there a distinguishing feature that makes a Cretalamna a 'cretalamna'. I'm not all that up on Cretaceous teeth and we have a Cretaceous band that is rich in teeth of and I only call them 'cretalamna' by default. What's curious, however, is there only ever seems to be one genus of tooth when we find them in large numbers. In contrast , if i only find one or two cretalamna then there are other teeth such as Ptychodus and Ischyrhiza.

The lack of a nutrient grove is its most distinguishing feature to know the difference between Cretalamna and Serratolamna, the Serratolamna also has multiple cusplets whereas the Cretalamna have two.

Do most Cretaceous shark deposits of cretalamna consist of only that genus and not others?

This I do not know. They are the more common genus of the time so it is only logical that there would be more of their remains.

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  • 9 years later...
On November 1, 2007 at 6:29 PM, Northern Sharks said:

My turn to ask for help with a tooth I have. It comes from the cretaceous deposits near Amman, Jordan and was purchased as Serratolamna Serrata. To me, it looks very close to a Cretolamna Appendiculata I have from Mississippi. I bought it mainly for the location so I don't care which it is, but I would like to have it correctly id'd. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

post-77-1193966970_thumb.jpg

 

 

This tooth appears to have that asymmetrical root seen in Serratolamna.  I have seen some teeth from Jordan and they were said to come from the Maastrichtian which would be the right age for either Cretalamna or S. serrata.  From that I say it's an S. serrata tooth.

 

 

 

 

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Looks like Cretalamna to me. The broad double cusps in each side look identical to all of the ones I have from Mississippi.

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