What Mosasaur Genus Do These Teeth Belong To?

[AJ Plai]

Hey I have a collection of Mosasaur teeth that I have been trying to ID by looking around the internet for references, but to be honest, I am still pretty clueless and I can't quite really see any real difference or key features that define one genus from another, other than the Globiden.

So I would like some help ID these teeth if anyone here who are familiar with these beasts could lend me a hand please:

First, these are from Atlas Mountains specimens

Tooth A (my guess is Prognathodon?) - length 5.45"

Tooth B (Anceps?) - length: 4.62"

Tooth C (another Anceps?) - length: 5.15"

These are just the crown teeth - all from Khouribga

Tooth D - length: 1.5"

Tooth E - length: 1.7"

Then there are the small ones, less than 1", all from Kem Kem, but I have heard that the small ones are nearly impossible to identify but here goes anyway in case if anyone can identify them:

Anyway, really appreciate the assistance, thx

[sseth]

The rooted teeth and larger crown are all Prognathodon. You are correct. The smaller teeth vary. You have smaller prognathodon teeth, an anceps, a platecarpus (With the striations) and the angle on the other makes it difficult to tell.

You may also be interested to know that these teeth do not come from the Kem Kem beds however and are also from Khouribga. they do not find these teeth there and there and the color is not indicative of teeth found in the area. The atlas mountains would also be inaccurate. This is where many of the Moroccan trilobites come from but not mosasaurs. The rock is far too old.

Hope this helps

Please let me know if you have any other questions. I also have a large supply of papers on the phosphates and mosasaurs if you are interested.

Seth

Edited March 21, 2013 by sseth

[Boneman007]

The rooted teeth and larger crown are all Prognathodon. You are correct. The smaller teeth vary. You have smaller prognathodon teeth, an anceps, a platecarpus (With the striations) and the angle on the other makes it difficult to tell.

You may also be interested to know that these teeth do not come from the Kem Kem beds however and are also from Khouribga. they do not find these teeth there and there and the color is not indicative of teeth found in the area. The atlas mountains would also be inaccurate. This is where many of the Moroccan trilobites come from but not mosasaurs. The rock is far too old.

Hope this helps

Please let me know if you have any other questions. I also have a large supply of papers on the phosphates and mosasaurs if you are interested.

Seth

Seth:

I would be very interested in your mosasaur papers.

As of now, there are 96 species of mosasaurs worldwide. I am WAY behind in my mo' documentation!

Thanks,

Brent

[Raistlin]

The rooted teeth and larger crown are all Prognathodon. You are correct. The smaller teeth vary. You have smaller prognathodon teeth, an anceps, a platecarpus (With the striations) and the angle on the other makes it difficult to tell.

You may also be interested to know that these teeth do not come from the Kem Kem beds however and are also from Khouribga. they do not find these teeth there and there and the color is not indicative of teeth found in the area. The atlas mountains would also be inaccurate. This is where many of the Moroccan trilobites come from but not mosasaurs. The rock is far too old.

Hope this helps

Please let me know if you have any other questions. I also have a large supply of papers on the phosphates and mosasaurs if you are interested.

Seth

Wow that was fantastic. I would also like to see those papers if it is not a problem.

[piranha]

This topic has been on my to do list since purchasing some of these teeth a while ago. It appears that the Moroccan species Mosasaurus (=Leiodon) anceps is now considered nomen dubium and instead considered synonymous with Prognathodon (LeBlanc et al., 2012, Bardet et al., 2010, Schulp et al., 2008). According to this chart of Moroccan taxa the only Mosasaurus species in Morocco is M. beaugei. These papers are all in agreement unless someone can point to any taxa not listed?

 

Leblanc, A.R., Caldwell, M. W., & Bardet, N. (2012)

A new mosasaurine from the Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) phosphates of Morocco and its implications for mosasaurine systematics.

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32(1):82-104

 

Bardet, N., Suberbiola, X.P., Jouve, S., Bourdon, E., Vincent, P., Houssaye, A. & Amaghzaz, M. (2010)

Reptilian assemblages from the latest Cretaceous–Palaeogene phosphates of Morocco: from Arambourg to present time.

Historical Biology 22(1-3):186-199.

 

Schulp, A.S., Polcyn, M.J., Mateus, O., Jacobs, L.L., & Morais, M.L. (2008)

A new species of Prognathodon (Squamata, Mosasauridae) from the Maastrichtian of Angola, and the affinities of the mosasaur genus Liodon.

In: Proceedings of the Second Mosasaur Meeting, Sterberg Museum 3:1-12

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AJ Plai]

The rooted teeth and larger crown are all Prognathodon. You are correct. The smaller teeth vary. You have smaller prognathodon teeth, an anceps, a platecarpus (With the striations) and the angle on the other makes it difficult to tell.

You may also be interested to know that these teeth do not come from the Kem Kem beds however and are also from Khouribga. they do not find these teeth there and there and the color is not indicative of teeth found in the area. The atlas mountains would also be inaccurate. This is where many of the Moroccan trilobites come from but not mosasaurs. The rock is far too old.

Hope this helps

Please let me know if you have any other questions. I also have a large supply of papers on the phosphates and mosasaurs if you are interested.

Seth

Thank u very much, I will re-label my specimens ID as u suggest

As, for the documentations on mosasaurs I would very much like to see and learn more about them if u have them in pdf format where I can get or download from somewhere, that would be great, thx! I will PM u my email.

[Macrophyseter]

Actually, M. beaugei is not the only Mosasaurus species in Morrocco. Mosasaurus hoffmanni teeth can also be found in Morrocco, but they are very rare and hard to identify.

[piranha]

Actually, M. beaugei is not the only Mosasaurus species in Morrocco. Mosasaurus hoffmanni teeth can also be found in Morrocco, but they are very rare and hard to identify.

Please cite the paper with this information. Thanks.

[piranha]

On 12/22/2014 at 9:09 AM, superhamdav said:

Actually, M. beaugei is not the only Mosasaurus species in Morrocco. Mosasaurus hoffmanni teeth can also be found in Morrocco, but they are very rare and hard to identify.

 

 

I did some additional research to verify the accuracy of the information from post number 5. According to all the specialists, Mosasaurus beaugei continues to be the only valid species of Mosasaurus in Morocco. Besides the Netherlands where all the type material was first described, here are all the recorded localities of Mosasaurus hoffmanni (Machalski et al. 2003), including a new Russian discovery (Grigoriev 2014):

 

Other records of M. hoffmanni include the Upper Campanian to Upper Maastrichtian of New Jersey (USA) (Mulder 1999 synonymised Mosasaurus maximus Cope, 1869, with M. hoffmanni), the uppermost Maastrichtian of Missouri (Campbell and Lee 2001), the Maastrichtian of Alabama (Kiernan 2002), Bulgaria (Tzankov 1939; see also Nikolov and Westphal 1976), northern Denmark (Bonde 1997; Jagt personal observation), Congo (Zaire) (Lingham−Soliar 1994b), Niger (Lingham−Soliar1991), and Turkey (Bardet and Tunolu 2002). Persson (1959: 462, fig. 10; pl. 15: 1, 2) recorded M. cf. hoffmanni from the Lower Campanian of southern Sweden. This material, however, refers to Tylosaurus ivoensis (Persson, 1963) (see Lindgren and Siverson 2002). In Europe, well−documented remains of M. hoffmanni appear to be confined to Upper Maastrichtian strata. However, the specimen from Maruszów suggests that M. hoffmanni or a closely related (ancestral?) species appeared in Europe as early as the Late Campanian. This may be confirmed only by more diagnostic finds.

 

Lingham-Soliar, T. (1995)

Anatomy and functional morphology of the largest marine reptile known, Mosasaurus hoffmanni

(Mosasauridae, Reptilia) from the Upper Cretaceous, Upper Maastrichtian of The Netherlands.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 347:155-172

 

Machalski, M., Jagt, J.W.M., Dortangs, R.W., Mulder, E.W.A., & Radwanski, A. (2003)

Campanian and Maastrichtian mosasaurid reptiles from central Poland.

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 48(3):397-408

 

Bardet, N., Pereda Suberbiola, X., Iarochene, M., Bouyahyaoui, F., Bouya, B., & Amaghzaz,M. (2004)

Mosasaurus beaugei Arambourg, 1952 (Squamata, Mosasauridae) from the Late Cretaceous phosphates of Morocco.

Geobios, 37:315-324

 

Grigoriev, D.V. (2014)

Giant Mosasaurus hoffmanni (Squamata, Mosasauridae) from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Penza, Russia.

Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS, 318(2):148-167

 

 

 

[Fitch1979]

I don't want to hijack your topic aj plai - though I wanted to ask seth if he could take a look at the last skull on http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/35999-moroccans-mosasaurs/page-3 to help me ID it for someone

thanks

dries

[Macrophyseter]

here is the source. www.fossilera.com/fossils/1-6-mosasaurus-hoffmani-tooth-unusual-species

[piranha]

here is the source. www.fossilera.com/fossils/1-6-mosasaurus-hoffmani-tooth-unusual-species

I'm certainly interested to hear what our Mosasaurus experts have to say about that tooth. Commercial websites are fine, but until a specialist says otherwise, I'll continue to follow the peer-reviewed literature that unequivocally does not record Mosasaurus hoffmanni in Morocco.

[Troodon]

here is the source. www.fossilera.com/fossils/1-6-mosasaurus-hoffmani-tooth-unusual-species

I do not have an answer for you but commercial websites like the one mentioned are clueless about species identification and only pass on what someone else told them.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Troodon

[Auspex]

I would inquire specifically of jnoun11: LINK

If anyone can bring order from the chaos of Moroccan marine reptiles from first-hand knowledge, it is he.

[piranha]

I would inquire specifically of jnoun11: LINK

If anyone can bring order from the chaos of Moroccan marine reptiles from first-hand knowledge, it is he.

Luckily for us, jnoun has already made a statement at his excellent Mosasaurus thread:

rare mosasaur in moroccan phosphates many time confused with Mosasaurus beaugei , more present in sidi-daoui maestrichian level 3. officialy non present in morocco.

[Macrophyseter]

I'm certainly interested to hear what our Mosasaurus experts have to say about that tooth. Commercial websites are fine, but until a specialist says otherwise, I'll continue to follow the peer-reviewed literature that unequivocally does not record Mosasaurus hoffmanni in Morocco.

Thanks for the research and the confirmation, but I also have a morrocan mosasaur tooth that was claimed to be a hoffmanni, and the characteristics of the tooth is super unique, it is much different than any other morrocan tooth I have. But I was still wondering if you could compare a confirmed hoffmanni tooth with the photograpg, or just buy one of those claimed teeth yourself here

http://www.larcadinoe.com/scheda/Squamata%20(lizards%20and%20snakes)/Mosasaurus+hoffmanni+-+tooth+%282%29/12839

(The photograph on that product nothing like that tooth I got, don't get fooled by that stupid picture)

[piranha]

On 5/5/2015 at 8:30 PM, superhamdav said:

Thanks for the research and the confirmation, but I also have a morrocan mosasaur tooth that was claimed to be a hoffmanni, and the characteristics of the tooth is super unique, it is much different than any other morrocan tooth I have. But I was still wondering if you could compare a confirmed hoffmanni tooth with the photograpg, or just buy one of those claimed teeth yourself here

http://www.larcadinoe.com/scheda/Squamata%20(lizards%20and%20snakes)/Mosasaurus+hoffmanni+-+tooth+%282%29/12839

(The photograph on that product nothing like that tooth I got, don't get fooled by that stupid picture)

 

 

Sorry to burst the bubble again, but as it's already been mentioned to you a couple of times now, commercial websites are not reliable for identifying fossils. If you're interested in fact-based scientific research then the peer-reviewed literature is where you should focus your attention. In addition to all the excellent papers listed previously, another one was published recently that also confirms the absence of Mosasaurus hoffmanni in Morocco. Please take a look at the attached figures from that paper showing all the different mosasaurid species from Morocco that does not include M. hoffmanni.

 

The choice is yours: you can believe in the claims of a couple random commercial websites, or trust the actual experts conducting the research on the ground in Morocco.

 

 

Bardet, N., Houssaye, A., Vincent, P., Suberbiola, X.P., Amaghzaz, M., Jourani, E., & Meslouh, S. (2014)

Mosasaurids (Squamata) from the Maastrichtian Phosphates of Morocco: Biodiversity, palaeobiogeography and palaeoecology based on tooth morphoguilds.

Gondwana Research, 27:1068-1078

 

 

 

[Diceros]

To briefly return to AJ Plai's mosasaur teeth, likely from the e. Maastrichtian lower phosphate beds of coastal Morocco, to me, much of the confusion about the name goes back to the caption of plate 38 in Arambourg's 1952 review (ref. below) of the vertebrates of the phosphate beds. It's a reference many people refer to to identify material from the phosphate beds of coastal Morocco. Arambourg IDs the big, clunky, mosasaur tooth, with the short, broad crowns and smooth enamel (Mosasaurus teeth have facets) on pl. 38 as "Mosasaurus (Leiodon)cfr. anceps". Problem is, both Mosasaurus beaugei and Liodon anceps are completely different (Liodon has a more flattened crown). What makes the misidentification such a problem, is that these big mosasaur teeth are some of the most common from Morocco. As I understand it, these teeth are now Prognathodon giganteus Dollo, 1904, (like the heavy tooth in the upper right of the Bardet et al., 2014 page above) and that's how AJ Plai's teeth should be identified. I was surprised, at a recent Tucson show, to see that there are now several full skulls of the species, and I even saw one full reconstructed skeleton. It's getting to be well known.

Arambourg, C., 1952. Les vertebres fossiles des gisements de phosphates (Maroc - Algerie - Tunisie). Notes et Memoires, Service geologique du Maroc, no. 92, 372 p., 44 pls.