Shark, Ray And Fish Micros From The Miocene Choptank Formation Of Virginia

[Al Dente]

12 hours ago, ClearLake said:

I was hopeful that the ones I have very similar to #5 might be identifiable since I thought they were pretty  neat looking, but I guess that doesn’t count for much

Modern black drum pharyngeal teeth will have the point in the middle of the tooth, similar to this tooth. It quickly gets worn away.

[ClearLake]

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

Modern black drum pharyngeal teeth will have the point in the middle of the tooth, similar to this tooth. It quickly gets worn away.

Hmmm, interesting.  Do you think that a worn #5 then looks something like #8 because I seem to see numerous of those tooth type with a different looking area in the center like that?  Or maybe I'm trying to read too much into it.

[MarcoSr]

10 hours ago, Al Dente said:

The otoliths look like ones that Muller called "genus aff. Sciaenops" paraeastmani n. sp. Numbers 1 and 2 in the drawing are from the Choptank.

 

 

 

Eric

 

Thank you for the otoliths ID.

 

Marco Sr.

[Al Dente]

16 hours ago, ClearLake said:

Hmmm, interesting.  Do you think that a worn #5 then looks something like #8 because I seem to see numerous of those tooth type with a different looking area in the center like that?  Or maybe I'm trying to read too much into it.

 

Maybe. Here's a pharyngeal jaw from a black drum that shows some of the pointed teeth. It might be just the younger drum that have the pointed ones. Image from here-https://shadyufo.tumblr.com/post/180394856643/drum-fish-mouthplates-with-teeth-so-many-teeth

 

 

[MarcoSr]

11 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

 

Maybe. Here's a pharyngeal jaw from a black drum that shows some of the pointed teeth. It might be just the younger drum that have the pointed ones. Image from here-https://shadyufo.tumblr.com/post/180394856643/drum-fish-mouthplates-with-teeth-so-many-teeth

 

 

 

Seeing this modern Black Drum pharyngeal jaw convinces me that #5 is most likely Pogonias sp. and that 9 & 10 could also be Pogonias sp. instead of Tautoga sp. (from the pharyngeal jaw).  Below is a picture of a Miocene Pogonias multidentatus  jaw on the Calvert Marine Museum website.  It is hard to see in the picture, but if you blow up the picture, you can see what looks like worn down points on some teeth.

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

[ClearLake]

9 hours ago, Al Dente said:

Here's a pharyngeal jaw from a black drum that shows some of the pointed teeth

That is an excellent picture to demonstrate the variability in the shape of Pogonias teeth!  After you mentioned it yesterday, I spent a bunch of time looking at and for pictures on the web but did not come up with that great of an example.   Thank you for finding this one.  It seems that the length of the root may be the better differentiator between Pogonias and Tautoga and from the picture I can't tell how long the roots are on #9 and 10 in this post.  The Tautoga mouthplate example on elasmo.com shows all the pharyngeal teeth are more or less circular/conical, not the wide variety of shapes like in Pogonias.   I have relooked at the ones I sorted as possible Tautogo and the roots look not significantly longer than my other Pogonias teeth so I am swinging back to Drum on mine.  Thanks again for the interesting examples here.