Al Dente Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 In a recent post by KYAL http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/46403-new-mexico-and-oklahoma-microfossils/ were some Permian teeth from Waurika Oklahoma that MarcoSr identified as Trimerorhachis insignis, a Permian Labyrinthodont amphibian. When I saw the teeth I immediately thought they were ray-finned fish because I saw an acrodin cap on the tip of the teeth, something only ray-finned fish have. After some discussion, Marco Sr. offered to send me some teeth to cut and polish because Labyrinthodont teeth have a characteristic infolding of the enamel that only primitive amphibians and some lobe-finned fish have. A few days later I received the teeth. They are so tiny I had to embed them in expoxy in order to work with them. I used soda straws filled with expoxy and lowered the teeth in with coffee stirrers. When properly cured, I used various grit sandpaper to cut through the teeth and polish them. When completed I attached them to a glass slide with epoxy in order to examine them and to photograph them. The results- Three of the teeth showed no signs of enamel infolding but the fourth tooth did. All the teeth looked identicle so if one is amphibian they all are. The reason the others didn't show the infolding could be that I cut the wrong area of the tooth or some teeth might be from immature individuals that don't show this characteristic. So MarcoSr was correct in his identification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 This first cross section shows no infolding of enamel: This second one does. In the second photo I highlighted the folds. And here is a picture of the cross section with a couple of teeth. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilized6s Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 Nice findings. Great idea to embed them. ~Charlie~ "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK ->Get your Mosasaur print ->How to spot a fake Trilobite ->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KYAL Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 Great job! Thank you for doing the prep. Happy to hear it is Trimerorhachis. I think I understand how you did the prep up to a point but after embedding the tooth in the epoxy and grinding down one edge how do you get the thin section to mount on a slide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted May 20, 2014 Author Share Posted May 20, 2014 Great job! Thank you for doing the prep. Happy to hear it is Trimerorhachis. I think I understand how you did the prep up to a point but after embedding the tooth in the epoxy and grinding down one edge how do you get the thin section to mount on a slide. I did not make a real thin section. After sanding I glued the straw/tooth/epoxy pieces directly to the glass slide so it looks like a glass slide with 4 straw sections sticking out. Glueing it to the slide just makes it easier to photograph because the epoxy-glass combination helps bring out the detail. Sort of like wetting a rock or fossil helps bring out detail. I don't have the proper equipment to make a real thin section. If I had to do it over again I would not have used a scratched glass slide. I though the epoxy would make the scratches less noticable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plax Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 great research! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KYAL Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 OK, I got it now. Pretty cool!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busyeagle Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted May 20, 2014 Share Posted May 20, 2014 Eric Thank you for taking the time to determine if these teeth were really amphibian. Great pictures. Really ingenious method to get the equivalent of a thin section view of a specimen cross section. Marco Sr. "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gturner333 Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 I was really glad to see this discussion on the Trimerorhachis teeth because I have found many like this myself. Using the DD website, I too saw them identified as Trimerorhachis. However, when I showed them to Dr. Gary Johnson from SMU Dept of Earth Sciences and the Shuler Museum of Paleontology (he gave a talk on Permian sharks to the Dallas Paleontological Society), he felt that they were probably palaeonciscoid fish teeth. He did suggest that I contact Bill May of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History since he has a lot of experience with Permian fossils. I did and he also said that they were palaeoniscoid. He also ID'd the attached pictures as Trimerorhachis teeth. As you can see, there are similarities with the attached picture having striations near the base and what looks like an acrodin cap. I've included a picture of one of the broken ends. Comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 (edited) That is really interesting. It would explain why I couldn't find enamel infolding in three out of four of the teeth. Maybe I'm using too much imagination on the fourth tooth. I've look at a lot of papers on Permian amphibians and there isn't much information on their teeth, probably because it is the skulls that are important for identification. Edited December 25, 2014 by Al Dente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gturner333 Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 You can see the labyrinthodont folding in the edge view of the 4th picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 I was really glad to see this discussion on the Trimerorhachis teeth because I have found many like this myself. Using the DD website, I too saw them identified as Trimerorhachis. However, when I showed them to Dr. Gary Johnson from SMU Dept of Earth Sciences and the Shuler Museum of Paleontology (he gave a talk on Permian sharks to the Dallas Paleontological Society), he felt that they were probably palaeonciscoid fish teeth. He did suggest that I contact Bill May of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History since he has a lot of experience with Permian fossils. I did and he also said that they were palaeoniscoid. He also ID'd the attached pictures as Trimerorhachis teeth. As you can see, there are similarities with the attached picture having striations near the base and what looks like an acrodin cap. I've included a picture of one of the broken ends. Comments? This is very interesting. However I'm a little confused. Where did the teeth come from that you showed to Dr. Johnson and Bill May which were identified as palaeonciscoid fish teeth? Can you show a picture of them? Where did the teeth come from in this reply that were identified as Trimerorhachis teeth? Although they are similar to the teeth that I find in Waurika they look definitely different. So the Waurika teeth would be palaeonciscoid fish teeth versus Trimerorhachis teeth. I wonder if any palaeonciscoid fish skulls/jaws with teeth have been found and described from Waurika? However for most fish that I see described there is very little discussion on the teeth and the teeth are so small in the pictures that you can't tell much about them at all. Marco Sr, "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gturner333 Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 The teeth that i showed (pic attached) were from Waurika. The teeth identified as T. insignis were given to me and i do not know the location that they came from, although probably Oklahoma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 The teeth that i showed (pic attached) were from Waurika. The teeth identified as T. insignis were given to me and i do not know the location that they came from, although probably Oklahoma. Thank you for the picture and the additional information. Your Waurika teeth look like the ones that I have also. I sent Kieran Davis an e-mail with a link to this post and asked if he could take a look because your and my teeth from Waurika match what he shows in his book (Lower Permian Vertebrates of Oklahoma Volume 1 - Waurika) as Trimerorhachis teeth which doesn't match the palaeonciscoid fish teeth id given by Dr. Johnson and Bill May. Marco Sr, "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcoSr Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 That is really interesting. It would explain why I couldn't find enamel infolding in three out of four of the teeth. Maybe I'm using too much imagination on the fourth tooth. I've look at a lot of papers on Permian amphibians and there isn't much information on their teeth, probably because it is the skulls that are important for identification. Eric I received an e-mail reply from Kieran Davis, see below. Sounds like he was seeing the same thing that you did, some teeth with enamel infolding, others without. So I think we may need further research here for a final resolution. "Thanks for the email. I have read the discussion thread and agree with all of it. Since publishing my book I have had similar thoughts that there are some fish teeth mixed in with the Trimerorhachis teeth, but they are not all fish teeth. I too have thin sectioned the teeth and have found enamel folding in some (but not all). However, the small size does make it difficult. I have had Trimerorhachis skulls with the teeth preserved from other sites and they match very closely those from Waurika. I am going to keep studying the teeth to see if there is an easy way to separate them. Please let me know if you have any more questions. Kieran Davis" Marco Sr. 2 "Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day." My family fossil website Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros My Extant Shark Jaw Collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted January 4, 2015 Author Share Posted January 4, 2015 Interesting comments. I wish I had collected more vertebrate material when I lived in the mid west. I lived in the middle of Permian and Pennsylvanian outcrops but was mostly interested in invertebrates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 (edited) I'm stumbling on to this thread VERY late but I find it VERY interesting. I recently collected the Permian of TX & OK and came up with a few of these teeth often IDed as Trimerorhachis (just like Al Dente's first shot here). Are we generally agreeing here that they are more likely fish or Trimerorhachis? Since this thread stopped has anyone found a better resource for IDing this Permian micros? Thanks! Edited March 14, 2016 by Carl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 Since this thread stopped has anyone found a better resource for IDing this Permian micros? Thanks! I haven't found any more information on these. When I was looking at references a while back it became obvious that teeth were not very important to the paleontologists who published articles on early amphibians. After gturner333's comments on these teeth I was once again convinced these are from fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Thanks for getting back to me Al Dente. I think I have to agree with fish here. It's quite amazing that there hasn't been more published on the microfaunas of the Permian - these things are so abundant and diverse and would give a great view of the Permian if tackled! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 I stumbled onto this thread while trying to identify some Waurika micros this evening. I, too, found some teeth that I immediately thought were fish due to the acrodin cap. These have the fluting similar to the Trimerorachis. This is not the greatest photo (I just now snapped it through the scope with my cell phone), but you can see the clear tip that appears to me to be an acrodin cap. You can also see the fluting / grooves along the tooth. The scale on the left is in 0.5 mm increments. Thought I'd add another photo to the thread... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 On 3/15/2016 at 11:39 AM, Al Dente said: I haven't found any more information on these. When I was looking at references a while back it became obvious that teeth were not very important to the paleontologists who published articles on early amphibians. After gturner333's comments on these teeth I was once again convinced these are from fish. From Marco sr.'s post above... " I have read the discussion thread and agree with all of it. Since publishing my book I have had similar thoughts that there are some fish teeth mixed in with the Trimerorhachis teeth, but they are not all fish teeth. I too have thin sectioned the teeth and have found enamel folding in some (but not all)." Kieran Davis. Doesn't this mean that there are teeth from Palaeoniscoid fish and teeth from Trimerorhachis insignis in the mix that look very similar? Convergent evolution? Since the fish teeth are known for having infolding it would seem that the teeth without the infolding are amphibians. Just some thoughts from this dummy. Tony 1 Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now