Fossil Tooth For Id.

[Phossiker]

I have recently had a great time with my sons crawling through Wee Jasper caves.

The floor of the cave was quite dry and down a narrow slot found there were a lot of bones to look at.

Most of them I believe were very small macropod, a couple of nice jaws.

One item caught my eye though. I would like to seek out some opinions on what it is from.

The tooth was loose on the floor and may have been re-deposited as there were some fragments of bottle glass in the same layer. It is 26 mm long.

I am inclined to think that the gum line is indicated by the change of colour so the exposed tooth would have been about 8mm long.

[Phossiker]

The inner face of the tooth has flaked away. Initially I thought that it was just a shard but the exposed tooth appears intact and the root is hollow with the inner surface missing. There is a raised rib along the inner centre line.

[Phossiker]

Getting a side on image is difficult.

I have tried to show how the tooth is very fine, 2mm thick at the gum line and there is a very slight hook to it.

Can you see how the centre rib sits higher than the cutting edge.

The cross section is as indicated by my sketch.

[TyrannosaurusRex]

Hmmm. Interesting. I do not know what it is but maybe someone else does.

[tooth_claw]

Yep, small macropodid, right lower incisor. I am not sure if this diagnostic enough to be assigned to a particular species, check out a fauna list for the area and see if there are any likely suspects, size alone should be a close enough indicator (unless it is a juvenile).

[Phossiker]

Thanks for looking at this one tooth_claw. I was hoping you would be free to comment.

I am used to finding little jaws where the tooth has quite a chisel wear patten on the end.

This tooth seems to have an edge all the way to the tip. It still puzzles me as to how it goes together.