Post Oak Creek, Sherman Texas, 7-19-15

[DinoMike]

Not a massively productive hunt. Coupled with SOMETHING under the bridge smelling like Every Dead Thing In The Universe, plus nearly getting my car trapped by loose gravel. Anyway, on to the shark tooth pics. Scale is in cm.

First, the broken teeth.

Then THIS little guy! Don't ask me how I managed to screen-sift a small tooth with its root still in matrix out of a gravel bed! I would have thought that tumbling down those gravel beds would have broken it right off! As it is, I'm gonna have to glue it eventually. It's got a crack in the root that you can see in 1 pic, and the rest of the tooth is REALLY loose in the rock.

Edited July 19, 2015 by DinoMike

[DinoMike]

Then there's THIS. It may be a rock, but holding it my hand, I see contours that remind me of the Ptychodus tooth that I found on my last trip. I wonder if this is a water-worn Ptychodus?

Scale in cm.

[John S.]

I'm not sure about that last one but the tooth in the matrix is really cool! I've only found a few of those. And I smelled that same stinch a few days ago. No telling but I got out of there asap!

[DinoMike]

I'm not sure about that last one but the tooth in the matrix is really cool! I've only found a few of those. And I smelled that same stinch a few days ago. No telling but I got out of there asap!

I looked around a little bit. Was kinda scared to get TOO detailed in searching. No telling what I might have found. There were a couple of wet muddy areas up above the waterline. Could have been some dead fish trapped in there. Hard to see, there was most of a tree on top of it.

I put that last "tooth" next to my verified Ptychodus. They look so similar in size, color & contours, I'm inclined to ID it as Ptychodus. Either that, or I found a rock that nature REALLY pulled a very specific weathering job on.

[John S.]

Yes that is a very peculiar rock/tooth. I've learned over the years to walk faster as the smell gets worse. I just never want to find a dead body(or become a dead body). Just in case : )

[FossilDAWG]

I'm not seeing anything toothy about your "Ptychodus". The other tooth is a worthy find, though. I think we've all had the "stench" experience at one time or another. In some places that could be a wooly mammoth melting out of the permafrost, but I suppose Texas mosasaurs are a bit too old to offer a similar chance.

Don