Kem Kem Theropod Teeth: what you need to know

[Ash]

On 06/08/2016 at 5:25 AM, Troodon said:

There are serrated Reptiles and some Avian. Some Mosasaurs teeth have serrations and Ive seen some croc teeth with them. Also there are some theropods teeth without serrations or no teeth at all.

 

Crocs here from the plio-pleistocene have serrations on their teeth also.

[Troodon]

7 hours ago, hxmendoza said:

 

 

So for now, I at least, will stick to Kem Kem Carcharodontosaurid teeth as being Carcharodontosaurus saharicus.

 

Not trying to start a fight or argument here. 

 

Thanks for sharing their input and everyone is entitled to their opinion and that okay.   Unfortunately  I can probably find paleontologist who would disagree with these three .  There are quite of few prominent paleontologist who also strongly disagree with Sereno's et al re-description/taxon to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus  which is a much more important than Sauroniops, so do you throw that one out too?..  So I'll restate what I said above who do you choose to believe?  There is no right or wrong answer here just uncertainty.  

The Kem Kem is full of mysteries and until articulated dinosaurs are discovered everything is a question mark with lots of opinionated paleontologists around.  In the end this is really not a big deal to get excited about.  Collectors should first be buying nice teeth and they can call them whatever they want based on what they feel,  no fossil police here.  When discoveries are made, that everyone can agree with, descriptions can be changed.

[Ash]

Is Sereno the guy who reckons a spino is a quadruped? 

 

Pleistocene crocodile from Australia showing serrations below. I found a tooth on Sunday that reminds me of a theropod but is from a Pliocene crocodile. Just  for interests sake

 

[Troodon]

Y

3 hours ago, Ash said:

Is Sereno the guy who reckons a spino is a quadruped? 

 

Pleistocene crocodile from Australia showing serrations below. I found a tooth on Sunday that reminds me of a theropod but is from a Pliocene crocodile. Just  for interests sake

 

 

 

Yes he and others

 

Cool tooth and nice find.,  Very theropodish serrations and shape.  Did not know it existed thanks for sharing.  Hey maybe the dinosaurs evolved into birds worldwide and in Australia into Crocks  

[Bguild]

Well this has certainly been a good read. Thanks for the updates. Sounds like we need to get some more people sifting through the sands of the Moroccan desert .

[Troodon]

11 minutes ago, Bguild said:

Well this has certainly been a good read. Thanks for the updates. Sounds like we need to get some more people sifting through the sands of the Moroccan desert .

 

Thanks.  Plus sprinkle in a little luck.

 

Edit: Lots of Luck 

[Ash]

The tooth posted isnt mine, just for the record. Its in the QLD Museum.

[PalaeoEx]

Hi guys, first time on this forum.

 

I'm a BSc student currently finishing my Palaeontology dissertation on the dental analysis of the Kem Kem. Just wanted to give you a heads up with regards to the 'Theropod indet.' teeth, I've got a couple in my sample selection and I've run them through some of the Smith et al. (2005) morphometric tests. It's surprisingly being classified as something close to Bambiraptor. Anyone have any information that could either confirm or deny this? I'm very tempted to propose classifying this as my masters study (any excuse to go back to Morocco really haha).

 

Oh and if anyone has samples of this and wants to send a few measurements my way to be analysed then let me know, I'm very curious about the identity of this tooth.

[-Andy-]

1 hour ago, PalaeoEx said:

Hi guys, first time on this forum.

 

I'm a BSc student currently finishing my Palaeontology dissertation on the dental analysis of the Kem Kem. Just wanted to give you a heads up with regards to the 'Theropod indet.' teeth, I've got a couple in my sample selection and I've run them through some of the Smith et al. (2005) morphometric tests. It's surprisingly being classified as something close to Bambiraptor. Anyone have any information that could either confirm or deny this? I'm very tempted to propose classifying this as my masters study (any excuse to go back to Morocco really haha).

 

Oh and if anyone has samples of this and wants to send a few measurements my way to be analysed then let me know, I'm very curious about the identity of this tooth.

 

Welcome to TFF, we hope you enjoy your stay here

You are studying a very interesting subject indeed, lucky you! I haven't heard of the Bambiraptor classification before, but Troodon might know more.

 

If you like, I can take measurements of this tooth.

 

 

[PalaeoEx]

7 minutes ago, -Andy- said:

 

Welcome to TFF, we hope you enjoy your stay here

You are studying a very interesting subject indeed, lucky you! I haven't heard of the Bambiraptor classification before, but Troodon might know more.

 

If you like, I can take measurements of this tooth.

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

Oh bugger, I should probably pay attention to the measurements in the original post! That's much much larger than mine, which only has a crown height of 8.76mm! The morphology is so similar! However, if you want I can still take a look? I'll need the crown base width, crown height, apical length and crown base length.

Edited April 9, 2017 by PalaeoEx

[Troodon]

@PalaeoEx  good luck with your studies.  Anything you can do to further knowledge of the Kem Kem is super and would help us collectors.  Would love to see the morphology of tooth your talking about so I can look at what have in my collection.  Any chance of photos

[Jesuslover340]

On 3/30/2017 at 2:32 AM, Ash said:

Is Sereno the guy who reckons a spino is a quadruped? 

 

Pleistocene crocodile from Australia showing serrations below. I found a tooth on Sunday that reminds me of a theropod but is from a Pliocene crocodile. Just  for interests sake

 

 

This one?  It does look similar to a theropod.

[PalaeoEx]

6 hours ago, Troodon said:

@PalaeoEx  good luck with your studies.  Anything you can do to further knowledge of the Kem Kem is super and would help us collectors.  Would love to see the morphology of tooth your talking about so I can look at what have in my collection.  Any chance of photos

Thanks man! I'll go into labs tomorrow to get a decent photo of it, phone camera doesn't seem to want to play ball tonight! 

[Ash]

Like that one, Skye! It sure feels even more dino in the hand than it looks!

[-Andy-]

18 hours ago, PalaeoEx said:

 

Thank you!

 

Oh bugger, I should probably pay attention to the measurements in the original post! That's much much larger than mine, which only has a crown height of 8.76mm! The morphology is so similar! However, if you want I can still take a look? I'll need the crown base width, crown height, apical length and crown base length.

 

Something like this perhaps? The tooth on the right. It's around 15mm long. The serrations are rounded, and the anterior ones are smaller than posterior ones.

 

  

[Troodon]

I was doing some additional reading of Hendrickx et al  (2016) paper on multiple Spinosaurids and came across a paragraph which continues to complicate an already confusing understanding of what theropods are in the Kem Kem.  Hendrickx is a expert on theropod tooth morphology and suggests that teeth referred to as dromaeosaurid in Amiots paper (2004) are actually noasaurids since there are morphological similarities between both.  I tried to educate myself on noasaurid teeth referenced in the paper and can see why that statement was made,  see below, always learning.   Hendrickx also suggests that these teeth belong to the noasaurid Deltadromeus.   This is a perfect example of why collectors and dealers should not identify teeth without scientific evidence 

Statement in paper pg 33. :

"A recently reported femur of a juvenile noasaurid may belong to the basal ceratosaur Deltadromeus, classified as a Noasauridae by Sereno et al. and Tortosa et al. and isolated teeth referred to dromaeosaurids may in fact belong to a noasaurid [1]. Given the important morphological similarities noted by Fanti and Therrien [108], Hendrickx and Mateus [109], and Evans et al. [1] between the dentition of Noasauridae and Dromaeosauridae, it is indeed likely that the dromaeosaurid teeth reported by Amiot et al. [28] and Richter et al. [9] from the Kem Kem beds belong to Deltadromeus."

 

This image is from the noasaurid paper and you can see some similarities to dromaeosaurid teeth especially with the density of denticles on both carinae.  

 

So do Dromaeosaurid teeth exist in the Kem Kem big question mark, but have no answer.  The bottom line is that these paleontologists need to answer that and all I can show is this tooth in my collection plus have several others which fits all the characteristics of dromaeosaurid including a twist in the carina that are different than Amiots paper.

 

 

Hendrickx paper:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144695

 

Noasaurid paper

app52-155.pdf

 

Paper referred to in statement showing dromaeosaurid teeth: 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12542-012-0153-1

 

I have updated my first page to reflect Hendrickx comments

 

 

[siteseer]

On March 30, 2017 at 3:44 AM, Troodon said:

Y

 

Yes he and others

 

Cool tooth and nice find.,  Very theropodish serrations and shape.  Did not know it existed thanks for sharing.  Hey maybe the dinosaurs evolved into birds worldwide and in Australia into Crocks  

 

 

Troodon,

 

There were ziphodont crocodiles in the Eocene as well (I have a tooth from France in a box somewhere).  Years ago, a friend once sent me a tooth to look at from the Lance Formation.  It was rather flat and serrated and about 3/4 inches long.  He didn't think it was a dinosaur and asked me for my opinion.  I thought it was a lizard tooth or oddball crocodile tooth.  I should have taken a photo of it.  As a rule, always take a photo of a cool, weird tooth.

 

Jess

 

[Jesuslover340]

3 hours ago, siteseer said:

 

 

Troodon,

 

There were ziphodont crocodiles in the Eocene as well (I have a tooth from France in a box somewhere).  Years ago, a friend once sent me a tooth to look at from the Lance Formation.  It was rather flat and serrated and about 3/4 inches long.  He didn't think it was a dinosaur and asked me for my opinion.  I thought it was a lizard tooth or oddball crocodile tooth.  I should have taken a photo of it.  As a rule, always take a photo of a cool, weird tooth.

 

Jess

 

Could you take a photo of said tooth from France? I started a topic on ziphodont croc teeth; it's my current interest

[Troodon]

Updated the first page show additional background information on Spinosaurids and Carch.  Added additional ID information on Dromaeosaurid's and Abelsaurids 

[LordTrilobite]

On 09/04/2017 at 5:19 PM, PalaeoEx said:

Hi guys, first time on this forum.

 

I'm a BSc student currently finishing my Palaeontology dissertation on the dental analysis of the Kem Kem. Just wanted to give you a heads up with regards to the 'Theropod indet.' teeth, I've got a couple in my sample selection and I've run them through some of the Smith et al. (2005) morphometric tests. It's surprisingly being classified as something close to Bambiraptor. Anyone have any information that could either confirm or deny this? I'm very tempted to propose classifying this as my masters study (any excuse to go back to Morocco really haha).

 

Oh and if anyone has samples of this and wants to send a few measurements my way to be analysed then let me know, I'm very curious about the identity of this tooth.

Oh I missed this post before. But yes, I do have some information that might be interesting. Though not tooth related. I have a partial dromaeosaurid right humerus that is similar in size and morphology when compared to Bambiraptor. In fact, having created a Bambiraptor skeleton sculpture was the reason I recognised the bone. Though there are some differences, it compares pretty well to the humerus of Bambiraptor. Judging from the size of the humerus I would say this raptor was around a meter long just like Bambiraptor. My specimen also seems to compare pretty well to Velociraptor and Deinonychus (though Deinonychus is clearly more robust)

 

[Troodon]

I think you're spot on unfortunately that member has not been active since his initial post.

[LordTrilobite]

Yeah I saw he didn't have any other posts. But I figured I'd post anyway since the information might still be useful.

 

Another thing I could contribute to this thread is that in the mean time I scanned another Carcharodontosaurid tooth I have. It's just the tooth tip but it still shows some nice details and a 3D model is a much better representation of what the shape of a tooth looks like. This seems to have been a pretty large and robust tooth. This scan is also of better quality than my other Carcharodontosaurid tooth scan, so the serrations are better visible here.

Tooth length: 4.1 cm

[Troodon]

Thanks, always like to look at the serrations and compare them to other specimens and see the differences.  Just like Spinosaurids teeth and the variation with their vertical ridges do the variations in serrations indicate a different species.  Good to gather data.  Can you give me a serrations count on the distal side toward the bottom.  Love those 3D views

[Haravex]

This has been on an auction site for a while and defiantly interesting.

[LordTrilobite]

2 minutes ago, Haravex said:

This has been on an auction site for a while and defiantly interesting.

I saw this one as well. I think it was being sold as raptor. But it looks like croc to me.