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My Jurassic Park - Dinosaurs and More


Troodon

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Back in September I posted My Jurassic Park - Theropod Claws from the Kem Kem, the link is attached and now this topic is its continuation.

 

There is more to the Kem Kem than just Theropod Claws (my passion) and I would like to share that with you. The Kem Kem beds consists of three formation: Ifezouane, Aoufous and Akrabou and most of the Dinosaur material comes from there but not all and I'll share a few examples of that. The Kem Kem beds are not a large area in Morocco and I've attached a map to give everyone a good understanding of that and where they are geographically. The best fossils come near the border with Algeria but most of these collecting areas are depleted and today diggers are going to more remote areas.

The Kem Kem Region

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Lets begin with my favorite Spinosaurus aegypticacus (sp.)

 

The teeth can be massive and here are a few examples

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Rooted teeth are always my favorite and here are a few fully rooted ones. Size does not matter. If the opportunity to pick a juvenile exists I will acquire it.

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Teeth from this Dinosaur can be large and deadly.

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Additional Carch teeth.

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Abelisaurids are poorly understood and until we can get better definition of these teeth they will remain a mystery.

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There are still a lot of mysteries in the Kem Kem and these teeth are tiny, serrated and Theropod

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Identify isolated bones from Theropods is almost impossible but they are beautiful

 

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This is actually a Croc Vert

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TheroVert1a.jpg

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Good post as always. And of course you have a Spinosaur jaw :P

I have a vertebra fragment from Kem Kem in my collection. when buying it I was told it was likely from a Carcharodontosaurus cervical vert. I reckoned the size was about right. But it's such an odd piece. So I was never able to place it. Now thanks to your photo I can see immidiatly where my vert fragment would sit.

So thank you!

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Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Still have open identification questions on the following: any help appreciated.

Small sauropod teeth that are not Rebbachisaurus

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Dermal scutes that are being sold as belonging to Titanosaurids.  No idea what they are..

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I have a few non dinosaur items from the Kem Kem just because they are different.

Cervical vertebra of a pterosaur. Its big 5" wide

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Pterosaur beak from possibly a Alanqa ibrahim

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These are sold as Pterosaur claws.  They are pharyngeal teeth of a pycnodont fish

 

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Gigantic Garfish Scales ???

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Big Crocodile Dermal armor

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Well I can comment on the lungfish teeth. According to this paper your left lungfish is Neoceratodus africanus and the right lunghfish is Ceratodus humei.

Page 6

https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01158391/file/PL03455.pdf

You might also get some info on the gars in there.

And as we discussed in my other thread. Both our Pterosaur beaks are likely Alanqa saharica. I find it interesting that your beak is curved downwards slightly though.

Really awesome fossils btw!

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Glad I could help on the Carch vert. Thanks for the help on the lungfish. That pterosaur beak does curve slightly had not noticed might be just normal variations in Jaws.

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As always, absolutely amazing! Everything is stunning but being that my first love are teeth and especially herbivore teeth, the unworn Rebbachisaurus tooth 3rd from the left is my favorite! I love the shape of that tooth. Your rooted Carch teeth are amazing! Do you have or have you ever seen a fully rooted Rebbach tooth? I have not. When it comes to the smaller Sauropod indet. teeth, I'm just curious as to why you don't think they're not juvenile Rebbach teeth. I know I'm probably in the minority here but I tend to agree with Jack Horner when it comes to the consolidation of species. Does a tooth have to be a different species just because it's smaller? The teeth in your picture have been worn smooth by either wear, water worn or maybe digested which makes them look a little different but if they still had their rough enamel they would look like the larger teeth in my opinion. Thanks again for sharing your collection with us.

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I've never seen a fully rooted Rebbachisaurus tooth. If you look at my fully rooted morrison Diplo tooth its curved and comes directly out of a skull. My guess is that Rebbachisaurus teeth are the same and just break apart. None are ever are found with skulls just the state of preservation from the Kem Kem.

I think Horner has some valid points but takes it too far with species consolidation. My belief is that there is more than one sauropod in the Kem Kem, typical of what you see in other faunas of that age in South America. The three smaller teeth are very different than Rebbachisaurus teeth and none of them are worn. The middle one is faceted the full length of the crown, all around. I believe its from an undescribed Titanoisaurid. The first one has a collar on the end with a concave base, very odd and may not be dinosaurian. The last one is thin and round and reminds me of Saltasaurus teeth from Argentina. I think these teeth suggest that there may be additional Sauropods in the Kem Kem.

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I've never seen a fully rooted Rebbachisaurus tooth. If you look at my fully rooted morrison Diplo tooth its curved and comes directly out of a skull. My guess is that Rebbachisaurus teeth are the same and just break apart. None are ever are found with skulls just the state of preservation from the Kem Kem.

I think Horner has some valid points but takes it too far with species consolidation. My belief is that there is more than one sauropod in the Kem Kem, typical of what you see in other faunas of that age in South America. The three smaller teeth are very different than Rebbachisaurus teeth and none of them are worn. The middle one is faceted the full length of the crown, all around. I believe its from an undescribed Titanoisaurid. The first one has a collar on the end with a concave base, very odd and may not be dinosaurian. The last one is thin and round and reminds me of Saltasaurus teeth from Argentina. I think these teeth suggest that there may be additional Sauropods in the Kem Kem.

I would support Troodon in the fact that there appear to be multiple species of Sauropod dinosaurs found in Kem Kem. Over the years I have collected teeth from what appear to be 3 very distinct species of Diplodocidae, one being Rebbachisaurus, along with at least one other Sauropod, which is not Diplodocidae in nature. Because of the lack of skull material it has been difficult to identify if any of these are from a known species. In my years of collecting, I have only ended up with a single partial sauropod jaw, which I have donated to the University of Utah.

On another note, I also have 3 very distinct sauropod Humeri that anatomically different enough as to support the idea of at least 3 or more sauropods from the formation.

_____________________________________
Seth

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I've never seen a fully rooted Rebbachisaurus tooth. If you look at my fully rooted morrison Diplo tooth its curved and comes directly out of a skull. My guess is that Rebbachisaurus teeth are the same and just break apart. None are ever are found with skulls just the state of preservation from the Kem Kem.

I think Horner has some valid points but takes it too far with species consolidation. My belief is that there is more than one sauropod in the Kem Kem, typical of what you see in other faunas of that age in South America. The three smaller teeth are very different than Rebbachisaurus teeth and none of them are worn. The middle one is faceted the full length of the crown, all around. I believe its from an undescribed Titanoisaurid. The first one has a collar on the end with a concave base, very odd and may not be dinosaurian. The last one is thin and round and reminds me of Saltasaurus teeth from Argentina. I think these teeth suggest that there may be additional Sauropods in the Kem Kem.

When I say worn I'm talking about the smoothness of the enamel. From my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, all sauropod teeth in life had very rough textured enamel. No sauropod in life had teeth with smooth enamel. Teeth that have been found this way now have been worn smooth by some process. I have very large Rebbach teeth that are very smooth. They were not that way in life.

When it comes to the multiple species theory, I guess my question is, what does a one month old Rebbachisaurus tooth look like, a six month old, a one year old, a two, three, four year old, you get the idea? They are going to start off very small and get larger as the animal ages. Why do smaller teeth always have to be a different species?

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I have that lower jaw full of teeth of a baby Diplo from the morrison and the teeth are just miniature versions of the adults. So I have to make the assumption that Rebbach teeth being a Diplo follow the same pattern. With sseth's comments and my uniquely shaped teeth I'm still supporting multiple species.

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I have that lower jaw full of teeth of a baby Diplo from the morrison and the teeth are just miniature versions of the adults. So I have to make the assumption that Rebbach teeth being a Diplo follow the same pattern. With sseth's comments and my uniquely shaped teeth I'm still supporting multiple species.

You guys are probably right. I'm way behind on my reading but I have seen a couple of papers/articles claiming multiple species of sauropods from the Kem Kem beds.

On another note, years ago I was watching a TV show about dinosaurs and they were in Morocco but they were not in the Kem Kem beds they were up near the Atlas mountains. They were digging up a beautifully preserved sauropod skull with black spatulate shaped teeth. It was obviously not a Rebbachisaurus. Has anyone else ever heard about this dinosaur? I have never seen nor heard of any spatulate shaped sauropod teeth coming out of Morocco.

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Sounds very cool but have never seen those type of teeth, need to do some investigation. That very large vertebra in my post#5 and metatarsal all come from the Atlas Mt and may very well come from that type of sauropod.

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Follow-up:

That tooth may be a from a Jurassic Sauropod called Cetiosaurus. Three partial skeletons have been found in Morocco.

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If there was a Member of the Member of the Month award, I'd vote you Troodon.

Amazing post as always. You don't just show us awesome pic of your fossils, you give us so much intel and good discussion too.

Looking forward to meeting my fellow Singaporean collectors! Do PM me if you are a Singaporean, or an overseas fossil-collector coming here for a holiday!

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If there was a Member of the Member of the Month award, I'd vote you Troodon.

Amazing post as always. You don't just show us awesome pic of your fossils, you give us so much intel and good discussion too.

I 2nd that and by the way, a belated congratulations Troodon on your September MOTM award. Great job you deserved it!

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  • 1 year later...

Another Jurassic Park Series that I have not posted for a while.

 

Recent pickups include this Spinosaurid tooth.  Regardless of size if I see a nice rooted one it's a great collector tooth.

 

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Thanks I did okay,  but not everything came from the Tucson show like these sauropod claws.  

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53 minutes ago, Troodon said:

not everything came from the Tucson show like these sauropod claws

Does not matter where You got them from, they are great pieces!

Thanks for sharing them along with so much information about them.:dinothumb:

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.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Took some time to try to characterize some of my smaller teeth.  A different morphology than other Dromaeosaurid teeth from the Kem Kem but I believe they are still one.   More classical Dromaeosaurid with the twist in the carinae and different size serrations on both edges.

 

Tooth 1

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Serration density in all cases taken midline over 5mm

 

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Tooth 2

 

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Serrations only on distal side.  Mesial carinae serrates not worn just not present typical of some Dromaeosaurids

 

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Tooth 3

 

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Dromie3F.thumb.jpg.3e1e90e14ac81174d9ca1462b63d70a7.jpg

 

Lost my Mesial picture need to find it..:( but wereally 5/mm

 

Tooth 4

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Distal serrations 4/mm.  Anterior tooth hard to determine mesial density.

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Always fun to see updates from you.

 

Great raptor teeth. I just got one with similar shape to yours.

Looking forward to meeting my fellow Singaporean collectors! Do PM me if you are a Singaporean, or an overseas fossil-collector coming here for a holiday!

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7 minutes ago, -Andy- said:

Always fun to see updates from you.

 

Great raptor teeth. I just got one with similar shape to yours.

 

Thanks Andy.  I have to believe we have a couple of small raptors in the Kem Kem with the different morph type teeth we're seeing.  Hopefully someone will find a jaw with a few teeth in them.  Isolated teeth are no longer used to describe new taxons.

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