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Merritt Island Matrix (Pleistocene) - Interesting Tooth?


GeschWhat

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Hi all,

Here is another fun find from Sacha's Merritt Island matrix. As usual, I don't have a clue as to what kind of tooth it is (or maybe it's a claw?). The area around the base of the tooth reminds me of something you'd see at the base of an antler. Sorry parts of the specimen are a little blurry in the photo. It was hard to decide what part to focus on. :wacko: I looked up every carnivore I could think of and came up with nada. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

As a side note, I would like to extend a special thanks to Julianna, Marco Sr, Tony, and PA Fossil Finder for posting all your wonderful photos. It is super helpful!

post-17480-0-67776000-1451445076_thumb.jpg

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So nice of you to take the time,

to post your comment using rhyme! :D

Uh yah....oh, YAH! That was entirely intentional. ;)B) (That is the story I am sticking with) :rofl:

Tony

PS Thinking maybe a snake fang? But that is a wild guess.

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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Excellent! I hate to admit it, but when I first found it, I thought it was a claw (because of the smooth hooked shape of the back surface). But then when I was researching it, I noticed none of the claws had a long extension (probably because it was the root of a tooth). Thanks everyone!

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Uh yah....oh, YAH! That was entirely intentional. ;)B) (That is the story I am sticking with) :rofl:

Tony

PS Thinking maybe a snake fang? But that is a wild guess.O

Funny...snakes are one of the first things I thought about (after claws), but when I looked them I couldn't find a match...

Oh, and rhyming replies are ALWAYS appreciated! :D You must be a natural!

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Beautiful little tooth. Not a snake, though. The little cusplets at the base tell me it is mammal. I don't know if bat canines have those little cusps,but it would be worth looking up. Otherwise,I would go with some sort of insectivore premolar. What is the age of this stuff?

A quick google images search found this site...have a look...It does indeed look like a bat canine. Some of the pix I found of bat canines have the ridge at the base. There are also a few that have really pointy premolars.

http://research.amnh.org/vz/mammalogy/research-activities/simmons-research-group

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Here are some Middle Pleistocene bat teeth and more, from Israel for comparison: post-17588-0-74466700-1451501191_thumb.jpg http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/component/content/category/182-380

Bat remains (Mammalia, Chiroptera) from the Middle Pleistocene site of Qesem Cave, Israel, with the first Pleistocene record of fruit bats in the Mediterranean region - Ivan Horáček, Lutz Christian Maul, K.T. Smith, Ran Barkai, and Avi Gopher http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/380.pdf

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

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When I first quickly looked at the tooth I thought bat canine. However, I edited my reply to include bat incisor. Bat incisors are highly variable by species. Some species of bat have a large pointed incisor close to the canine. The hollowed out look to the crown of the tooth on one side seems more reminiscent of an incisor. Hopefully a bat expert will chime in.

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

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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Beautiful little tooth. Not a snake, though. The little cusplets at the base tell me it is mammal. I don't know if bat canines have those little cusps,but it would be worth looking up. Otherwise,I would go with some sort of insectivore premolar. What is the age of this stuff?

A quick google images search found this site...have a look...It does indeed look like a bat canine. Some of the pix I found of bat canines have the ridge at the base. There are also a few that have really pointy premolars.

http://research.amnh.org/vz/mammalogy/research-activities/simmons-research-group

Here are some Middle Pleistocene bat teeth and more, from Israel for comparison: attachicon.gif380.jpg http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/component/content/category/182-380

Bat remains (Mammalia, Chiroptera) from the Middle Pleistocene site of Qesem Cave, Israel, with the first Pleistocene record of fruit bats in the Mediterranean region - Ivan Horáček, Lutz Christian Maul, K.T. Smith, Ran Barkai, and Avi Gopher http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/380.pdf

Thank you both for this info. After looking at the photos and reading portions of the links you guys sent, I think all of you in the bat camp are dead on. JPC, I might try to contact the research group to see if I can get a look at their database. It would be really nice to have a database of our own to put all the Merritt Island micros in. Does anyone know if the forum has that capability?

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Don Brunning and I are going to the Univ. of FL on Jan 8th to do some filming for the show. I had planned on talking to Richard Hulbert about their interest/involvment in the finds posted so far on the forum. I know he wanted to know about the more interesting finds and he specifically mentioned bat stuff. I had e-mailed him in Nov or Dec when postings from this matrix we starting to flow, but didn't hear back. He was heavily involved in a Levi County, FL site though and may have been distracted.

I think the forum is a good spot to retain these photos and it works well as long as "Merritt Island" is consistently used as a key word to support searches.

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Don Brunning and I are going to the Univ. of FL on Jan 8th to do some filming for the show. I had planned on talking to Richard Hulbert about their interest/involvment in the finds posted so far on the forum. I know he wanted to know about the more interesting finds and he specifically mentioned bat stuff. I had e-mailed him in Nov or Dec when postings from this matrix we starting to flow, but didn't hear back. He was heavily involved in a Levi County, FL site though and may have been distracted.

I think the forum is a good spot to retain these photos and it works well as long as "Merritt Island" is consistently used as a key word to support searches.

Sounds great! I totally agree the forum is a good spot to retain the photos, I just wish we had the ability to change the tags once we things are identified. It would make searching through old posts a lot quicker. Look forward to hearing what you find out!

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