Burnhamia aff Daviesi tooth

[Dollydebs]

Hi,

This is my first upload and I chose the Burnhamia aff Daviesi tooth to start with as it was requested.

It lay in my odds and sods tub and to be honest was overlooked for a long time due to its size, 6mm. However my husband bought me a large magnifying lamp which proved to be a Godsend as it hilighted the differences between this tooth and my other Ray Dental plates.

Photographing it proved to be difficult but the end results helped considerably in my research to identify it, learnt an awful lot from this one tooth!

* Location: Bracklesham Bay, UK (SSSI designation)

* Formation: Earnley

* Period: Eocene

* Bed: E5

* Size: 6mm

I contacted the owner of one of my favourite reference sites with my findings and proposed ID who then in turn contacted a friend of his, an expert in this type of fossil and he confirmed it was Burnhamia aff Daviesi. Gave my consent for the tooth to be featured on the website, the least I could do as my appreciation knew no bounds for the time and patience they awarded a complete stranger.

The web page is below - have an awful lot yet to learn in presentation of photographed fossils, simple tweaking of background has made the world of difference!

[Kosmoceras]

Excellent specimen. Congrats on getting the fossil on the site.

[Cainozoic]

Nice work, fantastic specimen and great photographs.

[Dollydebs]

Thank you, will admit to being quite giddy with excitement having the ID confirmed. Gave me a boost to set to on the rest of my unknowns.

[Raggedy Man]

That's a great photo!

[Fossildude19]

Well done - superb find.

Regards,

[JohnJ]

Well done, Deborah.

[JohnBrewer]

Fantastic find and really good photography too. If the website you screen captured isn't commercial or restricted in some way do post the link.

[sixgill pete]

Very nice specimen and great photos. Thanks for posting this. Great little ray tooth.

[Dollydebs]

Fantastic find and really good photography too. If the website you screen captured isn't commercial or restricted in some way do post the link.

Hi,

I have been a regular to the site for the past year but it was also recommended to me recently via a posted link so I have assumed is safe to post on. Alan Morton was the gentleman I contacted out of the blue and he was fantastic. His website is a superb port for reference as his photos are so clear and cover a wide range of the fossils found in the London Clay beds.

Gave me some tips on photographing too and still working on how to get the clarity using a scanner; at present still using my little camera but have adopted his approach now with as dark as possible, plain background.

Point of interest for me was that his friend, David Ward, who confirmed my findings was also the author of some books I had purchased the day previously Anyway I waffle so here's the link:

http://www.dmap.co.uk/fossils/

Debs

[JohnBrewer]

Great site Debs, thanks for the link

[Ludwigia]

Hi Debs. Lovely tooth you've got there! Thanks for sharing!

[siteseer]

Debs,

You are lucky to have David Ward take a look at your specimen. As you noted above, he is an expert in sharks and rays. However, what you may not know is that he is among the foremost authorities on sharks and rays. I have been lucky to get to know him at the Tucson mineral/fossil shows. You can learn a lot from him in less than five minutes of conversation and he is as patient and generous with the novice as he is with the longtime amateur collector.

This year at Tucson, I had just bought a few interesting pathologic shark teeth from a dealer and wanted to find someone to go over them with. I turned down the hall and there's David. I couldn't believe my luck. He could have been anywhere in the city or even in another room at that show and I would have likely missed him. Anyway, he was kind enough to pause from his schedule and take a look at what I had. One thing I like about him is that when a longtime collector like me asks about a particular tooth, he will ask what I think it is. He does that because I won't learn much if he just gives me the ID. I can tell him what I see in the specimen and if I'm wrong about the species or the genus, he will give further background on it plus an article I should look for. Put simply, he's an excellent teacher.

I had not seen that website before. There's an interesting Notorynchus tooth on there. I agree that it's deformed. I have a Hexanchus andersoni tooth from the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed, California with the same kind of pathology.

Jess

Hi,

I have been a regular to the site for the past year but it was also recommended to me recently via a posted link so I have assumed is safe to post on. Alan Morton was the gentleman I contacted out of the blue and he was fantastic. His website is a superb port for reference as his photos are so clear and cover a wide range of the fossils found in the London Clay beds.

Gave me some tips on photographing too and still working on how to get the clarity using a scanner; at present still using my little camera but have adopted his approach now with as dark as possible, plain background.

Point of interest for me was that his friend, David Ward, who confirmed my findings was also the author of some books I had purchased the day previously Anyway I waffle so here's the link:

http://www.dmap.co.uk/fossils/

Debs

[Dollydebs]

Hi Jess,

I am very appreciative of the time he and Alan Morton gave me, doubly so now that I know just how busy they are.

Being an amateur I was understandably hesitant in approaching an expert but they were both so kind and generous with their time. I had no direct interaction with Mr Ward himself as my point of contact was with Mr Morton who spent a lot of his weekend liaising with me via email, it was he who contacted David for the final ID confirmation. Your chance meeting with him says an awful lot about the man himself and not just his knowledge, the ideal teacher I agree.

It was this experience and also a similar one for an ID confirmation of my marine snake, Palaeophis typaeus verts that gave me the confidence to join TFF.

Love doing the research on my finds to hopefully ID them thus not looking for easy answers and certainly not without putting in the groundwork first myself but rather guidance as to where I have erred and how to proceed which I find a vital part in my own learning process. My priority though is learning what 'markers' I need to look for first in order to streamline my research - quite certain I waste an awful lot of time needlessly

Another reference site I visit and can recommend is Sheppeyfossils.com. The site owner recommended this book; Middle Eocene Vertebrates by David Kemp, Liz Kemp and David Ward and I am finding it invaluable.

A general question to all, is it advisable to put the latin name in italics rather than normal font? Have noticed majority of posts and indeed all publications I have read, have the italic format and its something I have not made a point of always doing. Suspect I have been guilty of unintentional faux pas

Debs

[Coco]

A general question to all, is it advisable to put the latin name in italics rather than normal font? Have noticed majority of posts and indeed all publications I have read, have the italic format and its something I have not made a point of always doing. Suspect I have been guilty of unintentional faux pas

Debs

Yes, the nomenclaturale standard wants that we put in italics all the latin names, with a capital letter in the genus name and the rest written in small letters, as Carcharocles megalodon, or Galeocerdo cuvieri, and without accent (not C. mégalodon for french people for example) ! In a same text, when we have already written the whole name in latin, we can abbreviate the genus name, as here : C. megalodon or G. cuvieri. Here in France, if we want to respect our language standard, we have to write in italics all which is in latin, the expressions too [a priori, in fine, errare humanum est etc (-> et caereta)...].

Coco