Homework Required when Buying Dino Teeth

[Troodon]

Buying isolated dinosaur teeth other than the obvious candidates is not always as easy as it seems especially when it involves teeth from regions of the world other than North American. We all know the perils of identifying Kem Kem material but the same is true from localities like South America.

One must be prepared to take the time to investigate every purchase and never, never assume what is being offered is accurate.

Case in point: A new listing from a very respectable dealer is offering a nice sauropod tooth from Argentina a Saltasaurus robustus from Rio Negroo's, Allen Formation. Imported before the ban.

On the surface it looks correct and Saltasaurus teeth are peg like other titanosaurs. The problem is the accuracy of the information provided and how complicated an accurate ID can be:

New discoveries and research are constantly changing what some assume to be rigid or historic identifications since these teeth were originally imported.

Observations:

1)Patagonia has a high diversity of titanosaurs with new discoveries in journals all of the time.

2)Rio Negroo is a not a city but a province. A province that contains 5 named and two unnamed formations with dinosaur bearing material. Most are dug from small quarries and getting accurate information passed by local diggers can be very problematic.

3)Saltasaurus robustus is no longer considered a valid taxon and material is now assigned to a new genus Neuquensaurus from the Anacleto Formation not Allen.

4)To complicate matters four titanosaurian taxa have been identified in the Allen Formation: Rocasaurus muniozi (Salgado and Azpilicueta 2000), Aeolosaurus sp. (Salgado and Coria 1993), Bonatitan reigi (Martinelli and Forasiepi 2004), and Antarctosaurus wichmannianus (Huene 1929); in addition, fragmentary material belonging to two indeterminate titanosaurs has been described recently. Most material discovered is post cranial.

Bottom line is that we have uncertainty around the locality and ID. So we may have a tooth from the Allen Formation from a sauropod that can best be labeled Titanosaurid indet.

So if your interested in adding these type of teeth to your collection don't let me stop you, they are pretty cool. Just understand that there is more than the normal amount of uncertainty surrounding a positive genus/species ID and locality.

Edit: the province of Rio Negroo is actually spelled with one less "o" but in doing so you get: Rio

Edited August 24, 2016 by Troodon

[FossilDudeCO]

Troodon,

Great information as always, thanks!!

[Susan from PA]

Thanks so much as always, Troodon! .

[JohnBrewer]

Thanks, I'm looking forward to the next instalment to this series

[siteseer]

Troodon,

It's a great general point when collecting anything: you need to educate yourself so you know at least as much as the most informed dealer especially if your collection is expanding with the more expensive specimens. It helps to know which dinosaurs come from where (e.g. T. rex never made it to Africa) and when they lived during the Mesozoic (e.g. T. rex lived during the last five million years of the Cretaceous). The book, The Dinosauria (Second Edition, 2007), is a good reference for that so it's worth having. If you look around, you can find a copy at a bargain price.

Jess

P.S. Yeah, I was wondering where the Rio Negroo was in Argentina. It's not on any of the maps. The word just means "black" in Spanish and is probably part of several place names in the Americas.

Buying isolated dinosaur teeth other than the obvious candidates is not always as easy as it seems especially when it involves teeth from regions of the world other than North American. We all know the perils of identifying Kem Kem material but the same is true from localities like South America.

One must be prepared to take the time to investigate every purchase and never, never assume what is being offered is accurate.

Case in point: A new listing from a very respectable dealer is offering a nice sauropod tooth from Argentina a Saltasaurus robustus from Rio Negroo's, Allen Formation. Imported before the ban.
DSTSA07e.jpg

On the surface it looks correct and Saltasaurus teeth are peg like other titanosaurs. The problem is the accuracy of the information provided and how complicated an accurate ID can be:

New discoveries and research are constantly changing what some assume to be rigid or historic identifications since these teeth were originally imported.

Observations:
1)Patagonia has a high diversity of titanosaurs with new discoveries in journals all of the time.

2)Rio Negroo is a not a city but a province. A province that contains 5 named and two unnamed formations with dinosaur bearing material. Most are dug from small quarries and getting accurate information passed by local diggers can be very problematic.

3)Saltasaurus robustus is no longer considered a valid taxon and material is now assigned to a new genus Neuquensaurus from the Anacleto Formation not Allen.

4)To complicate matters four titanosaurian taxa have been identified in the Allen Formation: Rocasaurus muniozi (Salgado and Azpilicueta 2000), Aeolosaurus sp. (Salgado and Coria 1993), Bonatitan reigi (Martinelli and Forasiepi 2004), and Antarctosaurus wichmannianus (Huene 1929); in addition, fragmentary material belonging to two indeterminate titanosaurs has been described recently. Most material discovered is post cranial.

Bottom line is that we have uncertainty around the locality and ID. So we may have a tooth from the Allen Formation from a sauropod that can best be labeled Titanosaurid indet.

So if your interested in adding these type of teeth to your collection don't let me stop you, they are pretty cool. Just understand that there is more than the normal amount of uncertainty surrounding a positive genus/species ID and locality.


Edit: the province of Rio Negroo is actually spelled with one less "o" but in doing so you get: Rio ######

Edited August 24, 2016 by siteseer

[Troodon]

Jess that is a great book and the locality section is full of super information on what has been found worldwide by formation. Mine is pretty well used.

[gms]

Any commercial transaction with dinosaur fossils is strictly prohibitted under the laws of Argentina, so yes, let's purchase fossils but respect both the heritage and the applicable laws of any country where such fossils belong, otherwise we collectors won't be free to collect fossils anymore as it may happend in Germany, for instance.

[Troodon]

I do respect both heritage and laws but in this case we are talking about fossils that were imported before laws were inacted which is legal.

[Jaimin013]

Possibly why it is still for sale! Thanks very interesting information but when it's more than the norm of uncertainly it can be annoying not knowing what it is! The sad thing is that this particular tooth is probably with the seller sitting in some collection! Although it is not a complete tooth, time should be spent analysing the tooth's structure and appreciating it for what it is but nobody is doing this currently as people aren't willing to bite the bullet and buy it! Maybe one day I will just not care and get it and take it from there!

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

On 8/26/2016 at 6:47 PM, Troodon said:

I do respect both heritage and laws but in this case we are talking about fossils that were imported before laws were inacted which is legal.

I know this is an old thread, and certainly don't want to play police officer here. But I still felt the need to point out that when we're talking about "fossils that were imported before laws were enacted", we have no certainty this is indeed the case and need to rely on the seller's word-of-mouth statement, unless the seller can present a full and proper provenance history that goes back to before the laws were indeed enacted. It's not unthinkable that a seller would, through less than honourable means, be able to obtain a fossil that would otherwise have a legal ban on it, yet claim it had been imported before the ban. What's more, it's not even unheard of for a dealer to forge the provenance just to satisfy a potential buyer's conscious. I mean, we all know that certificates of authenticity are also no more than a marketing strategy to seduce the unaware (typically "novice") into buying. Conclusion: buyer beware!

[Kikokuryu]

On 10/6/2020 at 3:00 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

I know this is an old thread, and certainly don't want to play police officer here. But I still felt the need to point out that when we're talking about "fossils that were imported before laws were enacted", we have no certainty this is indeed the case and need to rely on the seller's word-of-mouth statement, unless the seller can present a full and proper provenance history that goes back to before the laws were indeed enacted. It's not unthinkable that a seller would, through less than honourable means, be able to obtain a fossil that would otherwise have a legal ban on it, yet claim it had been imported before the ban.

It's a bit tricky since isolated or lesser fossils like these should be treated akin to commonly circulated old coins. In the same way a dealer of hundreds of coins at a time is not going to keep track of provenance, the vast majority of isolated fossils are traded around like comic books and fancy rocks. They're just not rare or valuable enough to warrant extensive paperwork during their legal days. If Morocco decides to hard ban fossil starting tomorrow, it's just going to be an absolute mess with how much has already been circulated with little to no documentation.

 

I don't think pre-ban fossils appear with enough frequency to suggest a problematic smuggling operation of fossils on such smaller scale. You'd think with all the Abelisaur and Carc teeth from Kem Kem, smugglers could easily mix in some South American cousins, but that doesn't appear to be happening. If you're going to buy something absurd like a Tarbosaurus skull . . . then sure, that's really sus and should be questioned.

 

On a side note, in regard to Argentine fossils, "Saltasaurus" eggshells, still really common with poor provenance. Are they smuggled . . . probably not since they don't seem to really be sought after to worth illicit activity.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 hour ago, Kikokuryu said:

It's a bit tricky since isolated or lesser fossils like these should be treated akin to commonly circulated old coins. In the same way a dealer of hundreds of coins at a time is not going to keep track of provenance, the vast majority of isolated fossils are traded around like comic books and fancy rocks. They're just not rare or valuable enough to warrant extensive paperwork during their legal days. If Morocco decides to hard ban fossil starting tomorrow, it's just going to be an absolute mess with how much has already been circulated with little to no documentation.

 

I don't think pre-ban fossils appear with enough frequency to suggest a problematic smuggling operation of fossils on such smaller scale. You'd think with all the Abelisaur and Carc teeth from Kem Kem, smugglers could easily mix in some South American cousins, but that doesn't appear to be happening. If you're going to buy something absurd like a Tarbosaurus skull . . . then sure, that's really sus and should be questioned.

 

On a side note, in regard to Argentine fossils, "Saltasaurus" eggshells, still really common with poor provenance. Are they smuggled . . . probably not since they don't seem to really be sought after to worth illicit activity.

You make a valid point, as a lot of more common fossils have less scientific value - something that has been voiced explicitly in the regulations concerning fossils in places like Baden-Württemberg (southwestern Germany, can't speak for regulations in the rest of the country) and the UK. That is, the scientific value of the fossil needs to be somehow assessed - either by the state (in practice, in Baden-Württemberg, executed by quarry owners) or museums - and, if the fossil is not of great scientific interest, can be kept by the finder. The underlying idea here can be compared to what's known as the Principle of Proportionality in law, that is that the measures in place to control something should be proportional to that which is regulated. Or, put differently, if a fossils is not particularly rare or valuable, it would be disproportionate to invest a lot of time, effort and other resources to regulate its trade and ownership. In Dutch we've got a nice word for this: "gedoogbeleid", which translates into tolerance policy in English.

 

However, even with that, we should be aware that not all countries implement a tolerance policy and that, moreover, tolerances may differ (that of Morocco seems to be quite high, for instance). China and Mongolia - amongst plenty of other countries (I'm mentioning Mongolia here in particular, as they're especially active in claiming fossils back, however big or small they are) - though, declare all fossils state property and prohibit their export, whereas I understand that the tolerance in Madagascar seems to be that the fossil needs to have been modified into "a piece of art".

 

These are tricky issues, and it makes me indeed wonder about the "Saltasaurus" eggshells, as I was under the impression that Argentina is one of those countries that has implemented a complete export ban, but these fossils are quite ubiquitous on the market... Yet, as you point out, there's not much of a financial incentive to smuggle such fossils out of the country. However, we need to keep in mind that we are viewing these issues from a (generally) well-to-do (generally) "Western" perspective. People in the countries these fossils come from are typically way less well off, and often struggle for survival. Thus, even though both the dealer who sells the fossil to the eventual buyer and the middle man will obviously take the lion's share of the profit, the remaining couple of dollars (or even dollar cents) might be enough to give those that find the fossils a better chance of survival. Sure, "Saltasaurus" eggshells might not be the type of fossil that will get a dealer the margins they're dreaming off, but I can certainly see plenty of local incentive in the regions these fossils are found in...

[GTS]

@Troodon Would be grateful if you could advise on “the perils of identifying Kem Kem material” you reference in your OP or point me in the direction of any sources as I’m considering getting a nice Charcharodontosaurus tooth. Please direct message me if you wish to avoid extending this thread. Thankyou 

 

 

On 8/24/2016 at 7:10 PM, Troodon said:

Buying isolated dinosaur teeth other than the obvious candidates is not always as easy as it seems especially when it involves teeth from regions of the world other than North American. We all know the perils of identifying Kem Kem material but the same is true from localities like South America.

One must be prepared to take the time to investigate every purchase and never, never assume what is being offered is accurate.