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Mosasaur (?) bone ID


Aurelius

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I've been cleaning up this block of Moroccan material, and have exposed most of the central bone. I have no idea what it is, despite the fact that it looks very distinctive. Does anybody have any ideas please?

 

Judging by the size, I would guess it could be mosasaur, but I don't know if the teeth have been placed or were there originally. Numerous fish bones are also present, as usual.

Thanks in advance.

 

P2500767.jpg.1d198341505ec211c2f30e2f9852ff8d.jpg

 

P2500771.thumb.jpg.9de88d6ec0629b0c43ae530952af1fbf.jpg

 

P2500770b.thumb.jpg.c2615a7891e9d75a5fe2afefd96c3f62.jpg

 

 

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Looks very real to me as evidence of finding fish vertebrae in there.  The teeth are beautiful and look natural.  I'm not an expert on Mosasaurs so will leave species and bone ID to others.  It appears you have a normal assemblage of Mosasaur skull parts plus teeth considering the robustness of the bone.

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Here's what I'm seeing. A mid line and part of the bone missing. Maybe broken, maybe still hidden under matrix. I don't recognise the bone though. But it reminds me a bit of a turtle plastron. Or maybe the front of a frontal bone on the skull roof of a mosasaur. Most frontal bones on mosasaurs are pretty pointy. but this example looks a little similar.

mosasaurskull1dl__23309.jpg

 

The teeth look really fat and the enamel seems smooth. So I'd lean towards Prognathodon sp.

 

Nice piece.

pgxjfz7r.jpg.23bea77659152c39fb59ac5db10e6606.jpg

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Thanks for the opinions, it's very intriguing. 

I'm going to keep going down into it, but I want to be careful and don't want to take it apart - just remove as much visible matrix as possible without extracting anything. Like I did with this jaw (although I may extract the jaw eventually). 

 

P2500774.jpg.cbdd25b966406d88b008a7cb39ace6ab.jpg

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Coincidentally, I just saw this come up for sale [described as mosasaur bones] - and is it me, or does the bone top right very closely resemble my bone?

s-l1600 (28).jpg

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Done some more prep on this bone today. Is it possible that it's part of a mosasaur brain case?

P2500803.jpg

P2500805-Edit.jpg

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It's hard to tell from the photos. But is that bone on the bottom that you uncovered attached to the weird shaped bone like you marked in your last picture?

 

The marked bone on the top left. Some shapes remind me a bit of the edge of a root that's still attached to the jaw. It might be worth trying to clean the edges of that some more.

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

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Yes, it appears to be the same bone.

 

I'll do some more cleaning as I get the time. Thanks for your help :)

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