Mosasaur tooth

[Olivia Doiron]

So the other day I visited a local tiny shop that sells minerals and fossils, and snagged a Mosasaur tooth from Khouribga Morocco. The label only said 'Mosasaur tooth, Khouribga, Morocco.' Naturally, as the curious person that I am, Im trying to find the species of the owner. After I researched a bit I narrowed down the species to those found in Morocco, yet I had trouble finding one with similar teeth. Globidens and Carinodens were quickly out of the question, since the teeth are rounded and kinda look like mushrooms to some extent, very unlike mine. Yet practically all the teeth I saw for these other Morocco Mosasaurs had slightly hooked teeth that looked thick and heavy, While mine is practically vertical, with almost no curve to it, small and light. Anyone know any Mosasaur species with teeth like this found in Khouribga Morocco..? The measurement of the tooth without the root is 1.4 inches long. The tooth has a diameter around barely over 1 centimeter.

Here are species found in Morocco that I had narrowed down to, minus the Globidens and the Carinodens included-

Eremiasaurus, Prognathodon-Anceps, Solyvai, Curii, Mosasaurus Baugei, Tethysaurus, Platecarpus, Halisaurus, and Goronyosaurus.

 

~If you need another angle of the tooth feel free to ask~

Edited July 15, 2017 by Olivia Doiron

[Miocene_Mason]

Most of these are prognathodon, there are those who are experts on both mosasaurs and morrocan fossils can give a more sure ID.

[JohnBrewer]

It is mosasaur. I expect the root is constructed though. If you want to check, it will be destructive test though, put it in water. The white just under the tooth is often plaster and will dissolve. 

 

The tooth part is genuine though. 

 

@LordTrilobite  

[LordTrilobite]

A pretty typical tooth from the Khouribga region in Morocco. The "root" is definitely fake. It's a random piece of bone that was attached to a real tooth crown. Real roots look much denser in structure.

 

The tooth crown itself does look quite nice. I've never ever heard of Tethysaurus and Goronyosaurus being present in Khouribga, so you can rule those out as well. The others are present at this location though. Halisaurus has strongly recurved teeth so you can rule that one out as well. Platecarpus ptychodon has pretty small teeth that are often laterally compressed and the lower half will often have strong ridges on the enamel.

 

Mosasaurus beaugei and Mosasaurus hoffmanni both normally have facets on the enamel of their teeth. Sometimes pretty strong facets, but sometimes these facets are completely absent. Due to the shape though, I wouldn't lean towards those two.

 

So that leaves Prognathodon and Eremiasaurus. It would be nice to see some kind of scale next to the tooth to see how big it is. Prognathodon and Eremiasaurus generally have fairly similar teeth and are really hard to distinguish from each other. As far as I know though, Eremiasaurus doesn't get as big with it's teeth though. And the teeth of Eremiasaurus seem to be more slender than some Prognathodon teeth. You can rule out Prognathodon currii as well as it has stubbier teeth.

 

For the time being I would label this as Prognathodon sp.

There are a lot of species within this genus though and this region hasn't been that well studied. So putting a species name is very hard from just a tooth crown alone.

[Olivia Doiron]

Thanks for the info, I had been suspecting that the root was fake but didn't want to test it and hurt the tooth somehow. As far as the species, I did lean toward it being maybe Eremiasaurus, Prognathodon and Mosasaurus Beaugei, but the feedback really helped out in securing that more and my root suscpion. Thanks!

Edited July 16, 2017 by Olivia Doiron