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Unknown mammal tooth fragment


hahnewald

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This was picked up on a beach of the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Town among washed up gravel where I often find fossilized Mako and Great White shark teeth from the miocene epoch. It measures 4.2cm in lenth. Any response will be appreciated. Thank You.

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How's it going @hahnewald About time you made it to this forum. I'm your friend on Instagram and my alias on there is jsnrice. Not sure what tooth you have. I wonder if this is fish related but I'm not a mammal expert, shark teeth are up my aisle though. 4.2 cm is nearly two inches so that's a big tooth for a mammal. Definitely not a horse or camel tooth.

Do or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

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I am thinking whatever the South Africian version of Mastodon.. I will get a photo of one of my fragments from Florida.. Nice find and Welcome toTFF

mastodon.thumb.jpg.39ca382304a127e78c81750f772ae788.jpg

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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6 hours ago, Fossil-Hound said:

How's it going @hahnewald About time you made it to this forum. I'm your friend on Instagram and my alias on there is jsnrice. Not sure what tooth you have. I wonder if this is fish related but I'm not a mammal expert, shark teeth are up my aisle though. 4.2 cm is nearly two inches so that's a big tooth for a mammal. Definitely not a horse or camel tooth.

Hey @Fossil-Hound, nice to bump into you over here! Yeah, I'm very puzzled by this fragment since it's also just such an oddly shaped bit. It definitely has enamel like substance but but it just does not match anything i've seen before. I have no clue which side could be top or bottom, chewing surface, part of the root, etc...? Hoping for some clarity on this subject. Some more pics below...

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5 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

I am thinking whatever the South Africian version of Mastodon.. I will get a photo of one of my fragments from Florida.. Nice find and Welcome toTFF

mastodon.thumb.jpg.39ca382304a127e78c81750f772ae788.jpg

Hi @Shellseeker, many thanks for your input. I look forward to seeing the pics of your fragment. I posted some more pics in my reply to @Fossil-Hound above.

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I think it looks a little thin for mastodon, I'm thinking the root end of a mammoth tooth

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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4 hours ago, jcbshark said:

I think it looks a little thin for mastodon, I'm thinking the root end of a mammoth tooth

For exactly your reason, I think you are correct. Mammoth fragment it is .. I was thinking that outer texture and shape ..

I found that Gomph is a possibility even though far more rare than Mammoth.

Cenozoic Mammals of Africa

By Lars Werdelin, William Joseph Sanders

SAGomph2.JPG.38eb10b15642432efd96b727c003b3de.JPG

 

here is another.

SAGomph.JPG.0f3de3c2d7718ac19c44fa935314b5e5.JPG

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The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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8 hours ago, hahnewald said:

Hi @Shellseeker, many thanks for your input. I look forward to seeing the pics of your fragment. I posted some more pics in my reply to @Fossil-Hound above.

 

Here is a TFF link that shows some Mastodon finds from Florida with similar external texture to yours.

Your tooth is either Mammoth or Mastodon and the thinness of enamel seems to be Mammoth.

image.png.11a8fde88bde7db0b82e419e59956a53.png

 

@Harry Pristis is a fantastic TFF expert & resource. and produces picture like this one below that show the internal view of a Mastodon tooth.

HarryPristis.jpg.bdf9024c240ab150824e358cb0d4416c.jpg

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The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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6 minutes ago, Bronto said:

It is an early whale. Not familiar with your area. Here is one from the states.: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/86674/20150921/scientists-find-prehistoric-whale-fossil-in-santa-cruz-county.htm

 

 

Was my first thought as well, thought archeocetes had already gone extinct though....

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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It could have washed out from anywhere if it's a beach find. A nice one at that. Take it to your local museum or university paleo lab for a better id.

 

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7 hours ago, Bronto said:

It is an early whale. Not familiar with your area. Here is one from the states.: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/86674/20150921/scientists-find-prehistoric-whale-fossil-in-santa-cruz-county.htm

 

 

Thanks @Shellseeker and @jcbshark for the time taken. Mammoth was also one of my first option as I have found fragments of their teeth before. What kept me from the positive ID was the significant difference in texture of the non enamel part of the fragments. Then I came across an Instagram post by @Fossilhunter_Charlotte of what a fellow enthusiast identified as probably a jawbone fragment of Delphinodon Dividum (pic below), which prompted me to have another look at my specimen, as I thought it could be a tooth fragment of a similar animal.

Thank you to @WhodamanHD and @Bronto for their opinion regarding prehistoric whales. This is greatly appreciated and certainly adds more spice to my quest to ID this particular fragment.

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I agree with the others that say this is a piece of a mammoth (or elephant) tooth. I think it is an unerupted part that has the cementum eroded off exposing just the enamel. The first picture shows an elephant tooth with unerupted parts and the second shows a similar mammoth tooth with the cementum worn away.

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14 hours ago, hahnewald said:

Thank you to @WhodamanHD and @Bronto for their opinion regarding prehistoric whales. This is greatly appreciated and certainly adds more spice to my quest to ID this particular fragment.

No problem! I'm curious, is delphinodon a dolphin genus?

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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18 hours ago, hahnewald said:

Thanks @Shellseeker and @jcbshark for the time taken. Mammoth was also one of my first option as I have found fragments of their teeth before. What kept me from the positive ID was the significant difference in texture of the non enamel part of the fragments. Then I came across an Instagram post by @Fossilhunter_Charlotte of what a fellow enthusiast identified as probably a jawbone fragment of Delphinodon Dividum (pic below), which prompted me to have another look at my specimen, as I thought it could be a tooth fragment of a similar animal.

Thank you to @WhodamanHD and @Bronto for their opinion regarding prehistoric whales. This is greatly appreciated and certainly adds more spice to my quest to ID this particular fragment.

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@Boesse

 

Fantastic Find!!!  I love marine mammal..  TFF is fortunate to have one of the foremost experts on marine mammals.. Lets see what Bobby says...

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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1 hour ago, Shellseeker said:

@Boesse

 

Fantastic Find!!!  I love marine mammal..  TFF is fortunate to have one of the foremost experts on marine mammals.. Lets see what Bobby says...

Delphinodon dividum was the first critter that came to mind. I do wonder if Tretosphys is synonymous with Delphinodon...

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21 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

No problem! I'm curious, is delphinodon a dolphin genus?

I really don't know, @WhodamanHD...I was quoting how @Fossilhunter_Charlotte captioned the image of the jawbone fragment on her Instagram post. 

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The opinions on this topic have been really exciting to explore. Thanks to @Boesse and his expertise for also weighing in and contributing. I think I will really enjoy my time spent on TFF

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I think I messed up the image in my previous post. Here it is compared with the holotype specimens that Boesse provided. 

mamm.jpeg

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Your tooth fragment measures 4.2 cm in length.  This photo seems to show much smaller teeth, as does Bobby's holotype. Do yo have a size measurement on the jawbone from @Fossilhunter_Charlotte ?

59d699f8b54e7_Delphinodondividum1.thumb.png.2c5032afee9cb792577118a7a269f7c0.png

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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On 05 October 2017 at 10:50 PM, Shellseeker said:

Your tooth fragment measures 4.2 cm in length.  This photo seems to show much smaller teeth, as does Bobby's holotype. Do yo have a size measurement on the jawbone from @Fossilhunter_Charlotte ?

59d699f8b54e7_Delphinodondividum1.thumb.png.2c5032afee9cb792577118a7a269f7c0.png

Hi @Shellseeker, apologies for the late response. Was on a hike in an area without signal. The measurements of @Fossilhunter_Charlotte's specimen are consistent with the measurements in your pic above. The size of my fragment probably means that it is not Delphinodon after all. 

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Hmm, it seems I've gotten a bit confused here. THIS is Delphinodon, and what I was responding to at first, and the specimen which I thought everyone was referring to:

image.jpeg.19b702c7f42a1ffb3b7a01c02bd9e7ce.jpeg

The original post is pretty clearly a piece of mammoth enamel (e.g. a single loph)!

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On 20 October 2017 at 1:40 AM, Boesse said:

Hmm, it seems I've gotten a bit confused here. THIS is Delphinodon, and what I was responding to at first, and the specimen which I thought everyone was referring to:

image.jpeg.19b702c7f42a1ffb3b7a01c02bd9e7ce.jpeg

The original post is pretty clearly a piece of mammoth enamel (e.g. a single loph)!

That sounds conclusive. Thank you very much!

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