Latest Lower Carboniferous/ Mississippian shark finds

[Archie]

1 hour ago, Wrangellian said:

Didn't notice your reply until now - Great jellyfish! And great name..

Thank you! I think it means something along the lines of "the jellyfish that cannot be seen in the rain"

[jdp]

8 hours ago, Archie said:

I havent been able to ID this little tooth but I do recognise it from a jaw I found a few years ago in the same formation, the teeth seem to have a little translucent crown. I'm currently thinking a juvenile rhizodont of some sort but any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

This is not a rhizodont but it is a pretty classic example of a maxilla and preopercular of a ray-finned fish (paleoniscoid). You can see the small arrowhead-like acrodin caps on the teeth as well as the overall cleaver shame of the maxilla. 

[Wrangellian]

3 hours ago, Archie said:

Thank you! I think it means something along the lines of "the jellyfish that cannot be seen in the rain"

pluvensobscura - sure, I could have figured that out...  But what does the genus name mean?? 

[Archie]

11 hours ago, jdp said:

 

This is not a rhizodont but it is a pretty classic example of a maxilla and preopercular of a ray-finned fish (paleoniscoid). You can see the small arrowhead-like acrodin caps on the teeth as well as the overall cleaver shame of the maxilla. 

Ah fantastic thank you! Paleoniscoid bony ray-fins are the most common finds in this bed, this is from a much larger fish than any I've found before though!

 

8 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

pluvensobscura - sure, I could have figured that out...  But what does the genus name mean?? 

Got it the whole name means "the jellyfish that fell in the mud and cannot be seen in the rain"  

[jdp]

Some paleoscoids get quite large. In that area and age, I'd probably assign it to Nematoptychius, but it could potentially be a lot of things.

[Archie]

That's certainly a genus that has been found commonly in this formation in this area, like you say it could potentially be a lot of things though! I'll just label it as Paleoniscoid Maxilla and Preopercular for now, thanks for your help!

[Archie]

I had a trip out with a friend on Wednesday to one of my fave marine sites and we both came away with a good haul of nice teeth and inverts. A tooth I was really excited about turned out to be a partial after prep and it was the find I was least excited about that turned out to be the trip maker, and possibly one of my favourite finds of all time! I spotted a single Helodus with a bit of a ding with just the tip of another close by on the surface of a large block, managed to extract a large square block surrounding the teeth and took it home to prep. What started as two teeth soon turned into three then four then five! It looks like it may be a single partially articulated tooth file but I'm getting it investigated to see if there's any more inside.

[Archie]

Forgot to say, for scale the longest tooth in the centre is 9mm.

[TNCollector]

On ‎1‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 12:40 PM, Archie said:

I havent been able to ID this little tooth but I do recognise it from a jaw I found a few years ago in the same formation, the teeth seem to have a little translucent crown. I'm currently thinking a juvenile rhizodont of some sort but any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

This looks like the jaw from a palaeonisciform fish. If it is, it may be a pretty significant find as associated material is very rare from the Carboniferous...

 

Edit: It looks pretty fragile/crumbly, I would try to consolidate it with some Butvar B-76 or similar.

[Tidgy's Dad]

9 hours ago, Archie said:

Forgot to say, for scale the longest tooth in the centre is 9mm.

Lovely finds! 

Beautiful little assemblage of teeth! 

[Archie]

1 hour ago, TNCollector said:

This looks like the jaw from a palaeonisciform fish. If it is, it may be a pretty significant find as associated material is very rare from the Carboniferous...

 

Edit: It looks pretty fragile/crumbly, I would try to consolidate it with some Butvar B-76 or similar.

Complete fish do occur fairly frequently in this formation, I've been lucky enough to find around a dozen complete palaeonisciform actinopterygians, a single large complete acanthodian and isolated teeth,bones,scales in a few quarries and spoil heaps just a 15 minute walk from my home  I keep a couple of contacts in a couple of Scottish museums up to date with what I'm finding. It does looks like its about to fall apart but its actually completely solid!

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Lovely finds! 

Beautiful little assemblage of teeth! 

Thank you!  

[Archie]

I have a few albums for this formation on here but here's a lovely specimen of Elonichthys robisoni taken from the interweb's that was found at the same quarry as the maxillary.

[Archie]

On 29/01/2018 at 1:38 AM, Tidgy's Dad said:

Lovely finds! 

Beautiful little assemblage of teeth! 

Thank you!  

 

 

I had a trip out on Monday to a site I'd found a huge bony looking fossil a few months ago that I'd had to leave behind as I didn't have the necessary tools or skill to extract it. With the help of my hunting buddy Rich (he basically did all the work!) I was finally able to get it out embedded in a huge block of limestone still to take home for prep. We thought it might be a large Rhizodont bone or something washed in from a nearby river as all that was showing just looked like worn bone, but it turned out to be something much more exciting! What looked like the cross section of bone was actually the root of a huge crushing tooth of Psammodus rugosus, its turned out to be just over 10cm across! Cant thank my buddy Rich enough for helping me extract this I'd never have managed it without his experience and skill!    

[Tidgy's Dad]

Wow! 

What a find ! 

That's a monster! 

[Ludwigia]

That's the strangest shaped tooth I've ever seen. Where's the chewing surface?

[Archie]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Wow! 

What a find ! 

That's a monster! 

Thanks! 

I had no idea they got this big!

47 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

That's the strangest shaped tooth I've ever seen. Where's the chewing surface?

Me too! The entire surface facing the camera is the chewing surface, its the corrugated pattern that its named for. Here's a side on shot

[TNCollector]

That is absolutely amazing! I don't know what else to say.

[Archie]

6 minutes ago, TNCollector said:

That is absolutely amazing! I don't know what else to say.

Thanks Jim!  

[Ludwigia]

5 hours ago, Archie said:

 

Me too! The entire surface facing the camera is the chewing surface, its the corrugated pattern that its named for. Here's a side on shot

 

Amazing! I wouldn't want to get between 2 of these things

[ynot]

WOW! Cool find!

[deutscheben]

Those Helodus are excellent! I love to see associated Paleozoic teeth.

[Archie]

On ‎09‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 5:45 AM, Ludwigia said:

Amazing! I wouldn't want to get between 2 of these things

Haha I think I'd even prefer a bite from Megalodon!

 

On ‎10‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 5:03 AM, ynot said:

WOW! Cool find!

Thanks Tony  

 

On ‎10‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 4:37 PM, deutscheben said:

Those Helodus are excellent! I love to see associated Paleozoic teeth.

Thank you  me too! Ive just recently found a spattering of Orodus teeth on a plate I'm hoping are associated!

[Archie]

Another couple of finds from my trip out last weekend, the largest Petalodus acuminatus. Ive found yet at 36mm across and my first Ctenoptychius in labial view.

 

[ynot]

1 hour ago, Archie said:

first Ctenoptychius in labial view.

So, I am confused.

Is that the first one ever You found or the first one that You found in labial view?

 

Either way some nice additions for Your collection!

[Archie]

Thanks Tony!   

Its not the first Ctenoptychius Ive found but the first in labial view, I was actually looking closely at it last night and there's another couple of teeth right next to it I'm thinking are likely associated and one is a lateral tooth (the one pictured is an anterior) so I'm hoping its a disarticulated dentition