Mosasaur tooth from South Lithuania?

[D.N.FossilmanLithuania]

Good evening Guys, 

Today I splitted some flint erratics in gravel and except some fish remains founde this tooth. It is straight in sculpture, 5 mm length, serrated edges are not visible and its vertical groove texture is irregular what makes me think it does not represent fish. I would say it is baby mosasaur or very small mosasaur species, but I want to find out which taxon would be the most correct for this find. 

If you see features typical to known reptile or other vertebrate group, please let me know.

Any help will be appreciated! 

 

Best Regards

Domas

    

[Troodon]

Nice tooth.  Looks very similiar to the other tooth you posted except not serrated.  Serrations or the lack of may be positional or varies between animal.  

[D.N.FossilmanLithuania]

Troodon thank you, I agree that animal group can have different features in species.  

What could you tell about mosasaur possibility, especially in this post?

I am looking for narrow taxon ID. 

 

Best Regards

Domas 

[Darko]

Very nice tooth

[D.N.FossilmanLithuania]

Thank you Darko, the flint erratics in my area are Late Mesozoic- Early Cenozoic in age so many different vertebrates can be found there.

Some of the teeth that are quite similar could have little different features. Troodon, very great is your idea about similarity of that two teeth but there are two differences between finds- 

"Pterosaur or Richardoestesia like tooth" is narrow, long like a needle and has serrations, "mosasaur like tooth" is wider and shorter, has no serrations and there is visible even third difference-

the irregular (collapse like) vertical grooves are bigger and more massive than in the needle like archosaur tooth.

 

Best Regards

Domas 

[D.N.FossilmanLithuania]

Dear Guys, 

 

I recently noticed the second tooth with the same features and size in my collection but it is not complete (without top of crown and root). 

I found out one subject about the both teeth- the surface texture of vertical grooves and its measures, size of teeth, cutting edge and width- length ratio makes me think these teeth belong to Polycotylidae, the specific plesiosaur like reptiles that lived until the end of Cretaceous and have many small, short cutting teeth in jaws.  

Here are the links in them: 

http://oceansofkansas.com/dolichorhynchops.html

http://fossilworks.org/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=100152

Maybe the teeth belong to juvenile polycotylids, what do you think about this idea?    

 

Best Regards

Domas

[Anomotodon]

I think these are Enchodus fish teeth. They have high degree of positional variation, in addition, often have similar sculptured enamel and almost triangular cross-section (example - my Enchodus 'fang' from Albian of Ukraine). Other fish are also a possibility, but, unfortunately, I doubt that they are reptilian.

Polycotylid teeth should lack carinae, unlike all listed teeth and usually have sigmoid profiles (which is not a trait of this tooth). Mosasaur is unlikely too, these specimens are too compressed.