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Coelophysis Teeth Diagnostic Features?


Squirrelman91

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I recently obtained a mixed lot of Bull Canyon teeth, which is a formation I'm unfamiliar with. I was wondering if Coelophysis teeth have certain features that one can look for to confidently assign them to this taxon? Are there any other species commonly confused with Coelophysis? It seems many of the ones for sale online being sold as Coelophysis may not actually be. Any advice is welcomed!

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  • 2 months later...
On 6/24/2018 at 10:34 PM, ynot said:

Welcome to TFF!

Can We see some pictures?

Hi ynot, thanks for warm welcome! There are a decent number of teeth in this lot, so I’ll try to upload as many as I can!

 

The first tooth (Pictures 2-4) is the one I most suspect of being Coelophysis. It is just a hair over an inch long, smooth all across, serrated on both sides, labiolingually flattened, and has no curvature.

 

The second tooth (1,5, and 6) was the only labeled one in the lot, and it was ID’ed as Staurikosaurus, but I have doubts. It is 5/8 inches long, has an exaggerated curve because of the break halfway down, but appears to have had a slight curvature prior to the break, it is much more robust than the last tooth, and has no serrations that I can see. There are also shallow grooves that start to appear towards the top of the tooth.

 

11AF77DD-8F6B-4ECF-AFF9-8D715DDE227D.jpeg

FC70A930-A511-46BA-994A-0FC505BF7F9A.jpeg

2C9357E6-6F7A-4F7E-8D22-470BD7AA19A4.jpeg

BE5C6A66-7A16-4DC8-8E3B-C5744C04AF80.jpeg

700D72C6-CCBB-4300-BBFD-EF0325940B5E.jpeg

7AC9781C-E8F7-42BD-A035-FEFA40BEF546.jpeg

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 A belated welcome to The Fossil Forum :) 

Nice teeth, BTW - would you mind sending me by PM details about where you got them from?

-Christian

Opalised fossils are the best: a wonderful mix between paleontology and mineralogy!

 

Q. Where do dinosaurs study?

A. At Khaan Academy!...

 

My ResearchGate profile

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Staurikosaurus is described from older deposits than those of the Bull Canyon Fm and I believe only from Brazil.  Its also a pretty small dino and your tooth a bit big for its skull.   Does not look dinosaurian.

 

Your other tooth resembles the one I looked at in my post from above and concluded it was not coelophysis or Coelophysisid.  The serration density was all wrong and it was not recurved. Also to large to be considered Coelophysis and I added a page to my post that give one a perspective of size.   I'm leaning against this morphology being dinosaurian just because of size but do have any supporting publication to say what it is.  Very little is published on triassic teeth and very little from this fauna why I put out the above post.  

 

 Enjoy you teeth and someday we might have a better understanding of who their owner was.

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1 hour ago, Squirrelman91 said:

There are a decent number of teeth in this lot, so I’ll try to upload as many as I can!

Thanks.

Nice teeth, even if We do not know whose they belonged to.

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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