Moroccan dinosaur vertebrae

[Pterygotus]

How do these fossils look? They are labelled as:

1.indeterminate

2.rebbachiasaurus

3.carcharadontosaurus

4.spinosaurus

and could someone please ID the indeterminate one

[Pterygotus]

2. is somehow now 4.

[gigantoraptor]

According to your photo order:

We need more angles from all to be sure it aren't composites or to ID them

1: need more angles, might be a composite.

2: need more angles. Dorsal vertebra Carcharodontosaurid?

3: Spinosaurid caudal vertebra, process looks added. Probably the same for both prezygapophyses

4: Spinosaurus Cervical?

 

I get the impression all of these are repaired, restored, composited, had some filling...

[Haravex]

For me a hard pass of the first one from that angle it looks to have been composited. The second looks too small for a carcharadontosaur dorsal vertbrae but also looks to be genuine and can't see any area of restoration but from one photograph is hard to say for certain. 3 and 4 have had work done to them between the process and the centrum now this could be composition but to my eye looks to be a bad crack fill repair job, the common thing a lot of miners have done in the past is "oh no the fossil i found is falling apart and has bits missing quick mix some super glue and sand together ahhh ok all fixed now" it's this mentality which is not a good thing especially when there is a big market of composite fossils from Morocco. Without seeing better photographs from different angles I think it will be hard to say for sure but 3 is highly probable spinosauridae caudal vertbrae.

 

Thanks Matt

[LordTrilobite]

Hard pass on all of these.

They are all hybrid composites, not a single animal.

 

Regardless of what your original numbering was, I number them here by their order.

 

1 - Might be a sauropod caudal centrum with "something" on the top of it. The pleurocoel on the side of the centrum is something you see on Sauropods. But I think this is sometimes also present in dorsals of Carcharodontosaurids.

 

2 - The neural arch looks like it might be interesting, could be part of theropod or sauropod. Lacks good angles but I wouldn't be surprised if the centrum is from a croc cervical vert.

 

3 - Very likely Spinosaurid caudal centrum with garbage on top of it. Both what passes for the "neural spine" and "prezygapophyses" are added junk.

 

4 - Definitely a caudal vertebra centrum, it could possibly be mid to anterior Spinosaurid caudal. The neural arch definitely does not belong here. More photos and angles are needed to figure out what animal the neural arch comes from. It doesn't look like it's from a caudal vert though. It looks like it might be croc or Spino.

 

 

So pass on these unless you're willing to spend hours to break apart the mess that's been made.