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Teeth and jaw section from Aust cliff


Pterygotus

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Could someone please ID this tooth and  jaw section from Aust Cliff? The tooth is  2cm and Aust is triassic for those who don’t know.

 

positive and negative

 

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DCFFF7FC-CFEF-4E92-A940-02405F2B8123.jpeg

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And these strange things found in the same bone bed. The rib length was 5cm and these are about 2.5cm

AC479F73-FE3F-4FAB-AB02-16A6D4942E7A.jpeg

48C5E457-6742-42DB-AB47-740ABEB35B3F.jpeg

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Some of your pictures are quite blurry. 

Try backing up off of the subject, a bit.

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Some nice finds :wub: 

I think the tooth is an Ichthyosaur tooth although I don't really see the jaw section you see. .. The pictures are indeed a bit blurry. My best guess for the rib is Ichthyosaur too but it would help if you could take some better pictures. 

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Many greetings from Germany ! Have a great time with many fossils :)

Regards Sebastian

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2 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Some of your pictures are quite blurry. 

Try backing up off of the subject, a bit.

 

2 hours ago, belemniten said:

Some nice finds :wub: 

I think the tooth is an Ichthyosaur tooth although I don't really see the jaw section you see. .. The pictures are indeed a bit blurry. My best guess for the rib is Ichthyosaur too but it would help if you could take some better pictures. 

Better pics and the jaw section is circled

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7DC6845A-D8F3-4943-BBCD-DB81C0D8CCA2.jpeg

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  • 2 years later...

Impressive find! :look:

 

Yet while I do see what you mean with the bone at the base of the tooth continuing on the other side of the split rock, I think there's a good chance this may be part of the tooth's root, rather than jaw. Especially if this were an ichthyosaur tooth this seems very likely: the bone is neither thick nor deep enough to slit teeth into, yet ichthyosaur teeth have comparatively robust roots (owing to the fact that the shape and size of the roots appears to be what keeps the teeth in place in their trench).

 

As to the identity of the tooth and bones: I don't think enough can be made it out of the bones to determine what they belonged to (to me the rib doesn't look flat enough to be ichthyosaurian), nor do I believe that in context of a bonebed it'd be possible to assign them an identity based on association. I've seen multiple blocks from Aust Clif contain isolated remains of disparate species right next to each other...

 

As to the tooth, candidates for this would be Pachystropheus, plesiosaur, ichthyosaur, fish or varied land-based animals, including dinosaurs. I think, however, that we can safely disregard the latter and plesiosaur teeth as options, however, based on morphological dissimilarity. The tooth also looks too big for Pachystropheus, so we can drop that too, and while the teeth of Severnichthys can become quite sizeable, the tooth neither matches this species nor looks particularly ichthyan (not that I know much about fish and fish teeth, but I believe fish teeth are generally not as robust).

 

Together with the presumed root, then, I think @belemniten is right in this being an ichthyosaur tooth. It an odd type, however, as I believe most Upper Triassic and Early Jurassic ichthyosaur teeth - Ichthyosaurus, Leptonectes (although I must admit I've never actually seen teeth that could be attributed to this species with absolute certainty) - actually exhibit plicidentine (that is, enamel folds), which this specimen does not show. Certain species of Temnodontosaurus, however, have teeth that lack ornamentation but have carinae or are otherwise polygonal. As I believe I can observe some angularity in the very first picture of the tooth, I think this therefore what you've got: Temnodontosaurus cf. platyodon. Not a very common find for Aust Cliff, I believe. Well done! :default_clap2:

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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