Potential dinosaur teeth (but probably not)

[frankh8147]

Hello!

 

I just wanted to check on these two pieces before they go into the black hole known as my 'unidentifiable bone' bin.

 

Both are from Monmouth County New Jersey (Cretaceous). I found fossil number 1 two days ago and unfortunately, it didn't make the trip back home in one piece. When I looked at it though, the broken sections looked more like my broken Mosasaur and Enchodus teeth than bone (scan below), and it also reminded me of a fossil my brother found years ago that we weren't able to identify. I looked online and the texture of the recent 'thing' looked similar to some dinosaur teeth (Titanosaur and sauropod especially) so I just wanted to see what everyone thought.

 

Thanks again!

-Frank

[frankh8147]

Number two...

 

Note - aesthetically, it looks like a Hadrosaur tooth but is lacking the ridges. It's my belief that it's broken.

[frankh8147]

One more of the bases. The one on the left measures a shade under 1.25 inches, the one on the left measures about 1.4 inches (bad camera angle).

[TyBoy]

What formation are you in?

Is that bone around the "hadro" tooth?

[frankh8147]

1 hour ago, TyBoy said:

What formation are you in?

Is that bone around the "hadro" tooth?

Both should be Wenonah but I'm digging in an area with thin layers. I believe it to be bone around both specimens.

[Troodon]

Not sure I can be of help with an ID.   Hadrosaur and sauropod crowns should not have any bone around them.   Im not aware of any sauropod material being reported from late Campanian/Maastrichtian deposits of NJ.

[frankh8147]

50 minutes ago, Troodon said:

Not sure I can be of help with an ID.   Hadrosaur and sauropod crowns should not have any bone around them.   Im not aware of any sauropod material being reported from late Campanian/Maastrichtian deposits of NJ

Hmm.. are you thinking more on the side of deteriorated bone or do you think they are teeth of some sort?

 

I'm not aware of sauropod material from here either but I've seen some strange things come out of these streams so that's why I felt it was worth posting here.

[Carl]

I'm thinking the first one is a piece of petrified wood. It has a circular hole (made by drilling clams) in it that is commonly seen in petrified wood bits from NJ's Cretaceous. A proper ID would require extreme magnification. The second looks like it could be a shard of mosasaur tooth root. Compare it to stuff Ralph has in the MAPS collection.

[The Jersey Devil]

I agree with Carl. The second one has the appearance/texture of Mosasaur roots, but I don’t know if you can be 100% on that.

[northnjhiker]

They look like mosasaur. And they were found in the area in the late Cretaceous. Cool find!

[vellis]

I’m talking about the one that is in two pieces in my post here.

 

I’m not seeing mosasaur there, I’m far from an expert, but mosasaurs and plesiosaurs are most of the non-shark teeth that we have around here.  

 

If I am following correctly, the broken one is the one we are saying may be a mosasaur tooth.  Agree that the general shape of the broken part kind of resembles a mosy tooth.  And the dimensions of the “root” would somewhat close to right for a tooth.  Actually I just looked at a bunch of pics and the root seems to be bigger in diameter that the tooth in most.

 

But I don’t see the texture of a mosasaur tooth, and the shape looks a little off.  Are we saying that it is a tumbled around very worn tooth?  I’m surprised that the root is still attached then.  What about the back side of the tooth part that is all tan colored, is that matrix?  I’ve never seen that stuck to a tooth like that either.   

 

Most of the mosasaur teeth that I have seen with a root, the root is not that same color as the tooth, and you can easily tell where the tooth stops and the root starts.

 

Also that would be a very small mosasaur tooth.  I’m not sure around where this one was found, but around here, finding a root with the tooth is the few and far between exception and not the rule.

 

I could be totally off here, not seeing it in person, but I’m not seeing mosasaur.

[Plax]

Number one could be a big very worn enchodus tooth. Number two, first pic, seems to have an enamel section with wrinkles (crenulation?) like a hadrosaur tooth or some mosasaur teeth.  Not saying it's either one just saying it has the wrinkles.

[vellis]

3 hours ago, Plax said:

Number one could be a big very worn enchodus tooth. Number two, first pic, seems to have an enamel section with wrinkles (crenulation?) like a hadrosaur tooth or some mosasaur teeth.  Not saying it's either one just saying it has the wrinkles.

 

I can speak zero to hadrosaur teeth, I’ve never seeen one, I can add nothing in that direction.  And I know that you know your stuff Plax, I went back and looked at a post of mine  from 2012, when I was just getting started,  you added an insightful comment to it, and you already had a good base of knowledge.    

 

What about the base of the tooth? Does that look right for mosasaur?  The ones that I am used to seeing look different, like this one of mine, with a hole in the base too.

 

Wondering if @JarrodB has an opinion about this one.   He is deep in mosasaur country here, with the North Sulphur River, and I bet he has seen a lot of mosasaur teeth.

 

[Plax]

We are only looking at a small frag and everything is worn which is why we can't come to a positive conclusion. I have seen many mosasaur and hadrosaurine teeth from the east coast and am only guessing based on the small enamel portion of the one object that has the crenulations (if thats the word). Neither of these fossils look like a complete anything so that the sight picture doesn't fit if you've only seen or collected fairly completely specimens. Even a half or quarter of a tooth may have diagnostic features that could possibly lead to an identification.

[frankh8147]

Thank you to everyone for your responses!

 

I had a bad feeling these would both be fragmentary (I was hoping for something different with the first tooth but the ID's given here all make sense). On the first one, it does look like some fossil wood I have found from the area, as @Carl suggested. I will be able to get that under magnification to confirm in a few months as I visit the state museum pretty frequently. 

 

As per the second one, I was pretty sure it was fragmentary. I did have it in my head it could be part of a rooted Mosasaur but wasn't sure. If it's Mosasaur, that can be tough to ID in this area because Mosasaur teeth and sockets greatly vary in size here. Also, the amount of stream wear also makes that tougher!

 

For comparison sake, here are some Mosasaur teeth, verts, and sockets, I found within a few miles of these two. As you can see, the sizes vary greatly!

[JarrodB]

I'm not sure what it is but I don't think it's mosasaur. 

[Carl]

Definitely compare this to things in the MAPS collection.

[non-remanié]

The first is without question wood.  The second is a bone shard, can't see it well enough to say mosasaur but its possible.