Not Fossil of the Month... Eocene mammal jaw

[jpc]

I was going to post this in the fossil of the month for July, until I looked at the date it was collected...mid-June.  My, how time flies.

 

Last Spring I found a nice Eocene mammal tooth site west of home.  In a few hours I collected a few teeth and made a note to return soon.  I did so in June and spent another few hours there (as well as exploring other nearby sites).  I collected about 20 complete isolated mammal teeth and two jaws.  Here is the better of the two.  I am pretty tickled with not only this specimen, but this site as well.  It will be a lot of fun to keep going back to.  

 

That is my fingerprint for scale.  The front of the jaw is facing left; the missing jaw joint is on the right.  Notice that the first tooth on the left (third premolar) is taller than the others, and that the third molar (right-most tooth) is quite long.  As far as I know, these make it a primate.  Not a monkey, mind you, but something along the lines of more primitive primates, such as tarsiers.  (Then again, the current classification of these things is quite complicated and it may not be a primate at all).  There was quite a collection of these things and similar beasts here during the Eocene, mostly quite small and only known from teeth and jaws.   

 

so in FOTM format:

• Date of Discovery... 15 June 2019
• Scientific and/or Common Name... Primate
• Geologic Age or Geologic Formation... Wind River Fm., early Eocene
• State, Province, or Region Found... Wyoming
• Photos of Find (Please limit to 4 clear, cropped, and well-lit images.)  see below.  
  (If prepped, before and after photos are required, please.)
• 

 

[PaleoNoel]

That's an amazing find and certainly would've received my vote if it had made the cutoff.

[Randyw]

Very cool! And not something heavily represented here. But as you may have noticed I have a soft spot for early mammals 

[jpc]

7 minutes ago, Randyw said:

Very cool! And not something heavily represented here. But as you may have noticed I have a soft spot for early mammals 

me too.  

[caterpillar]

Nice find JP

[Troodon]

Very cool, also love mammal material and jaw sections are exceptional.  Any hope of identifying it beyond primate?

[Jeffrey P]

An incredible find!  Congratulations and thank you for sharing it. I would love to collect Eocene mammal material someday. 

[FossilNerd]

Very cool! Too bad it missed the FOTM. Would have given the other entries some heavy competition! 

[digit]

Very cool and tiny fossil. Though it did not meet the requirements for FOTM, that doesn't mean that we can't drool over it here.

 

Is there much primate (or primate-like) material from the Eocene found in your area? I'm wondering if this rises to the level of a scientifically important fossil? You'd have adequate contacts to find out.

 

Hope that site continues to produce some great Eocene mammal fossils for you.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[RJB]

  sorry this didnt make FOTM JP.   A very interesting fossil.  I had to look up Tarsiers to get an idea what your talkiing about.  You have some nice clean finger prints too. 

 

RB

[Wolf89]

That is an awesome find!

[Fossilis Willis]

What a awesome find. I'm already banging my head against the wall trying to decide which fossil to vote for. I don't know if my wall could've handled that entry.

[jpc]

9 hours ago, Troodon said:

Very cool, also love mammal material and jaw sections are exceptional.  Any hope of identifying it beyond primate?

Hope, yes.  Skill and knowledge, maybe.  Time, not really.  I am OK with Primate or primate-like for now.

 

7 hours ago, digit said:

 

 

Is there much primate (or primate-like) material from the Eocene found in your area? I'm wondering if this rises to the level of a scientifically important fossil? You'd have adequate contacts to find out.

 

 

 Yeah, lots of Eocene stuff around here, and primates were among the more common mammals at that time.  And lots of papers on the stuff.  It is eminently identifiable as it has fairly complete dentition (i.e. lots of teeth) and these things are IDed by the teeth.  I would be surprised if it is anything new.  

[jpc]

7 hours ago, RJB said:

  sorry this didnt make FOTM JP.   A very interesting fossil.  I had to look up Tarsiers to get an idea what your talkiing about.  You have some nice clean finger prints too. 

 

RB

Clean fingerprints cuz I spend too much time at the computer.  

[siteseer]

Hi JP,

 

The funny thing is I was just talking to Fossillarry today and one of the things we talked about was Eocene mammals.  It's a group of a time not often discussed on the Fossil Forum because they are so different from what is familiar even to many mammal fossil collectors.  On top of that the mammals you find, especially from the Early Eocene, are almost always teeth and jaw sections (that specimen is particularly nice because it has five teeth in it and they all appear to be complete) and tend to be small as you noted.  

 

It's also important to note that the Eocene Epoch covers a lot of the Cenozoic Era - roughly 22 million years.  At the beginning of the Eocene much of what is now the Rocky Mountain region (Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico) and even extending north through Canada was tropical jungle.  Across the Eocene climates, became cooler and drier so the animals typical of the Early Eocene are very different from those of the Late Eocene.  In the Early Eocene there were little primates, "Eohippus"-like horses, and mammals with no modern relatives like Esthonyx and phenacodonts.  Rodents were relatively rare as they had just appeared.  There were no cats nor dogs but you would have seen their ancestors - vaguely weasel-like mammals.  The mammals of the Late Eocene would have been similar in many cases to what you would see in the Oligocene (oreodonts, Mesohippus, various rhinos, early dogs, early camels, etc.).

 

I have a collection of mammals from the Eocene, but as you know, they can be tough to photograph due to their size.  Years ago, I mentioned Hyopsodus and someone asked for a photo.  Unfortunately, my friend who could get those shots moved away some time ago.  I have a number of specimens I would like to have shared with the Forum.

 

Anyway, that should be a very identifiable specimen.  You would need a shot straight down at the tooth crowns.  You might try contacting Jonathan Bloch at the University of Florida.  He studies Paleocene-Eocene mammals, primates in particular.

 

Jess

[Scipio]

Well done! That is a fantastic find! 

[jpc]

On 7/31/2019 at 7:41 PM, siteseer said:

Hi JP,

 

The funny thing is I was just talking to Fossillarry today and one of the things we talked about was Eocene mammals.  It's a group of a time not often discussed on the Fossil Forum because they are so different from what is familiar even to many mammal fossil collectors.  On top of that the mammals you find, especially from the Early Eocene, are almost always teeth and jaw sections (that specimen is particularly nice because it has five teeth in it and they all appear to be complete) and tend to be small as you noted.  

 

It's also important to note that the Eocene Epoch covers a lot of the Cenozoic Era - roughly 22 million years.  At the beginning of the Eocene much of what is now the Rocky Mountain region (Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico) and even extending north through Canada was tropical jungle.  Across the Eocene climates, became cooler and drier so the animals typical of the Early Eocene are very different from those of the Late Eocene.  In the Early Eocene there were little primates, "Eohippus"-like horses, and mammals with no modern relatives like Esthonyx and phenacodonts.  Rodents were relatively rare as they had just appeared.  There were no cats nor dogs but you would have seen their ancestors - vaguely weasel-like mammals.  The mammals of the Late Eocene would have been similar in many cases to what you would see in the Oligocene (oreodonts, Mesohippus, various rhinos, early dogs, early camels, etc.).

 

I have a collection of mammals from the Eocene, but as you know, they can be tough to photograph due to their size.  Years ago, I mentioned Hyopsodus and someone asked for a photo.  Unfortunately, my friend who could get those shots moved away some time ago.  I have a number of specimens I would like to have shared with the Forum.

 

Anyway, that should be a very identifiable specimen.  You would need a shot straight down at the tooth crowns.  You might try contacting Jonathan Bloch at the University of Florida.  He studies Paleocene-Eocene mammals, primates in particular.

 

Jess

Excellent synopsis of the western US Eocene fauna etc.  

 

I am a big fan for several reasons.  They are not easy to find, for one.  And they come in quite a variety of flavors.  I wish I had more time to actually ID them, but I do have a lot of papers on them, so I am halfway there.  (Maybe).  I do like the other stuff you can find in our local Eocene beds...crocs and turtles and lizards and well, even the fishes.  (I am speaking here of the local Eocene that is NOT the famous Green River Fm).  

 

Thanks for the U of FL contact.  I do know him, and I have other Eocene mammal specialists in my rolodex as well.  

 

So, are your specimens shareable with the Forum?  

 

[digit]

6 hours ago, jpc said:

Thanks for the U of FL contact.

Jonathan Bloch is a great guy and currently the Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the FLMNH. He comes out to work at the volunteer digs (most recently the Montbrook site which is receiving a lot of attention in the past several years). I know he is interested in mammals but didn't know that he has particular interest in primates. He's certainly not going to be getting Eocene primate material from Florida so he might enjoy seeing some from Wyoming.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[siteseer]

20 hours ago, jpc said:

Excellent synopsis of the western US Eocene fauna etc.  

 

I am a big fan for several reasons.  They are not easy to find, for one.  And they come in quite a variety of flavors.  I wish I had more time to actually ID them, but I do have a lot of papers on them, so I am halfway there.  (Maybe).  I do like the other stuff you can find in our local Eocene beds...crocs and turtles and lizards and well, even the fishes.  (I am speaking here of the local Eocene that is NOT the famous Green River Fm).  

 

Thanks for the U of FL contact.  I do know him, and I have other Eocene mammal specialists in my rolodex as well.  

 

So, are your specimens shareable with the Forum?  

 

 

I've always been interested in Paleocene-Eocene mammals especially all the odd, extinct groups.  Many are difficult to explain in modern terms because they don't have even any modern distant relatives.  Some disappeared before the earliest horse, rhino, dog, or camel.  And yeah, the average fossil collector isn't going to go out to the Willwood or Wind River Formation when you can go to another area and find larger mammal jaw sections and bones in the Oligocene or still another area and find dinosaur stuff.

 

I met Dr. Bloch a few years ago through a friend who brought me along during a museum visit.  He had a really cool artwork of an early primate in his office and we talked about it - see below.

 

Yeah, I'll try to get some good photos but I don't think I can get good shots of some of the smaller teeth like Hyopsodus.

 

Jess

 

 

[Max-fossils]

Such a cool find  

[dalmayshun]

Fossil  forum is such a valuable place to learn, and see things and learn things I would otherwise miss...in many ways a different museum like experience...knowledgeable people commenting, great amateur finds, references to explanatory papers, more extensive access than many museums...especially because they often don't exhibit the common little bits and pieces that most of us find. I am so thankful for it. 

[siteseer]

Hi JP,

 

Attached is a photo of a Coryphodon upper molar I've had for at least 20 years.  I was told it was found by a Florida collector who had permission to look around on some land in Park County, Wyoming back in the 70's.  He found a number of teeth on the surface.  He had no idea what he had and sold everything he found to the company, Geological Enterprises.  At the time Allen Graffham then sent it all to Father Floyd Jenkins, a Jesuit priest who taught biology at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, CA.  Father Jenkins studied mammals among many other groups and his expertise extended to Early Cenozoic and even Cretaceous forms.  He identified everything and sent it back to Allen who sold some of it through his catalogue and sold/traded some to other dealers.

 

I knew Father Jenkins late in his life during the 1990's and visited him at his office a few times.  He was an incredibly knowledgeable man who seemed to have an intelligent opinion on everything.  I miss talking to him.  You can read about his life here:

 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mercurynews/obituary.aspx?n=floyd-a-jenkins&pid=459893&fhid=2112

 

Coryphodon belonged to the Family Coryphodontidae and the Order Pantodonta, a group of stocky, herbivores that started small (cat-sized) in the early Paleocene but reached larger size by the Early Eocene.  Coryphodon was the size of a cow and was the largest land mammal in the world in its time. 

 

Coryphodontids spread from Asia into Europe and North America at the beginning of the Eocene.  They died out during the middle Eocene in  North America but the last of them (and the last of the pantodonts) survived in Asia until the late Eocene.  They have no modern relatives.

 

The first photo is a view looking down at the biting surface.  The second is a side view.  The crown is about 1 1/2 inches along its greatest dimension (top to bottom in the first photo) and about 1 3/8 inches high from the top edge of the crown to the ends of the roots.

 

Jess

 

 

 

[jpc]

I am only now seeing this, Jess.  

 

Nice tooth.  Nice story of Father Jenkins.  I was not familiar with this man and the tale.  

 

Here is a Coryphodon canine tooth I prepped earlier this year.  I think I entered it in fossil of the month, so it may look familiar.

 

(One more note on my Eocene finds above... these are from the early Eocene... Wasatchian).   

 

 

[siteseer]

Hi JP,

 

That's a great find.  I don't think I've seen one that complete before.  The molars are more massive so they are more likely to be found at least near-complete but I've heard that they are usually found in pieces.  Seeing this thread reminds me that I haven't been to Wyoming in at least twenty years.  There was a time when I had the chance to walk the badlands in Park County but I got food poisoning the night before.  I just didn't have the strength to climb and wander hills that day.  Major bummer.

 

Father Jenkins used to do side projects for paleontologists.  He showed me a big box of Sharps Formation matrix (Early Miocene) from South Dakota and he was screening it in search of rare insectivore teeth for a researcher.  I think it was J.R. McDonald.

 

Jess

[jpc]

Thanks for the nice words and tale, Jess.  It is part of an associated partial skeleton.  The only skull part I found, though was a worn piece that was on the surface, indicating that the skull had eroded away a while ago.  I collected it some 15 plus years ago and have yet to bust open that jacket.