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I collected these two small marine reptile teeth at the council fossil hunting site 2 near Richmond in Queensland, Australia. The location is a Cretaceous marine locality and exposes the Toolebuc Formation, about 100 million years old. Fossils of fish, sharks, ichthyosaurs, pliosaurs and other types of plesiosaur, pterosaurs and turtles are all known from the area. These two teeth i believe could be associated, as they were found in the same fishy layer less than 30 centimetres from one another and exhibit similar features. Marine reptile teeth are also not very common here in general so it would be quite coincidental. The main options are Ichthyosaur (Platypterygius australis) or some kind of plesiosaur. I am leaning towards plesiosaur but would like more opinions. Both teeth have a weird appearance where the enamel covers the tip of the tooth only, then there is a middle section with no enamel that is quite smoothened off and finally at the base of both teeth the crown-root junction appears to be reached. I originally thought the middle section being free of enamel was simply a wear-related thing but the fact that both teeth are like this and especially in the smaller one the feature seems to be quite clear so i'm now confused. The closest match i have so far seen from browsing pictures is teeth of the polycotylid plesiosaur Dolichorhynchops. Obviously this genus is not present in this location, but there is however an unnamed polycotylid plesiosaur from Richmond. Perhaps these teeth come from this animal? The smaller tooth measures only 12 mm and the larger one 19 mm. Tooth 1 Tooth 2 For comparison, here is a picture of the teeth of Dolychorhynchops The smaller ones especially resemble my smaller tooth above in shape, but don't seem to have the same smooth mid section before the root To make things even more interesting, i also found this similar tooth last year from Richmond but at a different locality. The general consensus on this forum was that it was plesiosaurian not ichthyosaur. It also has a clearly enameled tip then a smooth or non enameled mid section and then possibly the top of the root at the very bottom. Another coincidence? Am i completely nuts? I'll let you decide
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- australia
- marine reptile teeth
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