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Hi all, Recently I have come across what appears to be a Cave hyena lower molar from Tornewton cave in South Devon. As many of you will now know collecting from these sites is strictly prohibited, however a lot of people collected from these sites during the 18th/19th century up until as late as the 1950s some professional and some not (so a few fossils are housed within private collections still). I found this for sale on a fairly well renowned UK fossil site, and I brought it keen to understand more about it's history. Unlike the other "unmarked" cave hyena fossils that you will see on the market this fossil is marked with "TN ( )". All museums will mark their fossils usually with a letter code followed by numbers for cataloging reasons. I emailed the owner of the site, and he stated that he tried and couldn't find what collection it may have belonged, however the understanding is that it's from Tornewton because of the first letter code TN and from information given by the last collector. I have a theory that the tooth was at some point apart of a small collection probably owned by an independent museum (we have a few in the UK, and they were fairly popular in their hay day). Then at some point it had to close, or they had to downsize their collection and therefore sold off some specimens at auction which would explain it going back into private hands. But why no number? unless of course they were yet to fill that in, or they simply didn't know any extra info apart from it's locality? If anyone can offer any help to this, or give me answers on why it's missing some information I'd be happy to hear what you have to say if possible I would love to trace this fossil back so that a museum can benefit from it (as cave hyena fossils are pretty rare as is). From some internet research I have found out that Torquay museum may house some of the specimens from this particular site, and I would like to get in touch and see if this specimen fits in. I am very keen on making sure that scientific information isn't lost in a sea of private collections, so that's why I'm asking here. If you think you might know any information on this specimen, on Tornewton cave , on the number, on the letter code "TN" or what "( )" might mean let me know in the comments ! p.s The search may end up being fruitless but I at least want to try to learn more. I am fairly positive on the ID being cave hyena after countless comparisons, measurements and knowing that 2000 or more hyena remains from the cave have been discovered over it's history (But I am always open to critiques). - Photographs are not mine but show the specimen in detail. (sorry if there are any initial spelling or grammar errors, I shall edit these out later.)