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Unerupted Mastodon Milk Tooth?


Sharks of SC

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I brought this tooth along with me on Saturday's hunt, where Ozzyrules244 told me he thought it was a mastodon milk tooth, and after passing it between themselves, Sharkdentist and Mudkicker agreed. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

CBK

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that is very odd. the baby mastodon teeth that i have seen did not look like that and did not have three rows of humps already, but we will see what the pros say.

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Guest Smilodon

I brought this tooth along with me on Saturday's hunt, where Ozzyrules244 told me he thought it was a mastodon milk tooth, and after passing it between themselves, Sharkdentist and Mudkicker agreed. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

CBK

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Well, you've probably got the unerupted part right, but it's peccary (can't quite tell if it's platygonus or mylohyus)

Your might want this:

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Edited by Smilodon
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super sweet find is what it is:wub:

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge, it marks the first step in progress toward victory.

Alfred North Whithead

'Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia!'

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Guest Smilodon

i'd be thinking more along the lines of maxillary third molar of sus scrofa.

one reference pic

the link doesn't show sus dentition, but it shows what the tooth is not - tooth id reference

Yep, should have considered recent pig too since it didn't quite look like platygonus or mylohyus. Good catch.

Edited by Smilodon
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Poor Arnold Ziffel :(

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Frank,

I wish it were peccary, but It does look an awful lot like a pig tooth. I was hoping peccary, not pork, myself...bummer. Cool GMR tooth, by the way!

CBK

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cbk - you live in a good area for finding cool things. there will be many in your future, so don't sweat the occasional holocene teaser find. some of that stuff's really cool too.

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Frank,

I wish it were peccary, but It does look an awful lot like a pig tooth. I was hoping peccary, not pork, myself...bummer. Cool GMR tooth, by the way!

CBK

Either way it makes for a cool Ham sandwich! :P

Be true to the reality you create.

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  • 3 years later...

I learned that there is a lot of knowledge about extant and fossil mammal teeth in this forum.

I revive this old thread since I have a similar tooth germ like CBK showed in 2009, though my tooth is smaller (largest diameter 10 - 11 mm). Sadly, there were many pics in this thread which don't open any more.

My tooth germ is most probably from a pig, but I cannot find any tooth of exactly that morphology in the permanent dentition of pigs. In spite of a long search, I didn't find a suitable picture of the deciduous dentition of pigs. Due to small and poor-quality-pictures I found, I guess very carefully that it can be the germ of an upper milk molar (p3?). Is this correct?

However, my main problem is to decide whether this tooth germ is recent or fossil? It was found on an artificial beach on the River Mosel in Germany. A short time before, the beach was covered with small (sieved) gravels; for lithological reasons, it was evident that the gravels derive from gravel beds that had been produced by the Rhine; there are several gravel pits in the Rhine valley from which the stuff probably comes. (Mosel gravels differ from Rhine gravels).

So the tooth germ can be modern, but it could also have been brought to the beach with the gravels from the Rhine Valley. As far as I know, wild boar Sus scrofa was not present in the area during the Last Glacial Maximum, but returned during the Alleroed. It lived also in the area during the Eemian.

Except for its colour, the tooth germ looks very recent. There is not very much abrasion, so there was no or only minimal fluviatile transport. But I suppose a modern tooth germ should be white and not brownish / grey? It's only the colour that gives me the idea that it can be a fossil tooth germ. Am I wrong?

Thanks

araucaria1959

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Edited by araucaria1959
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I got the ID for my specimen from an expert from a museum in Germany.

It is the distal portion of a (broken) tooth germ from the lower M3 from Sus scrofa.

It is not possible to tell about the age of the specimen, because the color may change rather quickly. A heavily discoloured tooth which had been radiocarbon-dated in the museum proved to be from medieval times.

So it remains open whether the tooth germ is only a few hundred years old, subfossil or fossil.

araucaria1959

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