EvolEd Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) Hi everyone, I'm a new member and I'd like to share with you a fossil that was purchased several years ago. This is my first attempt to start a topic or post anything (other than an introduction) so I apologize if I upload things oddly as I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate the forum. As mentioned in my introductory post, I'm a former academic that focused on macroevolution, phylogenetics, and speciation, and I'm always fascinated by major evolutionary transitions. I actually wrote a paper on the origin of primates during my undergrad to explore the suite of characteristics that helped primates emerge as a dominant clade. As a result, I spent a great deal of time learning about the muddied "key evolutionary traits" separating Plesiadapiformes from accepted early Primates, namely stereoscopic vision, grasping hands and feet, saltatory locomotion, and the rise of frugivory. So to my surprise, someone was selling a lower jaw fragment of a Plesiadapidae from the Willwood Formation, Wyoming (Late Paleocene-early Eocene). It was apparently vetted as such by someone at a local university and I had no reason to distrust the seller, as it is such an obscure set of creatures by most standards. I had previously purchased two other fossils (i.e. Eohippus/hyracotherium jaw fragment, and an allognathosuchus alligatorid lower jaw) from the same person and they seemed to have solid provenance. I would love if someone could verify that it is in fact a plesiadapid or even I.D. it to the species level if possible. I thought it would be an interesting first post and I'd love to add it to my collections page (if I can figure out how to do that). Thanks so much for any help and/or comments. Cheers Marcus Edited June 16, 2022 by EvolEd 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 @jpc Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 @Carl Is this in the wheelhouse of your colleagues? 1 The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorne Ledger Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 nice piece It looks to me like a canid lower jaw. My guess is a fox. The M3 looks canid. If that is the case, this item cannot be as old as was advertised to you. Miocene or Pliocene at the earliest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahnmut Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Hi EvolEd and welcome to the forum, interesting question. maybe I should not comment, having no expertise on plesiadapiformes. And I would have believed you if you had called it a canid. But looking at this https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10097374 I think it may still be what the seller claims it to be. In your first pics rightmost tooth there is a hint of a line visible that could fit the reference above more than it fits a canid in my eyes. Really hard to tell with the broken teeth though. Curious to hear from the experts (besides yourself) Best regards, J Try to learn something about everything and everything about something Thomas Henry Huxley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 30 minutes ago, Lorne Ledger said: nice piece It looks to me like a canid lower jaw. My guess is a fox. The M3 looks canid. If that is the case, this item cannot be as old as was advertised to you. Miocene or Pliocene at the earliest. Thanks for your thoughts. I doubt its canid given that the Willwood Formation is quite established and the fossilisation seems on par with other specimens from the area. Also, canids are not known from that formation as far as i can tell. But the state of the teeth does make all this very difficult for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) 16 minutes ago, Mahnmut said: Hi EvolEd and welcome to the forum, interesting question. maybe I should not comment, having no expertise on plesiadapiformes. And I would have believed you if you had called it a canid. But looking at this https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10097374 I think it may still be what the seller claims it to be. In your first pics rightmost tooth there is a hint of a line visible that could fit the reference above more than it fits a canid in my eyes. Really hard to tell with the broken teeth though. Curious to hear from the experts (besides yourself) Best regards, J Yes the poor state of the teeth make it very tricky I imagine. It's definitely an interesting specimen and not something that comes to market or even discussed very often. Great paper! Thank you! Edited June 16, 2022 by EvolEd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 I don't see it as a primate of any sort because what there is of the molar is simply too high and see why it could be identified as a small canid like a fox. I'm not sure that jaw is Eocene age. It's quite beat-up as has been pointed out already - hard to be certain. And yeah, there were no canids in the Early Eocene, the time the Willwood rrepresents. The earliest canids didn't appear until the Late Eocene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 27 minutes ago, siteseer said: I don't see it as a primate of any sort because what there is of the molar is simply too high and see why it could be identified as a small canid like a fox. I'm not sure that jaw is Eocene age. It's quite beat-up as has been pointed out already - hard to be certain. And yeah, there were no canids in the Early Eocene, the time the Willwood rrepresents. The earliest canids didn't appear until the Late Eocene. As pointed out by the paper @Mahnmut provided, they do have weird teeth. In fact, Plesiadapiformes are known for having incredibly diverse dentitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 16, 2022 Author Share Posted June 16, 2022 I stumbled upon this massive paper on a plesiadapidae (Plesiadapis cookei) from the region. It's a huge paper and the combination of less than stellar tooth preservation and the depth of it are perhaps beyond the realm of securing a definitive identification. But if it is a member of the Plesiadapidae, this appears to be a possible candidate The rest of plesiadapiforms from the area with papers are all very small and not part of this family. Anyways, I thought I'd add a bit more to this mystery. Thanks for those who've offered suggestions but I have little doubts that it's from the Willwood formation, as I have other very definitive fossils (i.e. Allognathosuchus) from this person and they collected them from there. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/151767/Papers on Paleontology 38 10-10-2019 - low res.pdf?sequence=2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) Hi EvolEd…. There are very few folks here who can use the word plesiadapid in a sentence, nevermind in the title of a post. Great little fossil. I am also going to assume it is a legit Willwood Fm find. It seems only the m3 is complete. It should be identifiable from that alone. I wish i could actually look at a random wasatchian jaw and give it a name but alas, i have not done enough homework … yet. I collect a lot in the early eocene but am lucky to id my mammals to even order. If i wasn’t down with the darned covid i would look it up in my library. Can you send me (or post) a few close up pix of that last tooth? Edited June 16, 2022 by jpc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 Hi @jpc I'll DM you some photos if the size will allow it. Sorry to hear you have the rona. Hopefully it isn't too harsh I've done what I could with a handheld macro lens but even the M3 is pretty worn out. I'm counting the M3 and what I'm assuming are 3 broken premolars and a missing front end with some stabilizer or other debris obscuring the distal end where the incisor would jut out if it is indeed a plesiadapid. The partial dentary is about 1.5," making it likely more sizable than the ones described in recent papers from Willwood. I'll post the one photo here of a close up and the rest to you via DM in case others are curious. Thanks a lot! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 20 minutes ago, EvolEd said: I'll post the one photo here of a close up and the rest to you via DM in case others are curious. Thanks a lot! By all means, please post the rest here in the topic. It will serve as a reference and education about an obscure little mammal. The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 Oohh, it looks like even the n3 is incomplete. That looks like a broken edge of the trigonid i see. Trigonid is the truangular higher part of the tooth, as opposed to the talonid which is the triangular lower part at the rear of the molar. the covid isn’t too bad. My third day in bed but i am getting better daily. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 3 minutes ago, JohnJ said: By all means, please post the rest here in the topic. It will serve as a reference and education about an obscure little mammal. No problem! Here are the remaining 3 photos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 7 minutes ago, jpc said: Oohh, it looks like even the n3 is incomplete. That looks like a broken edge of the trigonid i see. Trigonid is the truangular higher part of the tooth, as opposed to the talonid which is the triangular lower part at the rear of the molar. the covid isn’t too bad. My third day in bed but i am getting better daily. Thank you. I tried sending you a direct message but it said you couldn't receive those and tried some other workaround. Sorry I'm new here haha It's a tough one to distinctly ID for sure! The M3 is definitely missing a piece like you mentioned, which I think is over emphasizing how dramatic the shape of it looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 It just occured to that plesiadapids go extinct before the Wasatchian, at the end of the Clarkforkian. I don’t know if the Willwood formation goes down to the Clarkforkian. But these are things i can look up easily wgen i get unbedridden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 My pm inbox is full and i cant figure out how to access it on my phone (i am new at smart phones). Feel free too post pix here. In any case, have patience. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 17 hours ago, JohnJ said: @Carl Is this in the wheelhouse of your colleagues? Stand by! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 From Dr. Jack Tseng at Berkeley: "I can’t really tell given the paucity of preserved dental features, but not a carnivoran as some of the commenters suggested (there looks to be at least two sizable tribosphenic molars, which crown carnivorans do not have)…" 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvolEd Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 22 minutes ago, Carl said: From Dr. Jack Tseng at Berkeley: "I can’t really tell given the paucity of preserved dental features, but not a carnivoran as some of the commenters suggested (there looks to be at least two sizable tribosphenic molars, which crown carnivorans do not have)…" Thanks so much for adding more to the discussion. I'll just called it "Putative plesiadapid from the Willwood Formation." It was purchased a long time ago and I recall the seller saying it was taken into a museum in the area and identified as such. I have very little reason to doubt her and it can remain a neat possible story in my living room tree of life 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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