Ray tooth plates

[Othniel C. Marsh]

Below are three ray tooth plates, all of which are supposed to be from the Ypresian of the Ouled Abdoun Basin in Morocco. It may well be the case that ray tooth plates can't be identified to a genus or species level, but I thought it was worth an attempt.

 

 

Thanks in advance for any proposed ID's
Othniel

[Fossildude19]

I'm not sure if ray teeth are diagnostic to genus or species. 

I may be wrong, and if so, would love to learn more.

 

List of other cartilaginous fish from the Ouled Abdoun Basin

 

LINK

[Othniel C. Marsh]

I had a look at the Wikipedia list but was somewhat sceptical of it given that a number of species, including cartilaginous fish, were missing. I did have my suspicions that isolated ray teeth weren't diagnostic, but according to elasmo.com it is possible to identify them, just very difficult, and it may well only be diagnostic for some species.

 

The elasmo.com page on batoids:
http://www.elasmo.com/bin/menu_batoid.html

Edited March 8 by Othniel C. Marsh

[Coco]

Henri Cappetta has long said that this type of stingray teeth cannot be identified when isolated.

 

In reality, when we look at a current ray palate, we see that it is formed of a number of these long teeth, but also for some small rhombus teeth on each side. Some species have more or less small rows of teeth on each side.

 

I think if you were to undo those jaws, you wouldn’t necessarily find a lot of differences between those long teeth of different species.

 

Coco

Edited March 8 by Coco

[Fin Lover]

I tried to identify a whole plate and it was extremely difficult (and I had to contact an expert).  It can be done with a whole plate, but it would be even more difficult (and unreliable) with a fragment, and likely not worth the effort.

Edited March 8 by Fin Lover

[Othniel C. Marsh]

Oh okay. Thanks for the advice Fossildude19, Coco, and Fin Lover.