Interesting piece

[MelanieD]

Found this on Torrance Beach in SoCal today.  I’ve found both land and sea mammal specimens here, including an agatized  western horse tooth, and this looks similar, so I’m thinking it’s bone, but perhaps wood?

Tar pits nearby from La Brea, so it could be filled with that?  Looks like there’s a thin layer around the outside, too, so, periosteum?.  No spongy bone like I’d expect, but perhaps it’s been replaced?
it’s roughly 2” x 1” x 1.5”. 

[ynot]

I think this is a mineral (quartz) vein and not a fossil.

[Fin Lover]

2 hours ago, MelanieD said:

so I’m thinking it’s bone, but perhaps wood?

Sorry, I'm not seeing evidence of either.

[Mahnmut]

I agree its a quartz vein. Periosteum is a thin skin surrounding the living bone and what hurts so much when you hit your shinbones. Nothing you would find in a fossil.

Best regards, J

[diggumdave]

hi!

though it’s not complete and has some microcrystalline quartz growing on it, I see a tooth.

Ii’m definitely not an expert, but photos 2 and 4 look similar to these horse teeth, from the right angle.

 

 

 

The business end (#4)is the giveaway. it has a slightly different pattern from mine, but I’m in Texas so, 

maybe a different  type of horse separated by a few million years?

 

I agree with Mahnmut on periosteum. looks like some beautifully colored enamel though. I’d love to see #2 in bright sunlight.

 

 

[Fin Lover]

Unfortunately, the original item is not a horse tooth and doesn't have enamel.

Edited June 9 by Fin Lover
Clarification

[diggumdave]

I do have an overactive imagination…please allow me to re-phrase-

due to my limited knowledge on horse teeth and several other things that i’m learning now on this site, and the fact that I can’t hold it in my hand for closer observation, i cannot rule this out as a tooth. I’ll trust the opinions of the experts here

😁

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Just because it looks like something doesn’t mean it’s really that thing. Paleontology is not based on passing resemblance, but on the association of several facts : age of the land where it was found, size, shape, symmetry, material etc...

 

Certainly your piece of rock looks "from afar" like a tooth, but where is the photo of the occlusal face that would recognize a horse tooth ?

 

On the last photo you added, we can see this occlusal side and we can conclude without any doubt that it is a horse tooth.

 

By the way, when you post photos that are not ours, it is good to add a link to the origin of these photos or add the name of the author. I have already seen these photos, don’t they come from a member of this forum ?

 

Coco

Edited June 11 by Coco

[diggumdave]

Hello Coco, 

Thank you for your input.

are you referring to these teeth?

You have a very keen eye if you recognized the lower tooth from my collection but i assure you that you have not already seen those photos because i took them for this post 😁

[Coco]

Hi,

 

I meant those pictures. If they are yours, my apologies, I thought I had already seen them (or this is the way to note the dimensions I retained...). In any case, in these photos it is indeed the horse.

 

 

 

For some reason, I couldn’t quote the post.

 

Coco