Cretaceous Finds 5

[ChurrO]

Hey,

As a little recap to the last posts, a bit ago me and family were working on an excavation project for a house within Caldwell County in Central Texas and accidentally broke through the upper cretaceous layer (namely the Navarro group) and found a bunch of fossils.

 

I've been trying to ID some of the stuff but I ran into a wall on some finds so I'm hoping to get some help.

 

1.

I've been trying to find an ID for this tooth but I've just not found. I was considering serratolamna sp maybe.

 

2.

This is another type of tooth where I'm lost. It looks like a protolamna but I just want to be sure.

 

3.

This is is a weird one. For the longest time I considered this an enchodus tooth, but then, I realized that it had 2 cutting edges so it making me rethink it because most of the other enchodus teeth I got don't have that distinction.

 

4.

These are a bunch of extinct nurse shark teeth. I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out the exact species that each tooth goes to.

 

As always,

Thanks for the help!

[automech]

Nice collection. So lucky to have something like that on your property. 
I found this chart for a nurse shark tooth I found.

[ChurrO]

33 minutes ago, automech said:

Nice collection. So lucky to have something like that on your property. 
I found this chart for a nurse shark tooth I found.

Thanks for the help! Looks like I got myself a Ginglymostoma sp for number 5 and 10

[Mikrogeophagus]

1) You are most likely right. Resembles a beat up Serratolamna serrata

2) You are right. Although I can't see ridges in the pic, the overall morphology is identical to Protolamna borodini

3) I could imagine Enchodus, but the texture is weird and I'm not the best w/ bony fish. A pic of the base might help clear some things.

4) I believe these are Plicatoscyllium minutum. The genus is known for having ornamented labial faces as seen in your teeth. The biggest indicator for the species, P. minutum, is the presence of a triangular zone formed by the labial ridges. This is easily seen in teeth 1, 2, and 4. Given the strong similarities of all the teeth, they are probably the same species. 

 

For teeth 5 and 10, there are some notable differences that would suggest Plicatoscyllium derameei to many experts, but others, like Jim Bourdon (Elasmo.com), believe P. derameei and P. antiquum might instead be synonymous with P. minutum.

 

All of the aforementioned species are known from the Maastrichtian which aligns with the Navarro Group of TX.

 

Did P. minutum occur most frequently in your sample? Pretty weird that you have so many unless maybe you sampled a TON of matrix.

[ChurrO]

Hey,

Thanks for the help! 

1 hour ago, Mikrogeophagus said:

3) I could imagine Enchodus, but the texture is weird and I'm not the best w/ bony fish. A pic of the base might help clear some things.

Here is the picture of the base.

1 hour ago, Mikrogeophagus said:

Did P. minutum occur most frequently in your sample? Pretty weird that you have so many unless maybe you sampled a TON of matrix.

From what I remember, it wasn't too crazy of an amount. It was around a 12 ft strip of dirt max. As for how deep into the formation I would have to guess around 1 to 2 ft.

[Mikrogeophagus]

Hm idk about that tooth, I'd just go with Enchodus. Certainly a neat spot you've got. Have you been sifting for any millimeter sized teeth. The roughly equivalent Kemp Clay up north has tons of awesome and rare things.

[ChurrO]

2 minutes ago, Mikrogeophagus said:

Have you been sifting for any millimeter sized teeth. The roughly equivalent Kemp Clay up north has tons of awesome and rare things.

No, I haven't tried it yet. I'll definitely try it out some time.