Extraordinary Common Teeth

[ThePhysicist]

We've already seen a few neonatal GWs in this jaw-dropping topic, but here are a few more that I recently acquired:

 

Upper anterior:

 

Upper lateral:

 

Lower lateral:

 

Lower anterior:

 

Intermediate (3rd anterior):

[Rock Hound]

[Rock Hound]

Hemipristis Serra

South Carolina

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Rock Hound

[siteseer]

Here's an unusually large Eocene mako.  It's 1 15/16 inches (51mm).  It's a bit beat-up and I have only general locality info for it but I like it. 

 

Isurus sp.

Mid-Late Eocene

Mangyshlak, Kazakhstan

[Rock Hound]

I just added a few teeth to this display case, thanks to @Darktooth; via the 2023 Rolling Auction Thread, which helps to support TFF.  New offerings are popping up, on a regular basis; and each successive offering, is unique.

 

Come check out, the 2023 Rolling Auction Thread offerings.

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Rock Hound

[JorisVV]

KemKem inderminate Abelisaurid tooth. But rooted!

[MarcoSr]

On 3/23/2023 at 9:02 PM, ThePhysicist said:

We've already seen a few neonatal GWs in this jaw-dropping topic, but here are a few more that I recently acquired:

 

Upper anterior:

 

Upper lateral:

 

Lower lateral:

 

Lower anterior:

 

Intermediate (3rd anterior):

 

Beautiful teeth!  But why do you think they are neonate (newborn) versus juvenile?  Their tooth size? Extant great white sharks' size at birth really varies (110 to 160 cm per "Ebert, Fowler, and Compagno 2013 Sharks of the World") with a corresponding variation in newborn tooth size.  Also, extant juvenile great white sharks can have teeth with cusplets and irregular or even missing serrations.  I have an extant juvenile great white jaw in my collection with teeth like this, and have personally seen other extant juvenile great white jaws with teeth like this.

 

EDIT:  See the below extant great white jaw pictures of a jaw around 11 inches which is clearly not a neonate shark jaw.  Note the lower anterior teeth have small cusplets.  Also note that the upper anterior teeth are around 21 mm and the lower anterior teeth around 19 mm.

 

Jaw pictures showing jaw size:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jaw pictures showing upper and lower anterior tooth size:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

Edited January 1 by MarcoSr
added jaw pictures

[ThePhysicist]

13 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

Beautiful teeth!  But why do you think they are neonate (newborn) versus juvenile?  Their tooth size? Extant great white sharks' size at birth really varies (110 to 160 cm per "Ebert, Fowler, and Compagno 2013 Sharks of the World") with a corresponding variation in newborn tooth size.  Also, extant juvenile great white sharks can have teeth with cusplets and irregular or even missing serrations.  I have an extant juvenile great white jaw in my collection with teeth like this, and have personally seen other extant juvenile great white jaws with teeth like this.

 

EDIT:  See the below extant great white jaw pictures of a jaw around 11 inches which is clearly not a neonate shark jaw.  Note the lower anterior teeth have small cusplets.  Also note that the upper anterior teeth are around 21 mm and the lower anterior teeth around 19 mm.

 

Jaw pictures showing jaw size:

Good question! I actually did some reading on this, indeed size at birth is ballpark ~ 150 cm TL. I compared my teeth morphologically to those of late-stage embryos, and made a joint data set from Hubbell and other publications (below) to create a linear regression that accounts for the variance in tooth size to estimate the TL - which is a common method. I get a TL of about 150 cm for that upper anterior, and therefore felt comfortable calling it "neonate" or young of the year, but I welcome a more conservative stance. That's a great jaw, do you happen to know the age/TL?

 

Tomita T, Miyamoto K, Kawaguchi A, Toda M, Oka SI, Nozu R, Sato K. Dental ontogeny of a white shark embryo. J Morphol. 2017 Feb;278(2):215-227. doi: 10.1002/jmor.20630. Epub 2016 Nov 27. PMID: 27889924.

 

Hubbell G. 1996. Using tooth structure to determine the evolutionary history of the white shark. In: Klimley AP, Ainley DG, editors. Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias. San Diego: Academic Press. pp 9–18.

 

Shimada, K. (2002) The Relationship between the Tooth Size and Total Body Length in the White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Lamniformes: Lamnidae). Journal of Fossil Research, 35, 28-33.

[MarcoSr]

On 1/1/2024 at 9:42 PM, ThePhysicist said:

Good question! I actually did some reading on this, indeed size at birth is ballpark ~ 150 cm TL. I compared my teeth morphologically to those of late-stage embryos, and made a joint data set from Hubbell and other publications (below) to create a linear regression that accounts for the variance in tooth size to estimate the TL - which is a common method. I get a TL of about 150 cm for that upper anterior, and therefore felt comfortable calling it "neonate" or young of the year, but I welcome a more conservative stance. That's a great jaw, do you happen to know the age/TL?

 

Tomita T, Miyamoto K, Kawaguchi A, Toda M, Oka SI, Nozu R, Sato K. Dental ontogeny of a white shark embryo. J Morphol. 2017 Feb;278(2):215-227. doi: 10.1002/jmor.20630. Epub 2016 Nov 27. PMID: 27889924.

 

Hubbell G. 1996. Using tooth structure to determine the evolutionary history of the white shark. In: Klimley AP, Ainley DG, editors. Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias. San Diego: Academic Press. pp 9–18.

 

Shimada, K. (2002) The Relationship between the Tooth Size and Total Body Length in the White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Lamniformes: Lamnidae). Journal of Fossil Research, 35, 28-33.

 

According to the seller of that jaw (note I did not purchase that jaw but had the TL in one of the JPEG file names), the shark was 7.5 feet TL (which would not be a newborn shark), but I really don't believe the TL of a shark claimed by jaw sellers, unless the shark was caught in a shark research project.  Extant great white newborn sharks can be a lot smaller than 150 cm TL, as small as 110 cm TL if you believe Ebert 2013.  I don't question at all that neonate great white sharks can have tooth features similar to your teeth.  However, I've personally seen numerous great white jaws with tooth morphologies very similar to your teeth in jaws just too large to be from neonate sharks.  I also don't really totally accept using tooth size to estimate a very accurate TL for a specific shark.  I've seen too many great white jaws with the same jaw sizes (jaw size for me is more accurate to determine shark size) and very different sized comparative teeth.  What I have personally observed is first that the small great white jaws that I have seen, some small jaws have teeth with the features of your teeth and some don't.  Secondly, as the small jaws get larger, in jaws that do show the teeth features, the cusplets decrease in size/disappear and the serrations become more regular and extend to fully cover the tooth crown to the tip.  Also, the upper great white teeth lose the neonate features quicker as jaw size increases, than the lower teeth.  Again these are personal observations, and actual jaw observations were made many years ago looking at great white jaws in California, However, more recently I have looked at pictures of easily 100+ great white jaws from sellers worldwide (note I didn't buy any of these as most couldn't be legally imported into the US).  I have 4 great white jaws in my personal collection, purchased legally in the US (if I had it to do over again, I would not have purchased the jaws), with one being a nine-inch jaw, with similar teeth features to your larger anterior teeth.  If you are comfortable calling your teeth neonate, I'm not asking you to change that.  But based upon my observations, I would definitely call some of your teeth juvenile or at least neonate/juvenile.  No matter what you call them, they are really nice specimens.

 

Marco Sr.

[ThePhysicist]

On 1/2/2024 at 6:14 AM, MarcoSr said:

 

According to the seller of that jaw (note I did not purchase that jaw but had the TL in one of the JPEG file names), the shark was 7.5 feet TL (which would not be a newborn shark), but I really don't believe the TL of a shark claimed by jaw sellers, unless the shark was caught in a shark research project.  Extant great white newborn sharks can be a lot smaller than 150 cm TL, as small as 110 cm TL if you believe Ebert 2013.  I don't question at all that neonate great white sharks can have tooth features similar to your teeth.  However, I've personally seen numerous great white jaws with tooth morphologies very similar to your teeth in jaws just too large to be from neonate sharks.  I also don't really totally accept using tooth size to estimate a very accurate TL for a specific shark.  I've seen too many great white jaws with the same jaw sizes (jaw size for me is more accurate to determine shark size) and very different sized comparative teeth.  What I have personally observed is first that the small great white jaws that I have seen, some small jaws have teeth with the features of your teeth and some don't.  Secondly, as the small jaws get larger, in jaws that do show the teeth features, the cusplets decrease in size/disappear and the serrations become more regular and extend to fully cover the tooth crown to the tip.  Also, the upper great white teeth loose the neonate features quicker as jaw size increases, than the lower teeth.  Again these are personal observations, and actual jaw observations were made many years ago looking at great white jaws in California, However, more recently I have looked at pictures of easily 100+ great white jaws from sellers worldwide (note I didn't buy any of these as most couldn't be legally imported into the US).  I have 4 great white jaws in my personal collection, purchased legally in the US (if I had it to do over again, I would not have purchased the jaws), with one being a nine-inch jaw, with similar teeth features to your larger anterior teeth.  If you are comfortable calling your teeth neonate, I'm not asking you to change that.  But based upon my observations, I would definitely call some of your teeth juvenile or at least neonate/juvenile.  No matter what you call them, they are really nice specimens.

 

Marco Sr.

Thanks for lending your experienced insight, you are a good steward for the jaws and glad they can be used to educate us fossil collectors.

[JorisVV]

Really nice set of associated Otodus Obliquus teeth. Largest being 80MM around.

 

Put them in a riker so far. Dont have any displays to show it

[ynot]

Here are some immature heterodonus anterior teeth... (scale in mm)

 

and a juvenile heterodontus anterior tooth

 

and an adult heteroodoontus anterior tooth...