Squalodon Or Dolphin?

[zachj]

I've been looking at my aurora collection recently and saw that some of my dolphin teeth were serrated. i was looking at some squalodon teeth online and some looked similar. i have 2 that are serrated out of all my dolphin teeth. any help is appreciated.

they were collected at aurora, NC

late miocene

the first two images are the suspected squaladon teeth, the last one is what my regular dolphin teeth look like.

[Fossil Foilist]

Im not good at vertebrate material, you know that, But id place a few dollars on Squalodon Dolphin

Edited October 8, 2013 by Fossil Foilist

[bmorefossil]

I'm not seeing squalodon, I would go with dolphin

[zachj]

are some dolphin species serrated?

[RichW9090]

Bobby will know.......

[bmorefossil]

are some dolphin species serrated?

I think serrations only refers to a repeating cutting edge, but some dolphin species do have extra cusps as the tooth in discussion has. These cusps can vary in what they look like. These cusps aren't that uncommon either. I have multiple examples from the reject piles as well as Maryland.

Edited October 8, 2013 by bmorefossil

[powelli1]

Hi Zach I also go with Dolphin on this tooth. Keep looking you are getting better at this..

[Al Dente]

Zack

There are a lot of teeth online that are labeled "Squalodon" that aren't Squalodon. There is quite a bit of variety in fossil dolphin teeth.

Here are a couple of my Squalodon teeth from Lee Creek. One is an anterior tooth and the other a cheek tooth.

[sixgill pete]

Zach, yes, they are dolphin teeth.

[zachj]

ok. thanks for all the help guys. and those are some squalodons al dente

[Boesse]

Hey all - first and foremost, Squalodon is technically a dolphin, and are colloquially referred to as shark-toothed dolphins. It belongs to the family Squalodontidae; "dolphin" is sort of a garbage can term anyway and doesn't really mean anything. Dolphin could mean anything that's not a sperm whale, beaked whale, narwhal/beluga or porpoise, or any small bodied odontocete, or it could be restricted to delphinids, or it could mean any delphinoid. Any usage is going to be problematic and not really many anything useful.

This tooth is obviously from a small bodied odontocete, and is much too small to be a squalodontid, and the tooth lacks cusps on either side, instead only having cusps on what is probably the posterior cusp. This morphology, and the size, agrees well with Delphinodon from the Calvert Formation and Pungo River Limestone.

Also, the late Miocene part of the section is missing at Lee Creek and is marked by an unconformity between the Pungo and the Yorktown Fm; your tooth is middle Miocene.