Mammal Teeth From The Peace River, Fl

[digit]

I've been lurking in this forum for some time now and finally decided to break my silence and actually post a topic.

I enjoy screening for 'black gold' in the Peace River whenever I have the time. I've been able to go a couple of times a year for the last couple of years. I have enough experience (and ID books - thanks to Mark Renz) to be able to identify a variety of fossils or at least enough sense to differentiate a biological item from an interestingly shaped piece of phosphate matrix. The Peace is still a bit high at the moment (about 2' higher than when I usually have a chance to dip a toe into it) but I was itching to hit the river last weekend with my wife for our anniversary. The "island" near Brownville Park, though heavily hunted throughout the season, was shallow enough at the moment to at least sooth the fossil hunting itch. Mostly, as expected, a lot of small shark teeth - even some tiny nurse shark teeth were spotted and bagged before slipping through the 1/4" mesh of our sifter. Other than a nicely textured piece of turtle shell, a gastropod internal mold, and a few garfish scales, there was little novelty to report on.

There were, however, two teeth (spotted by my wife) that were non-shark but mammal in origin. One appears to be a small incisor approximately 2.5cm in overall length and about 0.75 cm at the thickest diameter. The enamel end is blunted (likely from wear during the life of the animal) and there is a substantial amount of the root. This seems to be common in many of the images of small mammal molars I see in my ID books. The other tooth is a molar (or possibly half a molar). The chewing surface is intact and is a single curved raised ring but as one side of the root seems to have a canal this might be half a tooth that has split. I don't know enough about fossil molars to know if this apparent channel was once the inside of a larger tooth or not. The size is as follows: the crown is approximately 1.5cm x 0.5cm and the overall height around 2cm.

Any thoughts (or speculations) as to the original owners of these two teeth would be appreciated. If anything is unclear in the photos or a different angle would be helpful just say so and I'll snap some pics in other orientations.

Thanks in advance for any help.

-Ken

The incisor:

The molar:

[RichW9090]

The molar appears to be half of a bi-lophodont molar, perhaps a tapir or, less likely, a peccary (Platygonus). It might also be a good idea to compare it to a manatee tooth, but the enamel seems thicker and less crenulated than manatee.

Edited October 22, 2013 by RichW9090

[Sacha]

The "Incisor" is a dolphin tooth. I have a couple almost identical that were identified for me at the U of Florida.

Rich is always closer to the mark than most of us, but I'm not seeing Bi-lophidont, although it is very worn. Doesn't the enamaloid contour roughly resemble giant armadillo? Every manatee, dugong, peccary and tapir tooth fragment I have retains some remaining contact surface showing remains of the lophs.

[digit]

The "Incisor" is a dolphin tooth. I have a couple almost identical that were identified for me at the U of Florida.

Rich is always closer to the mark than most of us, but I'm not seeing Bi-lophidont, although it is very worn. Doesn't the enamaloid contour roughly resemble giant armadillo? Every manatee, dugong, peccary and tapir tooth fragment I have retains some remaining contact surface showing remains of the lophs.

The "Incisor" is a dolphin tooth. I have a couple almost identical that were identified for me at the U of Florida.

Rich is always closer to the mark than most of us, but I'm not seeing Bi-lophidont, although it is very worn. Doesn't the enamaloid contour roughly resemble giant armadillo? Every manatee, dugong, peccary and tapir tooth fragment I have retains some remaining contact surface showing remains of the lophs.

Great to hear that the incisor like tooth is a dolphin tooth. My wife will be happy to hear that we found a dolphin among the many tiny shark teeth this weekend. That'll make her day.

My suspicion seems borne out that the molar is in fact half a molar (given the canal on one side - the original interior of the full tooth). Looking at images of peccary and tapir teeth in the fossil ID guides I have (and supplementing them with Google searches online) I'd have to concur with the idea of half a very worn bi-lophodont tooth. As an extra bonus I got to learn a new word today - bi-lophodont. Probably a bit tricky to make a call on peccary/tapir from such a worn (and partial) specimen but I'm happy to be able to know roughly what kind of animal this tooth came from.

Thanks again to all who've looked - and even more to those who've commented on these teeth. This forum is an incredible resource which I've not used to its fullest till now.

Cheers.

-Ken