Mystery Carcharhinus Tooth

[Northern Sharks]

This is a tooth I got yesterday at a show. Before you all yell at me, the camera batteries were dead, but there's another show at the end of the month. Anyway, I picked up this tooth knowing I didn't have one like it. The problem is, I don't know what it is. I can rule out C. obscurus, C. brachyurus and C. plumbeus as I have modern jaws and this doesn't look like any from those. It also doesn't look like any C. leucas I've ever seen either. The serrations are very fine. My best guess may be C.falciformis. It was supposed to have come from the mid- Miocene of Horry County SC. Any help is appreciated.

[Gatorman]

Well knowing you, you've looked everywhere i would look for an ID. Could it be a transitional tooth? Or pathologic?

[jbstedman]

I agree with Anson -- nobody's likely to id this if you can't. Grays are hard for me. It has some

of the characteristics of Carcharhinus egertoni, which is the most common Gray for us here

in Maryland. But, I assume you ruled that out.

[Northern Sharks]

Well after checking the extant dentitions on elasmo and looking at my own set of jaws here, it looks like this tooth probably is an upper lateral/posterior from the Copper shark, Carcharhinus brachyurus. Bad lighting,some chipped and partially rotated teeth in my set would be why I missed it the first time around. I will say though I am flattered by your confidence in me

[siteseer]

On 3/8/2008 at 5:34 PM, Northern Sharks said:

Well after checking the extant dentitions on elasmo and looking at my own set of jaws here, it looks like this tooth probably is an upper lateral/posterior from the Copper shark, Carcharhinus brachyurus. Bad lighting,some chipped and partially rotated teeth in my set would be why I missed it the first time around. I will say though I am flattered by your confidence in me

 

Hi Northern,

 

I'm digging into the depths of the forum today and came across this thread.  I agree that it could be an upper lateral-posterior of C. brachyurus.  Having fine serrations makes the species a possibility.  Since it's from near the back of the mouth, it loses some of its ability to be identified with confidence, as posterior teeth of various closely-related species converge on a simpler form.  With that said it does follow the shape of what we'd expect of a copper shark tooth of that position.

 

If it is from the Middle Miocene, or roughly 10-20 million years ago, it might strain the possibility of belonging to a modern shark species but i've seen teeth from the Pungo River Formation and Sharktooth Hill Bonebed that I think could be from a copper shark, or at least a close relative, and those two formations date back at least 15 million years so your ID is probably as good as it gets for an oddball tooth with imprecise locality data.

 

Jess

 

[Northern Sharks]

Thanks Jess: Thanks for the input. I've noticed you've been looking through a lot of old posts lately. I guess I'm getting old, but I find it hard to believe that I originally posted this over 9 years ago.