New, Tiny Discovery

[PaleoNoel]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to post my find of the day! I was working through some of the Lance fm. channel deposit conglomerate from this summer's trip out west and when I was taking a closer look a bone fragment I noticed what appeared to be the glint of enamel just below it. I proceeded to uncover more of it and realized it was a tiny mammal tooth. It ended up coming loose from the matrix and I had to set it lightly on a piece of white paper as to avoid losing the minute fossil. Through closer inspection with my loupe I found that it had a morphology similar to a multituberculate tooth (cimolodon or mesodma) that I had found in South Dakota's Hell Creek during my trip. I am very pleased to have found this as there are little opportunities for me to find new fossils in November. Additionally, this may be the smallest tooth of any animal in my collection, and I'm proud I spotted it instead of overlooking it.

Some perspective with a U.S. Penny (yes I know, not a valid unit of measurement, but it was the closest thing I had at that moment).

 

 

[Ludwigia]

Cool. Please let us know once you've found out what it is.

[Fossildude19]

Micro fossils are so interesting!

Nice find. Thanks for showing us.   

 

 

[Troodon]

Nice cool find.  Here are a couple of illustrations to get help with an ID.  Not Lance but the teeth are similar.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great find. 

The little ones can certainly be just as rewarding as the big ones. 

[jpc]

Nice little multituberculate tooth.  If you can get better close-ups, I might be able to ID it for you. 

[PaleoNoel]

2 hours ago, jpc said:

Nice little multituberculate tooth.  If you can get better close-ups, I might be able to ID it for you. 

Thanks, i'll try to get a better shot of it, but it's hard to do because of its size.

[Mike from North Queensland]

Beautiful little tooth makes the hours of searching worth while.

 

Mike 

[siteseer]

If you can get a shot of the tooth straight down at the biting surface at the same size as that first photo, JP or someone else might see enough to identfy it.  You would need a tiny bit of mineral tack (aka mounting putty) to set it on, slightly sinking it into it so it doesn't slip.  Do it carefully with a pair of fine tweezers.

[PaleoNoel]

Returning to this thread, realizing I didn't follow up with some extra photo requests: Here are some better shots of this tiny tooth.

@jpc

[jpc]

better than mineral tack (yucky) set it in a small container of fine sand, using tweezers.  But from what I see here, you have a lower first molar (indicated by two parallel rows of cusps.  It is broken on one end (left edge in last photo), so it may not be IDable.  To get any further I would need measurements and sand removal.  And more time than my lunch break allows.