A Tiny Gainesville Tooth, And A Couple Likely Denticles

[Serack]

The first 3 pics are of a 1/4" tooth that I found today that is unlike anything I have found thus far and I thought I'd post it since I found it intriguing. Usually when I find a small to medium sized tooth I typically quickly "I.D." it as either a

1) lemon

2) hemi

3) "some kind of tiger shark"

4) something "like a bull shark" (a lot fall into this for me =P)

5) or some kind of pointed lower tooth that I don't try to classify farther. (usually look like a lemon with a very thick base)

Some day when I have a larger collection of tigers I might start trying to differentiate between the various species, but I haven't found enough to feel motivated to start that endeavor, but this tooth didn't really seem to fit into any of the above "classifications"

The next pic is of a bunch of what I suspect to be stingray dentacles. The top 3 are similar and I have seen pics of similar fossils labeled as stingray dentacles as well as the 2 lower right, but the 2 lower left are kind of odd to me so I thought I would get opinions on them, and I included a side pic of the 2 as the last pic. They look as though they were tips broken off something larger, but the top part definitely looks enamelish and even protrudes some like some other dentacles I have seen.

So if anyone has more info on such a fossil that they can share please leme know. Particularly why they look as though they were tips broken off something larger, and what that larger picture might be.

Edit: By the way, the first pic makes the tip of the tooth look like it has a much more distinct twist to the right than it actually has.

[Gatorman]

Wow I have not seen that tooth before. I am jealous For your stingray dermal denticals i agree on the top three bing denticals but the lower four don't appear to be to me.

[Auspex]

That tooth will have Elasmo jammed-up for hours! What the heck is it (besides beautiful)???

[Bill]

I agree with the top three being dermal denticles but not necessarily from Stingrays. Unless the majority of ray teeth found at the location are from stingrays. The following denticles (not the white one) all come from the Blackheath Shell bed, Lower Eocene, (Ypresian), of Abbey Wood in London. The white one is from a modern Thornback Ray, Raja clavata. Lots of extant rays have denticles.

The rest of the denticles are fossils from a Guitar fish, Hypolophodon sylvestris.

These are quite plentiful at Abbey Wood along with their more plentiful teeth.

Your other four could be damaged denticles, see the larger ones below.

[Northern Sharks]

Best of luck with the tooth. I would say Carcharhinus sp. to be safe. The tooth may be from a juvenile making ID even more iffy. If I had to narrow it further, C.longimanus (Oceanic Whitetip) or C.plumbeus (Sandbar) seem like reasonable guesses, but I don't know if they are found in that particular area.

[Serack]

another pic of this tooth next to another tiny tooth I found today which is probably the tiniest I have found to date (whole at least)

[tomclark]

Sweet schtuff.

The bottom four do look like dermal plates to me. Maybe one is part of a stingray barb....

Here's some Dermals from one phosphate "hill" in Bone Valley.

[Maryland Mike]

Size isn't everything.

Man that is one beautiful tooth.

Sure looks like some kind of Galeocerdo tooth to me.

Mayumbensis?

[Serack]

Sweet schtuff.

The bottom four do look like dermal plates to me. Maybe one is part of a stingray barb....

Here's some Dermals from one phosphate "hill" in Bone Valley.

Thanks for the reply, it was pictures of dermal dentacles like that that made me think that these were dermal plates, although as I said, the left 2 look a little odd. They do have a very distinct "root" like structure that runs past the "tip" though which makes me think they can't be barbs.

Size isn't everything.

Man that is one beautiful tooth.

yah when I picked it out of the gravel I was sifting, I immediately commented to my fiancee on how it wasn't like anything I had found before and how nice it was.

Edit: accidentally said teeth instead of dermal dentacles earlier

[Northern Sharks]

I see Mike's point with this new picture, it could also be a tiny anterior Tiger shark tooth from a juvenile. The other could be a small lower tooth from a Carcharhinus or a very small Lemon shark.

[Bill]

Is the "other" tiny tooth a Mitsukurinid? ie Anomotodon sp.

[Serack]

the "Other" tooth isn't nearly as interesting to me, I have hundreds like it just bigger. Threw it in there because it was exceptionally small and whole and I found it yesterday in the same sifting.

by the way, I am not good at the names of the "sides" of the teeth, even though I know that the side that is shown in the newest picture is actually the "back" of the tooth and the other surface is the one that you would see if you were looking at the shark from the front, I still call the side in the pic the front because it looks cooler to me =P

That said, the other side, my "back of the tooth," is made of 2 planes, the root and the enamel that angle quite a bit from each other as the shadow on the penny illustrates. With that in mind, the second picture in my first post may look different to some now.

[Auspex]

I know that the side that is shown in the newest picture is actually the "back" of the tooth and the other surface is the one that you would see if you were looking at the shark from the front, I still call the side in the pic the front because it looks cooler to me =P

With that in mind, the second picture in my first post may look different to some now.

I wondered about that; I'd begin the search for specie in Carcharhinus, as Northern Sharks suggested.

[Hogtownfossil]

I've found a few like this, they most look like an eocene/oligocene tiger shark species,

Galeocerdo alabamensis,G.clarkensis or G.eaglesomi. Pretty unusual to find a shark tooth from this age in the creek, but it is possible since I find quite a few echinoids and their spines from the Ocala Limestone here.

[worthy 55]

Sweet little tooth ! I would guess tiger also as did Northern Shark .

[worthy 55]

This one came out of a creek in Gatorville also ! Look on page 9 at my post (Shark tooth) in the fossil ID threads.

Worthy

[Bill]

"by the way, I am not good at the names of the "sides" of the teeth"

Hi Serack,

The side of the tooth with a groove or hole is the Lingual side, (faces the tongue)

The other side is the Labial side, faces the lips, (labia = lips).

[Serack]

"by the way, I am not good at the names of the "sides" of the teeth"

Hi Serack,

The side of the tooth with a groove or hole is the Lingual side, (faces the tongue)

The other side is the Labial side, faces the lips, (labia = lips).

Thanks Bill, I'll proally refer to this post from now on when I am trying to remember that.

Worthy, I like the similarities between my tooth and the one in your second post.

[Hogtownfossil]

Worthy's tooth I would tend to identify as a mayumbensis symphysal(that little tiny tooth in the very front of the jaw, usually atypical of the other tooth positions) because of the large serrations, Serack's tooth seems to have finer serrations and is thinner labio-lingually and doesn't resemble the symphysals I've seen in the Miocene tiger sharks, but it does correspond to the few Eocene/Oligocene species I've seen pictures of.