Shark Teeth Id Help

[Pool Man]

Hi all,

I'm finally back from being down with the sickness(evil flu). During my time of misery I went through a bunch of my shark teeth and found a few oddballs. All these came from a creek here in North Port. I find maily Bull shark type teeth plus the usuall tiger, hemi, lemon, and very rarely mako and great whites. I believe the area is Plio-Pliestocene shelly sediments. The single tooth and the group of 5 are about 5/8" wide X 3/4" long. The Pair and group of 4 are about 3/4" wide X 1/2" long.

Thanks

Dan

[PaleoRon]

Most of your teeth are Carcharhinus species. There have been a lot of different species and even people who specialize in them often can't tell one from another due to the various species having similar teeth. On one of my trips to the Smithsonian Institution an "expert" identified one Carcharhinus tooth (that I handed him several times as an experiment) as three different species. There are some that are more easily identified than others, especially when the formation they come from is known. Even the modern types are easier to identify by their body morphology than by their dentition. I have never put the time and effort into trying to determine how to ID the various types. The single tooth is a Sphyrna, and a nice sized one too. Considering the size of the tooth, if it is from a Pleistocene deposit there is a good chance that it is Sphyrna mokarran. Nice find. I rarely find Sphyrna teeth. The farther north, and earlier, you go the more rare they become.

[Gatorman]

That is a nice Hammerhead.

[Pool Man]

Thanks Ron, I was hopeing one was going to be a hammerhead. Must be fairly rare,thats the only one I've found.