Mammoth Tooth--Juvenile?

[Brandy Cole]

I was super excited to find this over the weekend because I'm pretty confident this is my first fairly complete mammoth tooth (although an earlier misidentification tonight is keeping me humble haha).  But it's a lot smaller than I expected. Juvenile? Baby? Or can an adult Columbian mammoth have teeth this small?

 

Please excuse the moss. Haven't had a chance to clean this one up yet.

 

[johnnyvaldez7.jv]

Wow. I love that...that's nice! Congrats on a superb find!!

[JohnJ]

Another awesome find, Brandy.  I think it is a partial adult tooth based on the thickness of the plates.  You only have 3 plates out of many more.

[Brandy Cole]

@JohnJ Thanks, that makes sense.  I guess I just expected an adult tooth to be wider since this one was only about three inches across.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Yup, not a rock this time, but a really good find. 

[Jared C]

Congrats!!! I’ve literally had dreams about encountering something like this

[Mahnmut]

Cool find.

I like the moss!

[SawTooth]

It's to bad it's broken, but those caverns you can see from the break are pretty cool.

[Family Fun]

Super find!

[Shellseeker]

 

16 hours ago, Brandy Cole said:

But it's a lot smaller than I expected. Juvenile? Baby? Or can an adult Columbian mammoth have teeth this small?

Congratulations....  It is always a fantastic feeling to come up with a mammoth tooth ... plus I really love the color of the enamel in your 3rd/4th photos as I am sure you do...  !!!

 

So we have adult teeth,  and some sexual dimorphism,  and then Mammoths might be considered juveniles until age 15 or 20,  and then we have baby teeth.  A friend of mine found this one .  She was very fortunate not to have an accident returning to the vehicles !!! 

The above tooth is "just born",  Here is exactly half of a tooth I would consider "baby" I spent an entire week searching for the other half.

 

 

@digit found a LARGE male tooth described in this thread...

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/54684-more-may-mammoth-mania/

 

How about some questions..

Your photos are top, side, bottom, bottom, top...  There are 2 sides.. is the other side unbroken, so we could depend on a width measurement. 

Lowers area lot smaller than uppers, but these are complete teeth,  and I believe are from a juvenile.

 

So,  if you want to estimate the age,  the easiest path is to look at the width of broken teeth...  Adults versus baby are easy... you are trying to figure the age of juveniles.   Digit can tell us how wide his male adult upper tooth ranged.

 

Every multiplated mammoth tooth is a great find... Congratulations. 

 

[GPayton]

Awesome find! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly jealous. 

But at least now I have hope that mammoth teeth can be found on the river as more than just tiny little plate shards. One of these days....

[Lorne Ledger]

Wonderful find Brandy!!!!!

 

Here is the smallest mammoth tooth I have ever found, probably an unborn infant.  Roots intact amazingly.  Florida river find.

 

[Brandy Cole]

@Shellseeker

Thank you, that answers part of the size question I was wondering about!  I'm going to look more through the thread you cited when I get home. That's an amazing example.

Here's a picture of the other side. Looks unbroken to me (or at least the widest part of the plates do).  So I would say it's about three inches from widest point to widest point.

 

It's also awesome to see all the baby teeth in this thread. I had no idea they could be so small.