July 2010 Vertebrate Find Of The Month

[JohnJ]

The fossil teeth have a strong bite in this month’s contest! With so many entries, please consider your vote carefully. Congratulations to all who submitted entries. Thank you for sharing your finds and knowledge.

The poll ends on Friday, August 6th. You can also vote in our other Poll HERE.

1. Unknown species of fossil perch – (Miocene Clarkia Lagerstatten) – ID, USA

2. Mosasaur tooth – 1.54 in. – (upper Cretaceous Ozan Formation) – TX, USA

3. Paratodus benedeni shark tooth – (Oligocene) – SC, USA

4. Carcharocles angustiden shark tooth - (Oligocene Chandler Bridge Formation) – SC, USA

5. Carcharocles megalodon – 4-15/16 in. shark tooth – (Miocene) – MD, USA

6. Somniosus microcephalus – (Miocene/Pliocene) - Antwerp, Belgium

7. Partial Mammoth (or Mastodon) tusk – (Pleistocene) – TX, USA

8. Mastodon tooth crown – (Pleistocene) – TX, USA

9. Carcharocles angustiden shark tooth 3-15/16 in. - (Oligocene Chandler Bridge Formation) – SC, USA

10. Carcharocles megalodon – 3.2 in. shark tooth – (Miocene) – FL, USA

11. Cosmopolitodus hastalis shark tooth - 5.7cm – (middle Miocene) – southern France

12. Mammoth tooth – (Pleistocene) – TX, USA

13. Platygonus vetus 2 in. lower peccary tooth – (Pleistocene) – MD, USA

[THobern]

That "Angustiden sp." should be "Carcharocles sp."

[JohnJ]

That "Angustiden sp." should be "Carcharocles sp."

Correction made...thank you. I knew something was going to 'bite' me on this post....

[FF7_Yuffie]

This was hard...all of those fossils are great

Went with the Mosasaur tooth in the end

[Rover]

The perch got my vote in the end, because it's the only one out of the lot that's pretty much a full animal. If you just stumbled across the mosasaur teeth, and didn't know much about fossils, you wouldn't know what they belonged to, but the perch is quite obviously and incontrovertibly a fish.

Now, if someone managed to find a whole mosasaur and post it for FotM, I'm sure they wouldn't just have my vote, but everyone else's, too.

That being said, I wouldn't mind having some of those shark teeth myself... Or, well, anything that's in the running this time.

[Nandomas]

It was not an easy vote. I voted for MD Megs because to find that stuff in the middle of high season on Maryland Coast is someting really unusual

Edited August 3, 2010 by Fossili Veraci

[bmorefossil]

due to rarity im going to have to give it to kevin in his meg, i know of people who have hunted the cliffs their whole lives and have never walked away with a tooth that big.

[oilshale]

1. Unknown species of fossil perch (Miocene Clarkia Lagerstatten) ID, USA

I don't think this being a perch but anyway, it's a great find!

Thomas

Edited August 5, 2010 by oilshale